Talk:Afrocentrism/Archive 7

message: Sorry in my last post I did not leave a citation. Here is the citation from the late Egyptologist Frank J Yurco. Yurco is by no means a Afrocentrist:
Frank Joseph Yurco 
 Jul 10 1996, 2:00 am   show options 
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology 
From: fjyu...@midway.uchicago.edu (Frank Joseph Yurco) - Find messages by this author  
Date: 1996/07/10 
Subject: Re: The Semites 
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This topic has been the subject of much hot air and little real knowledge. 
There are no Semites. What there are, are Semitic languages, and speakers 
of those languages are Semitic speaking peoples. That would include all 
the speakers of the languages in the Semitic subfamily that forms part 
of the Afro-Asiatic language super family. Thus, all Middle Eastern peoples 
of Arabia, Iraq, and Syria can be classified as Semitic speakers, and so 
also the ancient Israelites, and any diaspora Jews who can trace back 
to antiquity. Of course, there have been converts to Judaism and Islam 
all throughout history, and those converts were not necessarily Semitic 
language speakers originally. So, the Iranians are not Semitic speakers 
and are unrealted to them, but rather are Indo-Europeans originally, and 
the North Africans, like Egyptians, Libyans and others farther west, are 
originally speakers of languages of the other sub-branch of Afroasiatic, 
the North African branch. Yes, those speakers extend down into Ethiopia 
and Somalia as well. Finally, Hamito-Semitic as a description of the 
languages or peoples of these areas is now discredited and no longer used 
academically. Partly this is due to the racial overtones that this term 
acquired in past writings. If you go back in prehistory, linguists think 
that the Afroasiatic language family originated in north Africa, either 
in the Ethiopian-Sudan region, or else around Lake Chad. The original 
speakers of these languages spread all over the Sahara during the Neolithic 
wet period, but as that wet period declined, they headed for neighboring 
river valleys, and some continued clear across the Red Sea into Arabia, 
where they settled and developed into the Semitic languages and their 
speakers. Two crossing areas from Africa to Arabia are the Somalia-Yemen 
area, and secondly, Sinai, from Egypt. Neither requires extensive navigation. 
Scholars think that the Semitic languages branched off from the North African 
sub-family around 7000 B.C. 
Sincerely, 
Frank J. Yurco 
University of Chicago 
-- 
Frank Joseph Yurco                           fjyu...@midway.uchicago.edu
::Ethiopia and Sudan are not part of North Africa, they are sub-saharan countries.
:Afro-Asiatic is the language family: it is considered to have the Berber, Egyptic (formerly known as Chamitic), Semitic (which is sometimes divided into subgroups such as Canaanite and Arabic), Chadic and Cushitic; the Omotic group is sometimes treated as part of it. On the Other hand, Africa is home to the totality of three language families (Nilotic, Khoi-San and Niger-Congo); 4 if Bantu is considered as a distinct language family. If you treat Madagascar as part of Africa, that makes a sixth language family native to the area: Austronesian. As an AFRO-ASIATIC language, the only languages to which it is closely related in Africa are spoken in the Horn, or in the strip between Sahel and the Mediterranean.
:Divine Kingship is VERY FAR from being a purely African concept: it is found in societies from Classical Mesoamerica to Medieval Far Eastern Asia passing through Egypt and Ireland.
:Finally, I hardly see how Beja would be the closest language to Egyptian when Coptic is still extant. Snapdragonfly 05:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ancient Egyptian was not Semitic with citation 

message: are Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism capitalized that way?--Urthogie 14:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  capitalization 

message: It seems to me that Afrocentrism is a concious way to homogenize an African perspective and scholarship and counterbalance the primarily European dominated institution of "Modern Research and Scholarship." Because "Modern" Scholars and Academics often unconciously reinforce the institutionalized standards and conlusions of their forefathers, perhaps the idea of Afrocentrism and the efforts made on the Wikipedia page regarding Afrocentrism should be pursued in order to reinforce new concepts and innovations that come forth from those who are in support and exposed to the "Afrocentric" idea. Ratehr than debunking the scholarship behind it, i.e. Diop, DuBois, Asante, Henrick-Clarke, Karenga, etc. the discussion perhaps better look at reinforcing the validity of the ideas, with a breif section on the historical/ political contovercies surroundign the concept.
It seems that "Race," a European originated scietific established and term, has already polarized human segments and thus has given people a reson to conflict over "what comes from where and who?" Seeing that Race Theory has established Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid, etc. perhaps research and ideas on "centrisms" should be approached from such a perspective. Now that Afrocentric has been identified, there should correspondingly be made a page for Eurocentric, Asiacentric, etc.
The article in my eyes only needs to discuss:
the social-political context of afrocentrism.
the scholars of Afrocentrism
Principles of Afrocentrism
Applications & Interpretations of Arocentrism
Aside from that, everything else is extra and needs to go into Race Theory, Racism, Egyptology, etc.
:I don't really follow your arguments here. There is already a Eurocentrism page. There is no Asiacentrism page, because there really is no such concept. Asian cultures do not on the whole obsess about "Eurocentrism", and are perfectly willing to accept that cultural and scientific modernity originated in Western europe without feeling that this somehow denigrates their own cultures or racial identity. The possible exception is India, in which the Hindutva movement is associated with an Indocentric model of history, a model that some editors on Wikipedia promote on relevant pages devoted to Indian history. But that arises from a very distinctive Hindu conception of history, which claims an "eternal" India-based civilisation. Paul B 11:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is obvious that the Eurocentrism page exists, I was enumerating examples of centered thought. The point is that as a result of history, Afrocentrism has risen and the ripple from its presence aparently means that corresponding studies based in other cultural blocks are also valid. There is certaintly a sort of "Asiacentrism" that exists in the world, especially the United States in which Asians economically and politically band together. The question that arises has to be in regard to who that scholarship is.
The main point--besides pointing out the relativity of "centrisms"-- was that the criticisms of the article are rather deconstructive of the idea and movement Afrocentrism rather than explorative of it. Apparently if there is scholarship and sources cited, it is a real world living concept. Wikipedians would have more a productive time finding applications and innovations that have arisen and cite Afrocentrism that discussing wether it should exist or not. The fact that the page is on Wikipedia confirms that it has some degree of validity in the world.Aminatam 11:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The fact is that this article is a dreadful mess, the result of edit wars for the destructive attitudes of some editors are responsible. This mess is their legacy. It needs a proper cleanup. However, I think there is a distinction between Afrocentrism and what you call the "studies based in other cultural blocks". As we know, Western academia has always - at least since the nineteenth century - had departments devoted to the study of "other areas". Modern academic studies of, say, Chinese culture and history, grew out of that. Attitudes have changed over the years, and increasingly people of Chinese descent are working in those areas, rather than Westerners who have studied the culture from the outside. This is a fairly organic and continuous growth from the 19th century on. Afrocentrism is something rather different. It emerged as a political/cultural ideology and is still strongly defined by that notion. The study of African cultures continues just as the study of other cultures has, and in the same way it has increasingly shed "Victorian" attitudes. In America it has also expanded to encompass the study of links between African-American experience and native African cultures. The same is true of Asian-American explorations of, say, the Yellow Peril and other cultural attitudes that affected East Asian peoples. This is rather different from the kinds of claims made by Afrocentrists. Again, I think the only close comparison is the promotion by US-based Hindus of "saffronization" in historical studies. Paul B 13:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Tao of Afrocentricity and Eurocentricity 

message: The following sentence reads (to me, at least) ambiguously:
:Studies show that some members of these darker-skinned ethnic groups— with the exception, of course, of the Olmecs— and "Mongoloid" East Asians are genetically closer to one another than they are to indigenous Africans.
Does the 'exception' noted here for the Olmec refer to the first part of the sentence (ie the Olmec were not dark-skinned) or the second (implying Olmec are not genetically closer to one another)? I rather suspect the former meaning is what was intended, but it would seem to need rephrasing.--cjllw | TALK 00:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An ambiguity 

message: Yeah, ok, I think massive elements of Afrocentrism are just silly (Cleopatra VII was Macedonian, not black), but should this really be tagged as a hoax? Wilybadger 02:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hoaxing? 

message: Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-African scholarship.  Postdlf 22:55, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related (?) article up for deletion 

message: Some corrections. Firstly, it's misleading to call Toynbee "respected"; he was a very controversial figure and his history of civilisations (from where the quote is taken) was heavily criticised at time of publication.
Secondly, Burgess was very much a nineteenth century figure (he fought in the American Civil War, after all). He did live until 1930, but his professional career and the main body of his work was within the nineteenth century.
In fact, the whole section "A Different Worldview" is heavily biased nonsense, but I'll leave it for someone else to sort out. 62.25.106.209 12:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A different worldview 

message: I pushed the discussion of Egypt to the bottom of the page. Why? Because it's an example of afrocentrism, albeit an important one, and the article should establish what afrocentrism is before going into such examples. 62.25.106.209 13:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restructure 

message: An anonymous editor would like to have the following link included in the external link section: http://www.endingstereotypes.org/african_history.html. The editor has a direct relationship with the website (making it a conflict of interest issue WP:COI). I find that the material on the linked webpage is not symmetrically related to the content of this article. I also find that the editor has systematically added the link to a number of articles. On these grounds alone, I suggest that it should not be included. It is also worth noting that this article already contains too many external links - some of which violate WP:EL in other ways (and should be reconsidered.) Adding another marginally related link (not a judgement of the quality of the content) does not improve this article. Feel free to discuss the matter, but do not add the link before editors have reached consensus. Thanks. Nposs 21:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 2 many links, anymore n they will be more than the text, cut down the links by using direct footnotes for relevant points, dont add an article in the link section just to support one argument, footnote it.--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 22:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: When we use terms like "MOst Mainstream" this is a POV, when we use terms like this the quality and NPOV is comprimised. To report Neutral avoid these kind of phrases which i find dismisive like speaking about a child. But most scholars call this nonesense. Also show balance, the fact that Afrocentrics see the world as black and white isnt any different to the likes of MAry, it is funny that they say this yet at every chance deny that these people were black, if it isnt an issue why do they keep showing them as European. The point is both groups racial project so if one accuses the the pot calling the kettle black. show the balance.--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 23:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Concern over language

message: An editor recently merged part of the Afrocentricity article into here, and I merged the rest (although I then deleted most of it in the cleanup).  The merged content is now a subsection of the section titled "Afrocentrism and the academy".  Please evaluate the merged content, as it is somewhat redundant to the section to which it has been added, and take the appropriate actions: cleanup, incorporate, delete, etc.  Please note, my merger of the article was done for technical reasons only (completeness of edit histories) and should not be taken as an opinion on the quality of the merged content and/or its relevance to this article -- Black Falcon 01:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many Thanks 4 the merger completion, the other article was a disgrace. now we can set a new quality standard and develop this one, away from emotion.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ 10:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent merge 

message: I removed part of a paragraph that said:
"Official census on Brazil says only 1% to 2% of Brazillians consider themselves black, although 48% of the population, close to half, has African blood. Reading official data on Brazil, one would never know that a large segment of her population is of African roots. One has to visit Brazil to observe the African presence."
This figure is untrue and it can be easily verified:
The Wikipedia article on Brazil states:
"The 2000 IBGE census found Brazil to consist of:[7]
    * 53.7% white
    * 38.5% pardo or mulatto (mixed-race)
    *   6.2% black
    *   0.5% Asian
    *   0.4% Amerindian
    *   0.7% unspecified"
If one adds up the "black" and "pardo" percentages it gives us 44.7% of people with some level of African descent, which is not really far from the truth, although it becomes more complex when one understands that "pardo can also include people of Amerindian descent. It is also notable that in Brazil, White people carry a significant amount of Amerindian mixture. I couldn't find a link to the research that states this, but this is the author's site:
http://www.gene.com.br/DrSergioPena/Curriculo/view/SergioPenaCurriculoVitae.htm
and this is the link to the official census data about race in Brazil:
http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/censo2000/populacao/cor_raca_Censo2000.pdf
I thank you for the current data. But it does not disprove my point. I was quoting 10 year old data. I did not realize the Amerindian percentage was that low. In my mind those whites who are claiming Amerindian blood most likely also have African bloodlines. The racial dynamics in Brazil was not violent like the Jim Crow South and North America. Race is more malleable and gray. Afrocentrism in spirit, tries to rewrite African history from a black/ African point of view separating the western myth, falsification, and propaganda that has been spread in the last 500 years. Afrocentrism in spirit comes mainly out of the franco/anglo(more African American and Caribbean/even franco African spheres)world. A lot of afrocentric scholars that have been quoted on this site would not have heard or know the term Afrocentrism.
You illustrate the need for Afrocentrism. You seem to be offended that I would imply a large country like Brazil, half of its population has African blood. Your objective was to remove that high a number. I am not saying that half of Brazil is black(by North American standards of race that would be true). I said near half has African blood. You say a lot of whites have Amerindian blood, but can't prove it. Your reference is not clear and anecdotal. The true test is DNA. I will accept your edit, due to the fact that i don't want to get into a debate of the racial makeup of Brazil. This section is invalid to Afrocentrism. Only 6% of Brazil considers themselves black, even though the largest flow of African slaves went to Brazil.
I have removed this from the section:
Afrocentrists say most Brazilians with African blood do not consider themselves Black even with prominent African features. Brazil has never produced a black civil rights movement that asserted its African roots. Similarly, modern day Egyptians vary in skin tone and phenotype, including the Copts, who prefer to be classed as North African Caucasoid or caucasian. According to Afrocentrist authors, the eurocentric paradigm has taken hold of the social fabric of diasporic African peoples, thereby the need for Afrocentrism to counteract the paradigm with the greatest civilization Africa has produced.
It is irrelevant to the section. Omniposcent 00:15, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed wrong information on Brazilian Census 

message: Following my reading of both this page and the Eurocentrism page, I am none the wiser as to what exactly Europe is denying? As it has already been pointed out Aristotle didn't raid the library of Alexandria, so what have we stolen and covered up? There are no facts, just accusations of theft, and even what exactly was stolen isn't stated. Everytime 19:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is being ignored? 

message: George James isn't in the list of important Afrocentrists, despite his book Stolen Legacy being very influencial on the movement and many of the myths from it finding its way throughout Afrocentrist thought, such as arguments that the greeks stole their culture from the Egyptians. That the book is laughable amongst real scholars is unimportant, because it resembles the rest of Afrocentrism in that manner; he is definitely an important influence. Titanium Dragon 23:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  George James 

message: For the sake of Wikipedia and controversial articles...
Gold Seal Campaign:
What do you think of this? The administrators of Wikipedia establish a Gold Seal campaign for certain articles. This “Gold Seal” will indicate for a given article it’s factuality and lack of vandalism. Basically it will show..
1-This page is properly cited.
2-This page has been verified.
This will be an important step for Wikipedia. It means students, high school included will be able to cite Wikipedia in their work. As of now many schools do not allow students to this. 
As for editing an article, It will still be allowed yet a person can easily revert to the Gold Sealed, verified page on Wikipedia. This will be an amazing step for Wikipedia, though difficult, it will allow readers to know for sure what they are reading is true. It will surely improve Wikipedia’s image in the public sphere. Of course someone will have to organize this, but in then it will be sufficient use of labour. 
— mattawa
:Ideas like this have been around for a while, and a techinical change in the software is in the works that would help accomplish this. I suggest you discuss this at the Village Pump.  ·:·Will Beback  ·:· 19:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Gold Seal Campaign 

message: One might want to put all criticism under General Criticism. Omniposcent 23:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think its better to write it inline; it seems to be working alright. And we aren't "afrocentric haters". We're trying to make the article NPOV. Titanium Dragon 08:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It should not be put inline. To put it inline makes the whole article appear like a forum on Afrocentrism. It has not been successful. All it has cause is edit wars. TD by far is the biggest Afrocentric Hater in this talk page. Insulting Afrocentrist, with uncivil terms like "racist", "revisionist", "pseudo-science" etc. He has not been able to prove a thing. He is certainly POV in his perspective. Raimhotep 14:41, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They aren't "uncivil", they're true and are generally accepted by the scientific community at large as such. There's a reason afrocentrist claims are not taken seriously and are not given prominance in article such as Ancient Egypt; it is because they are false. Making Wikipedia better is my primary goal, and I don't want people reading or citing this article thinking that afrocentrist claims are generally accepted. Titanium Dragon 08:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  To Afrocentric haters (AH) 

message: in the interest of making this a better article consider, spliting topics, or adding sub-chaps
Afrocentrism and the academy and History of Afrocentrism (is 2long)--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ 01:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some sections are far too long

message: Why is the tag constantly being removed? It is obvious from these discussion pages alone that the page/article is HIGHLY disputed for a variety of reasons. Both in terms of neutrality, and in terms of factual accuracy. Either the article needs a MAJOR clean-up (primarily in terms of POV), or the tag should remain... 16 July 2007
::It must be the work of some afrocentric administrator, most probably Ezeu, who removes tags from all articles where these topics are contested.
:::Right, Mariam, so he removes them because he's "Afrocentrist"? That must mean that the objection is that the article is biassed in favour of Afrocentrism. But hang on! Many people who have complained object that it is biassed against Afrocentrism. So what exactly is the issue? Paul B 14:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The "disputed" tag

message: I think the criticism sections need some serious work. There are several major flaws with it:
#Criticism of individual claims are not well integrated into the body of the article.
#Criticized ideas are introduced in the criticism section, rather than in the main body of the article.
#The "general criticism" section basically repeats the whole racist mythology thing, which is brought up in the other criticism section.
I will try and think of some way of better integrating the criticism and putting the more general criticism of Afrocentrism together. Titanium Dragon 01:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look at stuff like Holocaust Denial; I think the content of that article roughly parallels what the content of this article should look like. Titanium Dragon 00:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reorganization of criticism

message: Why isn't it just called Egyptcentrism? Other that the Egyptians, what other civilisations are mentioned in this page in the context of discoveries etc, or in any context actually!? Everytime 09:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because this article is not about Egyptcentrism. If it was, it would be titled "Egyptcentrism". --Ezeu 10:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Afrocentrism extends beyond claiming Egypt as a "black civilization". It extends into all sorts of random racism, ranging from blacks bringing pyramid-building technology and techniques to the Toltecs to many scientific achievements supposedly being stolen from various blacks/Africa and presented as other peoples' own. This article probably has a lot on Egypt because it is the easiest to source and/or simply because that section has grown out of control and no one has bothered to add other things (also, for instance, the Toltec stuff is elsewhere). Titanium Dragon 10:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is it called Afrocentrism? 

message: Some astute observations (lol) by him, again reported by Time.
-- "Russian Jewry had a particular control over the movies, and their financial partners, the Mafia, put together a financial system of destruction of black people." This was "a conspiracy, planned and plotted and programmed out of Hollywood" by "people called Greenberg and Weisberg and Trigliani . . ."
-- "Rich Jews" operating in Seville and Lisbon and Hamburg and Newport, R.I., and other cities financed the African slave trade.
-- Whites are "pathological," "dirty," "dastardly, devilish folks."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101910826-157721,00.html
Perhaps a section about Afrocentrism and antisemitism would be appropriate? Tony Martin (professor) is another Afrocentrist Jew-hater. The views of Louis Farrakhan and Nation of Islam are also documented. 
MoritzB 00:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So... first you claim afrocentrists aren't antisemetic, then you prove you are, in fact, antisemetic? I'm kind of missing your logic here. Titanium Dragon 20:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Prof. Leonard Jeffries

message: Due to sterile edit warring over the past few days (40+ edits to achieve this) the page is now protected. Regards, Christopher Parham (talk) 19:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Protected