Blacology: Africa, African, Africanism
Table of Contents
Page
I.PURPOSE2
II.INTRODUCTION2
III.BLACZCHOLARZ3
A. Dr. Amos M. D. Sirleaf, PhD4
B. Dr. John Henrik Clarke PhD6
C. Dr. Gloria T. Emeagwali PhD8
D. Dr. Jedi Shemsu Jewheti PhD10
E. Dr. Molefi K. Asante PhD13
F. Runoko Rashidi15 G. Hon. Minister Chen Chimutengwende 16
IV. BLACOLOGICAL ANALYSIS18
A.This brings to mind a question23
B. The Answer Is “Yes” Without a Doubt and Why26
V.CONCLUSION27
VI. EXPLANATION OF COINED BLACOLOGICAL WORDS
AND DEFINITIONS 28
VII.BIBLIOGRAPHIES 33
“If I speak in the language of other cultures and assimilate to their ways, but have not Cultural Affirmation, I am a copy-cat or a second class citizen. If I have their theories, philosophies, and beliefs, and quote all their great men; and have studied all their sciences, so as to perpetuate their culture, but have not a sense of my own Cultural Solidarity, I am walking the path of least existence. If I throw away all my heritage, and hold up the heritage of other cultures, but have not any consciousness of my own, I gain nothing”.
By Blacologiztz:
Profesa Wulta Zamani Xrozz,Blacology Research & Development Institute Inc., Landover, Maryland, ,BLACOLOGY.COM
Blacology: Africa, African orAfricanism?
"Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be a hero."
--African Proverb
“UntilBlacPeople use their own BlacStory, colonialist will always be the victors” --Blacological Proverb
I.PURPOSE:
The purpose of this paper is to provide some elaborate on the words and labels Africa, African or Africanism,to shine a light on the search for the BlacAfrican Identity. To also give some definition as to what Africa, African or Africanism is by BlacZcholarz. There has been much speculation and rhetoric on this topic. But no one seems to know when did the people of the land called,“Africa” decided or begin to see themselves as African nor are they consistent with want is Africanism. But, when all else fails their color, complexion, how they look, or being Black is what best defines them. Why did the people of the Land of Blacks become content collectively with these labels? Also what was the name of this continent before the European and Arab intervention?
II.INTRODUCTION
I come to you not as a sociologist, not a psychologist, nor an anthropologist. As matter of fact I do not come to from any of the Eurological fields of study. I come to you today, as a Blacologizt, a Cultural ZcyNtizt from the ZcyNzz of [1]Blacology. Blacology may also consist of its own Cultural Linguistics or Ebonics. In addition, it is not restricted to the Eurological Language Arts. Blacology comes out of the BlacAfrican Language and linguistics of the BlacCulture and its BlacStory in Alkebu-lan and its BlacDiaspora. This gives Blacology its own authentic identifiable writing form. In the Eurological Culture, BlacPeople have been taught to hate everything Black and African.
The Cultural ZcyNzz of Blacology is to undo this type of self-hatred by giving importance to all that is Black and African. One may distinguish a Blacological Research by the capitalization of all words that are associated with this Cultural ZcyNzz. It is done to give honor, respect, and importance to these words and BlacPeople. This is also a way to acknowledge and identify a Blacological Research and the ZcyNzz of Blacology. (See Explanation of Definitions and Blacological words for update in spellings following the conclusion.
This research is to provide us with some information and understandings of the evolution of were Ntalextuwlly BlacZcholarz is when it comes to the identity and label of the words Africa, African, And Africanism. There have been many ideals, concepts, and opinion of the topic throughout the evolution of BlacPeople. Lets us take a look at what the BlacZcholarz has to say about this issue. These excerpts are the words of BlacZcholarz themselves taken from the articles written by each author. The Search for an African Identitywasalso part of a search which BlacZcholarz have conducted to develop a new, modern BlacAfrican Civilization with its own values and its own validity that is connected to its BlacDiaspora, just as Edward Blyden 1 century ago was seeking an African identity in a world that seemed to be collapsing before Eurological studies, so today the same process is to be seen in the utilization of the Ntalextuwl ZcyNzz of Blacology asa tool from BlacAfrican Culture which will help BlacAfrica to evolve, which is a selective process combined with revived values and institutions from autonomousTraditional BlacAfrica.
III.BLACZCHOLARZ
BlacZcholarz – those BlacAfricanz who have achieve self-education, academic, and professional careers in the studies and research of multiculturalism and Eurological Studies. Who are also interested and dedicate to the research and study of BlacAfrican Culture and the redemption of its people?
BlacZcholarz have pick up the words, Africa, African or Africanism and used them with the assumption that we should know what they mean. When The BlacZcholarz came out of captivity, enslavement, and colonialism they were as baby’scaste into an environment that was eurological and they used whatever was accessible to survive.Because the BlacZcholarz used their Ntalextuwl Genius and creativity they made something out of nothing.
At This point in our Evolution as Ntalextuwlz we find ourselves as rather acquiring ZcyNtiztz. We have neither defined the words Ntalextuwlly within nor Eurologically without. But, yet my Brathaz and Sistaz the definition of our identity can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian hoper. If we are to be or whatever are to be, it is not what someone calls us be what we answer to. If we don't define who we are Blacologically,we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our neglect of our own heritage. If we don't learn to love our Cultural Nahlej, we will perish as fools.
Blacologically, let me suggest if we are to define ourselves than BlacCulture must be Nahlej of our substance. Yes, as a BlacZcholarz and ZcyNtiztz, we must identify who we are. [2]Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. #II, Taught us that we are tied together, we are interrelated. What affects one directly, indirectly affects the other. If we do not define who we are, others will continue to say we are inferior. “[3]We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one, affects the other”.
A.[4]Amos M. D. Sirleaf, Ph.D.“African System of Thought”
The questions, who are Africans. Among those nationalists were the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Ahmah Saku Toure, Ali A. Mazrui and many others. It is this which has determined the essence of African self-identity - not a common genetic heritage but common reaction racial attitudes on the part of colonial rulers. Viewing from the above prospective of the dynamics inherent in the processes of fragmentation of concepts, ideas, phenomenon; experience, reactions, and preventive collective actions to save the African traditional culture and its black people, the question of who is African, in my belief, has never been answered. Many African nationalists, as stated in previous paragraph, have tried to give some political, philosophical, and liberated responses to who is an African. Ever since the early days of independence, African scholars and politicians have been deeply divided on the issues of African unity. A first group (the Pan-Africanist) favored political integration as a perquisite to economic integration. Its members (Cheikh Anta Diop, Modibo Keita, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure). These men advocated the immediate and total integration of the African Continent, and the setting up of a single continental government with common institutions.
Dr. Nyang of Howard University African Studies, also points out that, this interpretation of African experience has not become the dominant understanding of what Africa nationalism or Pan-Africanism means. In other worlds, according to Dr. Nyang," that African identity is generally defined negatively, and this is largely due to the fact that it is assumed to be the psychological and pyschohistorical adhesive which unites the variegated members of the colonially created community of African suffering".
This debate, of course, has created more damages for many progressive young African scholars, whom I believe that if our so-called founding fathers could not conform to the total unification of African, as we see in Europe and other countries, that the consciousness of black and who are considered African must be approached from different prospective that will give credits and compensations to the bonafide original occupants of the continent.
In addition to this, one needs to follow up with the definitions of who is an African from the continental Pan-Africanists prospective. There scholars who believe in the unity and sanity of the geographical entity called Africa. These advocates, as Dr. Nyang points out in his writing, stated "that the term African can be legitimately applied to anyone who makes African his or her home, takes part in African history, proudly labors for her political and economic development, and modestly and devotedly follow the principles of majority rule in the governmental process of Africa's societies".
Nkrumah of Ghana addressed himself to the racial question and to the African identity crisis in these words": I do not believe in racialism or tribalism. The concept African for the Africans does not mean that other races are excluded from it. No, it only means that Africans can and must govern themselves in their own countries without imperialist or foreign impositions, but that peoples of other races can remain on African soil, carry on their legitimate avocation, live on terms of peace, friendship and equality with Africans on their own soil….". (Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang, Islam, Christianity, and African Identity, VermontUnited States of America 1990. P 7.)
It is essential; therefore, to also point out that Nkrumah was not only the only founding father of African independence to have marriage out of his race causing him to be very conservative on the facial problem and African identity. For instance, Jomo Kenyatta was also married to a (British white woman), W.E. Dubois did look white and he was a strong advocate of justice for Jews. These social integration's in many ways, affected the thinking of many of our founding fathers for fear of personal embarrassment with their white families. This, I believe created diversion from the absolute definition to African and who are Africans.
In this light therefore, the development of "Black Cultural Science, (Blacology), has been one of the following major reasons, (1) that no African scholars have tried to align a "Dark Skinned Black African people as absolute symbols of the African continent, (2) and that the concepts of many African scholars of "Africa for the African" is undefined, (3) and that the concept of we are all Africans is not an acceptable fact. Therefore, the concept of Blacology is specifically geared toward the development of an interdisciplinary cultural science. This science will at least help bring out the absolute biological and genetic definitions of Africa. This definition, I believe will create some positive self-concept for the dark Skinned Black people of Africa who have been considered a historic shames, laughing stocks, and mockers in the world of racism andprejudices.
B.[5]Dr. John Henrik Clarke,“The People andthe Cultures of What Is Known As Africa”
African people have been manipulated into agreeing with everything white, from a white Jesus to white bread. "A mere handful of people utilized the word `Holocaust' and made the entire world weep for them making Black people forget that it was this same handful who participated in the African holocaust.” (the existence of Alkebulanian/African enslavement)
The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word "Africa." According to most records, old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth. The Africans were not slaves. In this period of history, what was to be later known as "Africa”. Europeans destruction of the City of Carthage knew of parts of North Africa which they called Africa. A word derived from "afri," and the name of a group of people about whom little is known. There was a time when all dark-skinned people were called Ethiopians, for the Greeks referred to Africa as, "The Land of the Burnt-Face People." If Africa, in general, is a man-made mystery, Egypt, in particular, is a bigger one. There has long been an attempt on the part of some European "scholars" to deny that Egypt was a part of Africa.
The distorters of African history also had to ignore the fact that the people of the ancient land which would later be called Egypt, never called their country by that name. It was called, TA-MERRY or KAMPT and sometimes KEMET or SAIS. The ancient Hebrews called it MIZRAIN. Later the Moslem Arabs used the same term but later discarded it. Both the Greeks and the Romans referred to the country as the "Pearl of the Nile." The Greeks gave it the simple name AEGYPTCUS. Thus the word we know as Egypt is of Greek origin.
A small group of African American and Caribbean writers, teachers and preachers, collectively developed the basis of what would be an African-consciousness movement over 100 years ago. Their concern was with Africa, in general, Egypt and Ethiopia, and what we now call the NileValley. I maintain that the African is the final authority on Africa. I want to make it clear that the Black race did not come to the United States culturally empty-handed.
The role and importance of ethnic history is in how well it teaches a people to use their own talents, take pride in their own history and love their own memories. In order to fulfill themselves completely, in all of their honorable endeavors it is important that the teacher of history of the Black race find a definition of the subject, and a frame of reference that can be understood by students who have no prior knowledge of the subject.
The following definition is paraphrased from a speech entitled. "The Negro Writer and His Relation to His Roots," by Saunders Redding, (1960):
Heritage, in essence, is how a people have used their talent to create a history that gives them memories that they can respect, and use to command the respect of other people. The ultimate purpose of history and history teaching is to use a people's talent to develop an awareness and a pride in themselves so that they can create better instruments for living together with other people. This sense of identity is the stimulation for all of a people's honest and creative efforts. A people's relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother.
I repeat:
History is a clock that people use to tell their political time of day. It is a compass that they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It also tells them where they are, and what they are. Most importantly, an understanding of history tells a people where they still must go, and what they still must be.
Early white American historians did not accord African people anywhere a respectful place in their commentaries on the history of man.Africa came into the Mediterranean world mainly through Greece, which had been under African influence; and then Africa was cut off from the melting pot by the turmoil among the Europeans and the religious conquests incident to the rise of Islam. Africa, prior to these events, had developed its history and civilization, indigenous to its people and lands. Africa came back into the general picture of history through the penetration of North Africa, West Africa and the Sudan by the Arabs. European and American slave traders next ravaged the continent. The imperialist colonizers and missionaries finally entered the scene and prevailed until the recent re-emergence of independent African nations.
Contrary to a misconception which still prevails, the Africans were familiar with literature and art for many years before their contact with the Western World. Before the breaking-up of the social structure of the West African states of Ghana, Mali and Songhay, and the internal strife and chaos that made the slave trade possible, the forefathers of the Africans who eventually became slaves in the United States lived in a society where university life was fairly common and scholars were held in reverence.
To understand fully any aspect of African American life, one must realize that the African American is not without a cultural past, although he was many generations removed from it before his achievements in American literature and art commanded any appreciable attention.Africana or Black History should be taught every day, not only in the schools, but also in the home. African History Month should be every month. We need to learn about all the African people of the world, including those who live in Asia and the islands of the Pacific.In the twenty-first century there will be over one billion African people in the world. We are tomorrow's people. But, of course, we were yesterday's people too. With an understanding of our new importance we can change the world, if first we change ourselves.