Discussing Afrocentrism as a white

[Drewish]

Unlike most crazy ideas, Afrocentrism presents a re particularly difficult challenge to me. When I engage people with wacky ideas I can usually at least find a, "let's agree to disagree," outcome if need be, but with Afrocentrism, even attempting to say that I'm unconvinced has lead to accusations of my position being racially motivated. Is there any way to deal with this without coming off as a bigot, or should I just not give two shits if others think of me as a racist for insisting that history is what is actually was?

[devogue]

Unlike most crazy ideas, Afrocentrism presents a re particularly difficult challenge to me. When I engage people with wacky ideas I can usually at least find a, "let's agree to disagree," outcome if need be, but with Afrocentrism, even attempting to say that I'm unconvinced has lead to accusations of my position being racially motivated. Is there any way to deal with this without coming off as a bigot, or should I just not give two shits if others think of me as a racist for insisting that history is what is actually was?

Afrocentrism is new to me - I've checked it out on wikipedia. What is it that bothers you most about it?

If it's pseudo-historical then it should be debunked, because nobody will benefit from it, least of all black people.

[Drewish]

What bothers me the most about it is that because our public school text books are chosen by teachers rather than experts, it's starting to make its way into the educational system.

http://www.duboislc.org/EducationWatch/ ... asies.html

[devogue]

Black history is the story of incredible strength, perseverance and, yes, success, in the face of adversity. Teach that.

The wild imaginings of the Afrocentrists can lead only to further racial hostility, confusion and, ultimately, disillusionment.

Sounds about right, but I'll have to look at the whole subject more...

[Bella Fortuna]

I had an Afrocentric professor once, and even though the course was not about anything to do with such matters, he persistently brought up this pseudo-history... it was incredibly annoying, and I think dangerous in the sense of using the educational pulpit to spread unsupported claims as having an historical legitimacy they simply don't have.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I got into a serious tiff at Purdue one time by pointing out two things.

1. About 90% of slaves sold to white traffickers in Africa were sold to them by African blacks.
2. Most of the tribes who captured and sold people in Africa were followers of the Koran.

I was told by the Dean of Students to not bring that up again. I told her to suspend me right there if that was to be the punishment for doing so, because it was part of the paper I was going to turn in tomorrow for class.

[Azathoth]

Ahh this crap. It usually goes hand in hand with the melanin pseudoscience. Whatever you say about it you are going to be accused of being a white supremacist it is the stock answer to any criticism of it. Just debunk it with reasoned argument and evident the same as any other bullshit and take the criticism on the chin

[Rum]

There is a temptation to simply say that science wins and evidence rules. But imagine suggesting research into the relative intelligence (or some proxy) of various races!

You might actually arrive at an outcome (and I am not predicting what I assure you!), but it would be culturally and politically unacceptable. There really are very few areas where the principle of objective rational research using evidence based outcomes is viewed 'neutral' and holds sway in my view. There is always (pretty much) an agenda lurking in the background. Obviously race and racism is one of the more obvious and noisy ones.

[Azathoth]

It is nigh on impossible to do that kind of research objectively even if you could get the funding. Environmental factors would cloud the true result too much and it would get hung up on the age-old nature vs. nurture debate. I suppose you could take a representative sample of babies from several different races and raise them all identically but it wouldn't be the most ethical of experiments

[Drewish]

There is a temptation to simply say that science wins and evidence rules. But imagine suggesting research into the relative intelligence (or some proxy) of various races!

You might actually arrive at an outcome (and I am not predicting what I assure you!), but it would be culturally and politically unacceptable. There really are very few areas where the principle of objective rational research using evidence based outcomes is viewed 'neutral' and holds sway in my view. There is always (pretty much) an agenda lurking in the background. Obviously race and racism is one of the more obvious and noisy ones.

There would be no accurate way to determine how genes effect intelligence without a much greater understanding of the genome, which would in turn make human genetic engineering possible allowing those factors to be overcome, if they do in fact correlate with race. So basically if there is any truth to racism, we'll find it out just in time for it to not matter any more.

[Pappa]

Unlike most crazy ideas, Afrocentrism presents a re particularly difficult challenge to me. When I engage people with wacky ideas I can usually at least find a, "let's agree to disagree," outcome if need be, but with Afrocentrism, even attempting to say that I'm unconvinced has lead to accusations of my position being racially motivated. Is there any way to deal with this without coming off as a bigot, or should I just not give two shits if others think of me as a racist for insisting that history is what is actually was?

I think it's a lost cause. Arguing against the worst examples of afrocentricism will mark you down as a racist. Some of it is truly nuts. I think Michael Shermer has written about the silence in academia surrounding crazy afrocentricist lecturers being allowed to continue spouting complete nonsense.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Unlike most crazy ideas, Afrocentrism presents a re particularly difficult challenge to me. When I engage people with wacky ideas I can usually at least find a, "let's agree to disagree," outcome if need be, but with Afrocentrism, even attempting to say that I'm unconvinced has lead to accusations of my position being racially motivated. Is there any way to deal with this without coming off as a bigot, or should I just not give two shits if others think of me as a racist for insisting that history is what is actually was?

I think it's a lost cause. Arguing against the worst examples of afrocentricism will mark you down as a racist. Some of it is truly nuts. I think Michael Shermer has written about the silence in academia surrounding crazy afrocentricist lecturers being allowed to continue spouting complete nonsense.

https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merch ... e=magv02n4

[charlou]

Must find that Morgan Freeman clip baa posted a while back. Not quite sure now how relevant it is, but good stuff, nonetheless ... I guess because he articulated so well what I think whenever the subject of race/racism comes up ...

[Pappa]

Unlike most crazy ideas, Afrocentrism presents a re particularly difficult challenge to me. When I engage people with wacky ideas I can usually at least find a, "let's agree to disagree," outcome if need be, but with Afrocentrism, even attempting to say that I'm unconvinced has lead to accusations of my position being racially motivated. Is there any way to deal with this without coming off as a bigot, or should I just not give two shits if others think of me as a racist for insisting that history is what is actually was?

I think it's a lost cause. Arguing against the worst examples of afrocentricism will mark you down as a racist. Some of it is truly nuts. I think Michael Shermer has written about the silence in academia surrounding crazy afrocentricist lecturers being allowed to continue spouting complete nonsense.

https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merch ... e=magv02n4

I think Shermer also wrote about it in Why People Believe Weird Things.

[klr]

I got into a serious tiff at Purdue one time by pointing out two things.

1. About 90% of slaves sold to white traffickers in Africa were sold to them by African blacks.
2. Most of the tribes who captured and sold people in Africa were followers of the Koran.

I was told by the Dean of Students to not bring that up again. I told her to suspend me right there if that was to be the punishment for doing so, because it was part of the paper I was going to turn in tomorrow for class.

Did you, and if you did, did she? I suspect the answers are respectively "yes" and "no" ...