The Case against Afrocentrism

Preface

Preface The decision to write this book was made, rather subconsciously, in 1992 at the Annual Symposium in the Humanities jointly organized and hosted by the College of Humanities, the Center for African Studies , the Department of Black Studies, and the Columbian Quincentenary Committee of the Ohio State University. The theme of that symposium was “The Black Diaspora: The African Experience in the Americas.” The event—which attracted scholars from Africa, Great Britain, Canada, the West Indies, Europe, and Latin, Central and South America—was an occasion to reexamine the Diaspora in the five hundredth year of Columbus’s “discovery,” an epochal stage in the constellation of events and developments that were critical to the making of the black Diaspora. Among the delegates from Africa, Europe, North America, and the Caribbean was a euphoric undercurrent of satisfaction at what had been accomplished despite overwhelming odds and adversity. The dominant mood was one of celebration. I presented a paper titled “The Diaspora: Dialectics of Enduring Contradictions,” which interrogated what I then saw as some of the ambivalences and contradictions that have characterized the relationship of continental Africans and blacks in the Diaspora. I envisaged the conference as more than just an occasion to celebrate the Diaspora. In my judgment, it should go beyond celebrating the social, economic, political and cultural developments of blacks over these centuries and showcasing their intellectual worth and wealth, beyond interrogating the relations between Diaspora blacks and dominant groups in their respective locations. The conference should be an opportune moment for critical introspection, a time to reexamine Diaspora blacks and continental Africans in relation not only to the outside “Other” but also, more significantly, to the inner “Self.” Therefore, I decided to focus my paper not on the traditional and popular binaries—Europeans versus Africans/Blacks, exploiterexploited , and superior-subordinate— but on a completely differently and often invisible but unacknowledged binary: continental Africans versus black Americans. What kinds of contradictions and ambivalence have informed their relationship over these centuries? How have continental Africans and blacks in America, for example, dealt with, and conceptualized, each other through history? What forces, factors, and circumstances shaped the relationship? In other words, rather x preface than embrace the progressive, triumphalist, and celebratory frame of analysis and mood that seemed to dominate discourse on the subject, and was pervasive at the conference, I chose to identify and interrogate instances of tension and contradiction in the relationship. These tensions and contradictions, in my judgment, belie the dominant, prevailing, and overarching ethos of mutuality and kinship. Bad judgment ! In a conference where everyone seemed enamored to the theme of mutuality, cooperation, and highlighting of successes and triumphs, the introduction of a paper or discussion on issues of differences and contradictions was troubling and disturbing, and it unleashed a storm of angry rebuke and condemnation. Within this context, and in hindsight, my paper was counterintuitive , for it introduced negativism and pessimism into an optimistic and celebratory context. It injected themes of contradiction and conflict into discourses meant to be overwhelmingly positive and celebratory . It was like striking a match into a powder keg. The explosion was deafening. Before I could conclude my presentation, several hands went up, and for the next half hour or so, I endured repeated verbal assaults. Critics questioned my intellectual credentials and judgment for daring to suggest that the relation between Africans and blacks in Diaspora was characterized historically by anything other than harmony and consensus. A keynote speaker, then president of a historically black institution, could barely restrain herself as she launched into verbal tirades. A fellow panelist, an African from Ghana, began his presentation with a public apology to the audience. I felt isolated. Not one voice came out in my defense. Shortly after the end of the session, however, several attendees approached me to say how much they agreed with me and proceeded to share corroborating experiences from their respective institutions and countries. I was at a loss for words to articulate my disgust at these intellectual cowards. But there was this remarkable young black American woman who introduced herself as the granddaughter of one of the black American leaders who had conspired against the Jamaican and Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey in the 1920s. This was an issue I had discussed in my presentation . She proceeded to say how she desperately wanted to share her perspective but was scared by what she had just witnessed happen to me. This experience only emboldened me. To have been subjected to...