africana exam1

linking knowledge and power

" he who does not know does not do"

Black Power Movement

-ushered in a new dialog about power in society and the university -stressed the importance of self-determination, in three areas-culture, politics, and economics emphasized the need for power in achieving and maintaining it - relevant education

themes in African religion

Belief in a supreme creator or God Belief that God is both near and far Importance of ancestors Idea of collective identity and responsibility Respect for nature Concept of death and immortality

Functions of AHSA

Ground and context for scholarly encounter and exchange A organization role for other professional organizations An advocacy organization for Black interest in education in general as well as on larger social issues

African concept of knowledge

Knowledge not just for knowledge sake but for humans sake

Diaspora:

The dispersion or scattering of people with a common origin

Black experience

everything African people had done and experience

paradigm

model of an idea

Intellectual Conceptions of Afrocentricity:

-African culture is critical to understanding society and the human condition -As a methodological orientation Afrocentricity contends that most effective way of studying and understanding African people is from their own perspective -A way of approaching and interpreting data- questions the nature of some research projects

The Quartet: four books that developed the idea of afrocentricity as a theoretical idea

-Afrocentricity The theory of social change - Molefi Asante -The Afrocentric Idea- Molefi Asante -Kemet Afrocentricity and Knowledge- Molefi Asante -The Afrocentric Manifesto- Molefi Asante

Future Directions and Goals of NCBS

-Continued production of discipline literature and organizational documents -Ongoing and expand grant and research proposals for development of projects for the discipline faculty students and community -Continuing organizational professionalization and reorganization for improved performance and service -Increasing and enriching context for discourse and exchange ie: conference symposia and workshops

Afrocentric Conception of Multiculturalism- how they wanted it to be

-Mutual respect for each people and culture -Mutual respect for each peoples right and responsibility to speak their own special truth and make their own unique contribution to society and the world

Research Methods to prove Egypt as part as Africa

-Physical Anthropology -Self definition of the Egyptians who called themselves Kmtyw or Kemetiu (Black people) -Reports of Greek and Latin witnesses such as Herodotus Aristotle Lucian and others who described Egyptians

Classical African Studies

-The emergence in the 1980s of increased intellectual and academic stress on the study of African Civilizations especially Egypt

Black Studies- Response to Multiculturalism

-They argued that it attempted to dilute and divert the legitimate claims and demands of African people and maintain the dominant worldview -Viewed it as a superficial cultural diversion from more serious issues of wealth and power but instead would focus on food fashion and festival -Didn't see it as a continuation of the struggle for a quality education

karenga on multi culturalism

-This multiculturalism is a critical thought and practice which can not and should not be left to established order theorist who reduce it to activities around food fashion and festival.

AHSA Fundamental Goals 1-3

-To examine every aspect and approach to the history and culture of African people -To protect influence into every organization that relates to African and people of African descent -To challenge and question all who claim authority on African life and history

Philosophical considerations of black studies

-the critical and persistent truth and meaning in human history and social reality from an African vantage point -a depthful intellectual gasp and appreciation of the ancient, rich, varied, character of the African initiative and experience in the world and of the essential relevance of African culture as a unique and valuable way of being human in the world - a rigorous intellectual challenge and alternative to established ways of viewing social an human reality

reasons for the emergence of black studies:

1- disappointment with civil rights and an unwillingness to wait for outside assistance 2- the rise of groups such as the Black Panthers in which individuals could learn the intricacies of movement tactics and forge strong identifications with nationalist values 3- the creation of foot soldiers

What the civil rights movement seek to do:

1.) break down barriers of legal segregation in public accommodations 2.) achieve equality and justice for Black Americans 3.) organize Black Americans into a self-conscious force capable of defining, defending, and advancing their interests

transformation period

21 century where agency occurred

Decline of African society

400 years of conquest and European colonization; Africa had no capital or central government; capitalism(money); mass production of weapon

Why did enslaved Africans convert to Christianity?

Bible used to make slaves more submissive Christian God seen as more powerful than African gods Helped to cope with social and psychological affects of enslavement Helped establish sense of community Became a heritage and socially accepted Used to create social distinctions:

The African origin of Civilization myth or reality written by

Cheikh Anta Diop

3 Black Freedom Movements

Civil Rights, African Independence, Black Power

Afrocentric Vision

Critically define and develop demands that black studies root itself in African culture, and in the world view which evolves from and informs that culture

3 Central Areas of Black studies

Cultural Grounding Academic Excellence: Social responsibility:

African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA)

Emerged from a year of discussions within the black caucus of the African Studies Association (ASA) addressed the needs of black scholars and correct the bias teachings of Euro-Africa rather than Africa in the U.S. college and universities sought to correct the Eurocentric version of Historiography done for political purpose and to address the misinterpretation and manipulation of African reality in intellectual work; "the hunter should never tell the story of the lion"

oppression period

Epocs of oppression resulting Colonialism Enslavement jim Crow Defacto segregation DeJure segregation Apartheid

Locations of Crisis:

Existential Ontological Axiological Hermeneutical

FORT

Formation period opression period Recovery transformation

Association for the study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC)

Founded at southwest college in Los Angeles in 1984

National Council of Black Studies (NCBS)

Founded in 1976 W/ first chairperson Dr. Bertha Maxwell Roddy

7 core fields of Black Studies

History, Religion, Social Organization, Politic, Economic, Creative Production, Psychology

African Studies Association (ASA)

Montreal conference of 1969 where the black member of the _____ seemed to be not interested in collaborating but rather monopolization with only the voice of the colonizers

2 Classical African Civilization and 3 countries each

Nile Valley - Nubia, Kerma, Napata Western Sudanic Civilization - Ghana, Mali, Songhai

historical role of the Black church?

Political - provide leadership Education - establish schools for black Economic - establish business

discipline focuses on

Professional organizations The Afrocentric initiatives Black woman's studies Multicultural studies Classical African studies

Relevance of the discipline

The need to solve the pressing problem of the Black community society and the world.

Central elements of Afrocentric Theory:

To place African ideas at the center of any analysis that involves African culture and behavior Centeredness the groundedness of observation in behavior in ones own historical experiences A theoretical framework or methodology which stresses Africans as active subjects of history than objects or passive victims

The Basic Objectives of Black Studies:

To teach the Black Experience in it historical and current unfolding To assemble a body of knowledge which was contributive to intellectual and political emancipation. To create intellectuals who were dedicated to community service and development The cultivation, maintenance , and continuous expansion of a mutually beneficial relationship between the campus and the community To establish and refrain its position in the academy as a discipline essential to the education project of a quality education.

AHSA Fundamental Goals 3-6

To use African history to effect a world union of people To establish a new frame of reference in all matter relating to Africa meaning a critical pan Africanist perspective which stresses the inter relatedness of African people and the linkage of the intellectual with the practical To define African heritage and to put the components of this heritage together to weld instrument of liberation.

grounds of relevance

a definitive contribution to humanity's understanding itself Contributions to US society's understand of itself through the contributions of the black American. Contribution to the university's realization of its claim and challenge to teach the whole truth or something as close to it as humanly possible A contributor to the rescue and reconstruction of Black history; not arguing that western is bad but saying it doesn't work for everyone or every country A critical contribution to a new social science Contributes to the development of a society conscious Black intelligentsia and professional stratum Vital contribution to the critique, resistance, and reversal of the progressive Europeanization of human consciousness and culture

Ideology:

a set of beliefs values and assumptions held on faith alone and generally unrelated to empirical facts that acts as guidelines to or prescriptions for individuals or group behavior "was cleopatra black?"

theory

a set of inter-related suppositions that seek to explain a phenomenon

discipline:

a specific branch of knowledge

free speech movement:

a white student led protest against the rigid, arbitrary, restrictive, and unresponsive character of the university

Pan African

all of africa or all africans

brown vs board education

allowed black students to attend school with white children

black studies movement

allowed for black students to learn about themselves and their heritage

relevant education

an education that was meaningful to the students, useful to the community and reflective of the realities of society and the world

4 levels of Black Experience

biology and race; political, economic, and class; society and nationality; ideology and consciousness

WEB Dubois

born free (1868-1963) first to receive PhD from Harvard Advocate for black higher education, cultural nationalism and respect, against injustice, Pan-Africanism Organization: NAACP

Booker T Washington

born into slavery (1856-1915) work in salt mines advocate for vocational education (learn skill) 1895: Atlanta Compromise Speech advocate social separation from white majority and economic integration Tuskegee Institute Organization: National Urban League

van sertima

columbus came to america from africa stone heads in mexico

Physical Anthropology

conography melanin dosage test osteological measurements and blood group test

Define Black Studies

critical and systematic study of the thought and practice of African people in their current and past history

Define African Diaspora Studies

critical study of the African dispersion from the continent of Africa around the world

Afrocentrism

critics of afrocentric theory called it ____ making it an ideology

Dr John Henry Clark

first presof ahsa

black student union

formally the negro student association formed in 1966 at san fran state college argued for the first department of black studies

What did quest for first class citizenship include?

freedom, justice, equality, respectability

Define enslave

has cultural identity but not born a slave

Cultural Grounding

he foundation and framework for black studies

Define Afrocentricity

indispensable view of Black Studies project and start a wide range of discourse for both academic and social links and consequences

Black Studies is:

interdisciplinary and becomes a paradigm for the multi disciplinary approach to social and historical reality

Academic Excellence:

not only the amassing of data but the development of an interpretive capacity to understand and translate the African initiative and experience in the world

Afrocentric Theory

o Emphasizes location and centeredness, African agency and African frame of reference in research methodology and intellectual production as a response to the epocs of oppression that restricted agency

dejure segregation

oppression sanction by the law

Discuss the argument Cheikh Anta Diop made for African character in Egypt

physical anthrology; self-definition; eyewitness; cultural similarity; artistic evidence; geography

Eurocentric:

privileging European people and culture at the expense of the culture and lives of people of color

axiological crisis

questioning the ethics and values of american society- why is this happening?

Existential crisis

questioning their existence; meaning of life

ontological crisis

questioning their nature of being- where do we fit in?

Africana studies is born out of

resistance and struggle

defacto segregation

segregation and discrimination by society and customs

Apartheid

segregation political policy in South Africa that separate people's living and gave privilege to Europeans

Service Learning:

service projects which are engaged in social and responsibility that pursue a just society and the expanded possibilities of an equitable world.

Issue of African Diaspora Studies

should not replace African studies, should be a study of its own.

Article II Of the NCBS Constitution

stated The purpose of NCBSis to promote and strengthen academic and community programs in the area of black studies

methodology

system of methods and principles

3 factors shape Black Women Studies

tension between black and white feminist; role in civil rights and black power movement; intellectual and practical struggle

agency

the capacity to act, make history create culture an address critical human concerns in a meaningful and successful manner

four basic thrusts of the student movement:

the civil rights movement the free speech movement the anti-Vietnam war movement the black power movement

inter-disciplinary:

the combining of two or more academic fields for synthesis of information

anti-war movement:

the general student protest against the Vietnam War

foot soldiers

the newly admitted black students, who were willing to be active protagonist's on college campuses

SESH

thinkers who understood themselves in both moral and in social terms and constantly expressed a commitment to using their knowledge and skills in the service of the people.

Define Multiculturalism

thought and practice organized around respect for human diversity

Use of Afrocentricity vs. Afrocentrism

to stress is intellectual values as distinct from its detractors ideological usage to distinguish it from Euro-centrism b/c afrocentricity not built on or conceived as a denial of worth and value to others To establish it as a systematic quality of thought and practice

MAAT

truth justice and rightness

hermeneutical crisis

trying to interpret and explain the crisis

concept

unit of knowledge

Formation period

up until the 1500's until the arrival of colonial interest where traditions and values where still in tact and undisturbed

watts rebellion

ushered in the resurgence of nationalist activitism

Social responsibility:

using knowledge to improve the human condition and enhance the human prospect

factors that complicate the study of african history

vastness of subject; mostly only oral history; European conquest of Africa

Dr. Molefi Asanti

wrote the book afrocentricity The Theory of Social Change 1980 -Developer of the first phd program in African American studies in the world at Temple in 1988 -Most published scholar in the American society

1968-1969

year of dissent where bsu protested against the schools and state until the formation of the black studies department

Cheikh Anta Diop:

• Pioneered the African focus on Egypt as a classical African civilization