Afrocentrism

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

Afrocentrism is an intellectual movement and attitude that emphasizes the role of African people in the world's history, ideas and culture. Afrocentrism tends to be a continuum: and while moderate Afrocentrism is not often objected to, there are some very controversial historical claims made by more 'hard-line' Afrocentrists. A widely repeated example is the claim that many of the philosophical and intellectual advances made in ancient Greece are actually appropriations from Egypt, which is often taken to be a representative of a pan-African identity. Claims, for instance, that Socrates was a black, sub-Saharan African, or that Greek philosophers stole their ideas from a highly sophisticated sub-Saharan African culture, tend to get short shrift from most historians. Afrocentrism tends to play a therapeutic role: it is supposed to be used as a way of giving a sense of pride to African-Americans suffering from discrimination. Some see it as playing the role of a distraction: instead of fighting discrimination today, it gives people a 'noble myth', disrespecting them as individuals by thinking they require pseudohistorical myth rather than an honest appreciation of the facts.