Afrocentricity by Molefi Kete Asante

First published: 1980; revised and expanded 2003

Type of work: Cultural criticism

Form and Content

Afrocentricity is one response to the separation of African Americans from the core of their heritage through slavery; historical untruths; and political, educational, and economic oppression. Afrocentric studies seek to recapture, through historical and cultural awareness, a full understanding of how African Americans should view the world. In Afrocentricity, Molefi K. Asante suggests that African Americans should disencumber themselves from the Eurocentric point of view and adopt instead a way of thinking that gives primacy to the cultural achievements of Africans and African Americans.

To adopt the idea of Afrocentricity, one must first accept the proposition that there is a coherent African cultural system based on values and experiences common to the people of the African diaspora. Asante cautions that an Afrocentric people should not replace its history, culture, mythology, or language. The infusion and adoption of another culture into the African experience is in direct conflict with traditional African values. People of African descent throughout the world, Asante argues, should embrace what is theirs and discard values and ideologies acquired from other cultures. Asante claims that such acquisitions serve to cripple and dilute the rich heritage of Africans everywhere.

Afrocentricity is not a new concept but a restatement of ideas associated with a number of past leaders of the African American community. In his first chapter, Asante examines the lives and works of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Maulana Karenga.

Asante views Washington as having accommodated the white masses in order to seek educational and economic gains for African Americans. Asante, however, asserts that economic freedom must always be connected to political and cultural freedom; otherwise, freedom does not truly exist. He views Du Bois as a largely Eurocentric thinker who nevertheless had the vision to prepare future generations for Afrocentricity, and he argues that Garvey’s Back-to-Africa movement was the most perfect, consistent, and brilliant ideology of liberation in the first half of the twentieth century. Asante also asserts that King’s contribution to the development of Afrocentricity was constituted by the moral framework in which he operated and his illumination of the ethical problems that segregation manifested. Asante views Muhammad and Malcolm X as effective organizers who taught their followers to relinquish another culture’s values and to focus on obtaining their own. Lastly, Asante discusses Karenga and his system of ideology known as “Kawaida,” a system rooted in African tradition. Asante sees Karenga’s message as representing African genius.

The totality of the Afrocentric experience, Asante says, is expressed in Njia (“the way”). Afrocentricity contains an extensive chapter on Njia and advocates its practice, which involves a ritualistic ceremony that acknowledges the value of the African cultural heritage. Asante asserts that African Americans must awaken to a new consciousness manifested in psychological and political actions. Furthermore, African Americans must accept pan-Africanism and must discard “slave names” in favor of African ones.

Chapter 2 of Afrocentricity deals with language liberation, the negation of black racism; systematic nationalism; creative, recreative, and consumer intelligence; and the need to advance the theory of Afrocentricity. Asante argues that all black people must pay critical attention to what is written about Africa, Africans, African Americans, and others of African ancestry.

Chapter 3 discusses how black people should deal with literature, politics, and personalities that do not reflect the historical truths of the African diaspora. Asante also describes several levels of transformation that accompany Afrocentricity. These five levels of awareness are: skin recognition, environmental recognition, personality awareness, interest-concern, and Afrocentric awareness. Asante also identifies conceptual terms that need to be internalized with the adoption of Afrocentricity. He analyzes the Christian church and its influence as an authoritative religious force within the black community and discusses such topics as negritude and Marxism. In the final chapter, Asante discusses tactics and strategies for achieving an Afrocentric perspective.

Critical Context

In Afrocentricity, Asante provides a conceptual framework for an ideology that is designed to unshackle a population that has struggled for centuries to realize the greatness of its ancestry. Asante offers an outline to Africans throughout the diaspora explaining how they can obtain an awareness of themselves and of their heritage. In 2003, Asante revisited this framework to determine how hip-hop and other aspects of postmodern culture related to his central thesis. His intent was primarily to make his text more accessible to a new generation of readers and to rebut two decades of criticism; his argument itself remained largely unchanged.

Asante’s ideas on centricity underwent a developmental process. Through the course of visiting Africa over a period of twenty years, Asante came to the conclusion that African Americans were culturally handicapped. This realization enabled Asante to explain what happens to a people who—when they are completely severed from their land of birth and denied their ancestry, culture, language, and history—eventually become emotionally and mentally impaired. Asante explains that a people that has lost its identity lacks direction, confidence, and self-esteem. Culture, however, empowers people; it promotes identity. For African Americans and those Africans throughout the diaspora, Afrocentricity offers a systematic methodology for regaining their heritage, self-confidence, and self-esteem.

Asante does not compromise his strict views on the complete transformation one must undertake to become Afrocentric. Afrocentricity encompasses the complete shedding of any thoughts, behaviors, relationships, and cultures that are foreign to the development of the Afrocentric mind. Asante’s critics are sometimes offended by what they perceive as antiwhite indoctrination and racist attitudes being embraced by some African Americans who adopt Afrocentricity as a way of life. These critics also deplore the idea of dispensing with a Eurocentric curriculum in schools and replacing it with one that some feel is not essentially correct. Asante, however, maintains that African Americans must develop an awareness that is infused into their daily lives and that school curricula provide a vital starting point for such development.

Bibliography

Asante, Molefi Kete. “Afrocentric Curriculum.” Educational Leadership 219 (December, 1991-January, 1992): 28-31. Discussion of how an Afrocentric curriculum empowers students. Also discusses how Asante began to conceptualize Afrocentricity, why African American youths are not motivated to learn and achieve in American schools, and the importance of respect in gaining empowerment.

Asante, Molefi Kete. “The Afrocentric Idea in Education.” The Journal of Negro Education 62 (Spring, 1991): 170-180. Outlines the principles that govern the development of the Afrocentric ideas in education first mentioned by Carter G. Woodson in his book The Mis-education of the Negro (1933). Asante examines the approach and rationale for Afrocentric education in the United States. He describes public schools as failing to accommodate the needs of all African American children.

Conyers, James L., Jr., ed. Afrocentricity and the Academy: Essays on Theory and Practice. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003. Collection of essays by leading academics exploring the intersection between scholarship and activism and the role of Afrocentricity in the academy.

Edwards, Ralph. “Include the African-American Community in the Debate.” Social Policy 22 (Winter, 1992): 37-39. Argues that the plight of the African American in urban communities remained virtually unchanged during the 1980’s, because the African American voice was never taken seriously.

Kantrowitz, Barbara. “A Is for Ashanti, B Is for Black . . . and C Is for Curriculum, Which Is Starting to Change.” Newsweek 118 (September 23, 1991): 45-48. Reactionary article on the status and the impact of exclusively African American schools in the United States. The article cites critics such as William Bennett, who perceives these schools as antiwhite, commenting on the fact that many Americans see these schools as threatening Western-civilization-oriented curricula.

Mazama, Ama, ed. The Afrocentric Paradigm. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2003. Collection of essays exploring the concept of Afrocentricity as an organizing principle for various disciplines and projects. Includes four essays by Asante.

Smith, Willy DeMarcell, and Eva Wells Chunn, eds. Black Education: A Quest for Equity and Excellence. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1989. Compilation of articles portraying African American education in transition. The articles deal with the benefits of school desegregation, higher education, and the impact of federal legislation on African American education.

Willie, Charles V., Antoine M. Garibaldi, and Wornie L. Reed. The Education of African-Americans. New York: Auburn House, 1991. Extensive look at the education of African Americans since the 1940’s, from early childhood through postsecondary education. Information is given on how to develop educational strategies, evaluate current programs, and improve public policy.