Subject: Re: African values (Was: On interracial relationships, or anything)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 12:12:51 GMT

Wayne Johnson (ciacon@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: On Sat, 28 Feb 1998 11:11:50 CST, sac51900@saclink3.csus.edu (Paul
: (Kekai) Manansala) wrote:

: >You many never be able to convince some people that their worldview
: >is Eurocentric.  Their outlook has been so deeply conditioned from
: >childhood that they truly believe it is their own.  One thing that
: >really amazes me is how American society has been able to convince
: >some people of color that the folk in their old homelands are the
: >"other."

: Paul, the net effect of Afrocentrism is implicit in its name; the
: world is bigger than Europe, or Africa, and I am an American - with
: half a thousand years of experience here in this place.

: Giving Europeans some wizardlike powers of mind control is a poor way
: to present your ideas.  Whether or not you like it, any "-centrism" is
: designed from the ground up as a partisan rah-rah system, by virtue of
: the name itself.

: If you declare war, and the battleground is the mind, you need better
: weapons than the ones used by your enemy.

Wayne, your anxieties are groundless.  You seek a universal,
truth-centric, centrism.  Fair enough.  Africentrism is needed
because the Eurocentrism it challenges is provably not
truth-centric.  If you investigate the origins of Man, and
the origins of Civilization, truth-centrism coincides with
Africentrism because it is to Africa that all paths and data lead.
Now, as to purely cultural manifestations--ways of perceiving
and knowing the self, the other, and the universe--it is
quite possible that Africentrism proceeds from non-universal
precepts or values.  But it is then at least honest in not 
pretending to a spurious universality the way Eurocentrism does.  
Call it truth in advertising if you will.  Now, if you prefer
to stick with Eurocentric falsehoods, or merely Eurocentric
cultural precepts, you are welcome to do so, and Africentric
precepts would grant you that right to choose, but the existence of
Africentrism forces you to make the choice a conscious one.

: Wayne "In this Afro v Euro battle, everyone is banging on their
: shields, and I see no swords" Johnson
: ciacon@ix.netcom.com

If you do not see Eurocentric lies and deceit, then...

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery." 
	--Bob Marley (Redemption Song)
"Adopt ye not the ways of the oppressor."

	 

Contents | Previous | Next