An Afrocentric Mess! You Try-n Fix It!

[Kimani]

Afrikan-Centered Social Theory
Kimani

"Like a crawling infant attempting to walk, all errors that are made by any person who seriously attempts to establish justice, are errors that can only be revealed through the process of the attempt. –Nelly Fuller “United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept� (1969)

During a conference several years ago on the future of African-American studies at my former undergraduate university, when some of the more zealous attendees asked a panel of professors when they were going to establish an African-centered university, one of the elders posed the question, “Whose going to attend this university? Where are all the foot soldiers?� Many students justifiably took his position not as a challenge to go work in the field, but as a sign that the elder professor had lost faith in future generations. According to the elder professor, there were hardly any students he could find to assist with his research or help forward his theory. We indeed need more foot soldiers to better ascertain how these theories will work in practice. We have many grand theories and grandiose plans, but not enough practitioners of these theories and plans. As one scholar says, “The flaws hidden in a tool show up when it is used.� So I agree with the elder professor somewhat. When I think of the circle of twenty and thirty-ish “black intellectuals� I associate with, I understand the elder professor’s dismay. Many of us lack the discipline and motivation to constructively attempt to build upon previous research by African-centered scholars. Many of those who possess the abilities have not been persuaded that it is a worthwhile endeavor. Many students (and professors alike) are convinced that African-centered studies has no viable theories that are worth exploring, or, any theories that have not been adequately posed already by European theorists.

Nevertheless, I understand the precariousness of potential students of African-centered studies who contemplate entering the field. It is difficult to be a foot-soldier in African-centered studies. It is an understatement to say that it is a daunting task to attempt to convince some professors that Marimba Ani is equally as, if not more important than, Pierre Bourdieu to students of culture. Much of the skepticism and criticisms of African-centered thought from outside the discipline arises from a misunderstanding or misreading of the materials. Critics today primarily latch on to outdated premises and the most controversial arguments without any attempt to understand where individual authors were “coming from� or the overall direction of the discipline. African-centered studies gets stuck somewhere in the sixties or seventies with little or no recognition of how its ideas have developed and progressed over time: expanding and clarifying ideas in most cases and discarding ideas in others. As W. E. B. Dubois appropriately instructed us, “Of course, no idea is perfect and forever valid. Always to be living and apposite and timely, it must be modified and adapted to changing facts.� To not acknowledge that African-centered studies has positively developed (and developed positively), is to exist in an intellectual time warp.

"To admire a work is to place oneself as apprentice to it, to employ its terms, to learn to work in a dialogue of the same kind. But emulation should never rest upon literal-minded reverence...It must arise from an understanding of the provisional and exploratory nature of all theory, and the openness with which one must approach all knowledge."
–E. P. Thompson “The Poverty of Theory� (1978)

The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how African-centered thought has progressed as a discipline to address the needs and experiences of the African community and to show how these thoughts and ideas have developed over time so that we are now at a point where we can have confidence in the validity of our positions not only experientially, but also epistemologically. This paper will discuss the African-centered enterprise as one that has gained increasing theoretical clarity through the years, making our particular social situation both more intelligible and more amenable to change. African-centered thought has indeed added something to the debate about how society works that is more relevant to the experiences of the oppressed throughout the world than European-centered theories.

It is important that we be clear about those ideas that we are ambiguous about and steadfast about those ideas that we are clear about. Therefore, this paper also serves to provide those who struggle to understand our positions intelligently, and to share them with others, with a knowledge base and language in which to do so. We find that many of our kind are not receptive to our positions merely because we are not able to articulate or explain these positions in ways that allow others to make reasonable decisions as to the validity of our claims. At times, we leave ourselves open to obvious criticisms in the ways that we present our arguments. There is no excuse today for people (except artist perhaps) to talk of vague concepts as “the White Man� or “The System� or “They� without proper qualification as we now have the knowledge, language and tools to understand and explain this phenomenon more concretely.

This paper will also demonstrate the interrelatedness of many African-centered theories. We appear to be at an impasse in African-centered studies. There are two equally as troubling trends occurring in the literature that seem to run counter to our initial goals: 1) a dividing into particular camps among certain intellectuals and their proteges within African-centered studies, and 2) the use of an increasingly complex language to explain our predicament. Every few years or so there appears to be new concepts and theories added to the debate as to what the discipline should be properly called, and new concepts and theories added to the debate as to the characteristics of our oppressors. Certainly one can sense a parallel, somewhat divisive, development among these various works. Instead of increasing our understanding of our social situation or furthering our objectives, these works seem primarily concerned with bolstering the egos of certain authors. Amos Wilson saw a need to warn us against this tendency when he stated, “Let us make sure we look at and study history in a light such that it advances our interests, not inflates our egos and blinds us to reality.� Therefore the primary concern of this essay is not to any particular African-centered theorist per se; or to engage in a debate about what the discipline should be properly called; or who started it, when and where; but the primary concern of this work is to those African-centered theories and concepts that add clarity to our situation whenever and wherever they emerged in time. The position of this paper is that most African-centered texts, if examined with an open mind, add something to the debate. It is up to us as African-centered scholars and practitioners to glean from these various positions what is useful.

Although I will allude to obvious shifts in thought, this is not an attempt to present a history of African-centered studies. It is not my intention to introduce new concepts or theories either, but to integrate the current theories and bring them back to earth so to speak. Haki Madhubuti stated correctly that “much of what is written has been written before; much of what is said has been said before. What each generation gets is a re-appearance of information in a style and context that speaks to their needs and wants, that speaks to their particular void.� New generations of African-centered scholars do not have to reinvent the wheel. We do not have to go through the same time and energy consuming enlightenment process that is so indicative of DuBois’ life course and shifting positions to ultimately arrive at a similar conclusion (If we must, we can go through it much more rapidly than in preceding generations). We now have a place to stand and proper foundation on which we can expound.

The approach of this exposition will be primarily analytical and synthetic, and not “critical.� Analytical in the sense that it will examine various works in an effort to glean from them what is useful in explaining the plight of Africans today, and setting aside what was determined to not be as useful to this particular discussion; synthetic in the sense that it will show the connectivity of ideas by various African-centered authors; and non-critical in the sense that it does not attack particular African-centered texts or authors, or attempt to rank works regarding their particular merits or faults. We have been falsely mislead–I think– into believing that if we are not critical that somehow our efforts are not legitimate, that to be non-critical is to be anti-intellectual. I would argue that incessant internal criticisms of each other will only contribute to our divisions. No doubt we must be reflexive, but it must be conducted in an environment of mutual respect and edification. We would do ourselves a great service if we look back at Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentric Idea. In struggling with the “elements of criticism� he posed the following questions, “How do we turn a theoretical perspective towards a critical method? Or should we propose a critical method at all? Is not criticism itself a fundamental category of Western education? Perhaps a more basic question for us is, What is the function served by criticism?...In an Afrocentric conception of literature and orature, the critical method would be employed to determine to what degree the writer or speaker contributed to the unity of the symbols, the elimination of chaos, the making of peace among disparate views and the creation of an opportunity for harmony and hence balance.� Much of the criticism interjected into recent African-centered texts appear to be just for criticism’s sake.

Permit me to digress a bit at this point as I fear leaving my comments about criticism here. Every argument has its flaws, its strong points and weak points. Particular authors could have discussed things they did not discuss and could have conceptualized concepts differently. In this sense, all works have “holes.� Some indeed have more holes than others, and some may be considered more reasonable depending on the perspective of the interpreter. But if we take the approach clearly taken by European-centered social science disciplines that we should be primarily about the business of criticism, we will, like European social theorists generally, get stuck in a never ending argument over minutiae. This has far more serious consequences for us than for the European as, at this juncture, we already operate, as a formal school of thought at least, with smaller numbers than they do and can hardly afford these costly distractions. At some point, we must find our common ground and move on, or simply agree to disagree. If we agree to disagree, our numbers and libraries can become as vast and unmanageable as those of many European disciplines, and our works will become more and more meaningless to the experiences of our people. We could find ourselves forever stuck in a debate over conceptual nuances, names and definitions and never moving to action, or moving to action in such a fragmented way as to become equally as irrelevant. Again, criticism is needed, but let us keep in mind that we should be primarily promoting analysis and synthesis. Asante makes much–and rightly so–of this notion of harmony in the Afrocentric discourse. We must continually strive to promote this harmony, most importantly amongst each other.

Regarding the use of complex language, I will merely state that if it is necessary to further our understanding, then someone should be engaged periodically in the art of making these theories intelligible to the average African so that we don’t replace the ivory tower with a bronze one. Some of the recent works are so full of jargon and complex terms as to become almost as indecipherable as the European texts we criticize for the same reasons (they are most certainly as uninteresting). In speaking of his encountering with reified terms in sociology, DuBois stated, “I could not lull my mind to hypnosis by regarding a phrase like ‘consciousness of kind’ as a scientific law. But turning my gaze from fruitless word-twisting and facing the facts of my own social situation and racial world, I determined to put science into sociology through a study of the conditions and problems of my own group.� We must be cognizant that our use of language clarifies, not obfuscates for the sake of giving the appearance of being intellectual.

It should be stated from the start that this examination does not discuss in-depth the extent, if any, to which various European theories have or have not influenced African-centered thought. We could spend a lifetime combing through European-centered texts attempting to add credibility to our positions. This, we have found to be unnecessary. Nonetheless, we recognize that African-centered studies has not developed in a vacuum, but we also know, at this point, that we are primarily having a conversation with ourselves. On some level, all disciplines selectively ignore those outside their particular school of thought, if for no other reason than to not become reactionary. When useful to our purposes, we will interject, and have interjected, statements by European-centered theorists, but we recognize that in the end we indeed have something fundamentally different to say about our predicament. This will become apparent as the essay develops. We are by no means obligated to engage European theorists in our writings. I will defer to Chancellor Williams on this point and then move on:

"In this work, therefore, one will find any number of observations and conclusions on questions about which we believe ourselves to be as competent as any source that might be cited in support of our views. In instances of this kind, therefore, no particular authority is cited. And just as we have, during the course of long studies, rejected the conclusions of some of the most eminent scholars in the field, we expect disagreement in turn with some of our own findings. However, the point of view that is stressed here–with which one may also disagree–is that it is a fiction of scholarship to document every important statement even though the sources cited may be less reliable than the writer seeking such support for his proposition. For if the investigator, as a result of his own studies, has arrived at a conclusion independently we think it is misleading to cite other authorities as the basis for it, or to rest its validity solely upon such citations."

Finally, as I am a social/cultural worker in practice, this work is social/cultural practice in the most literal sense. If there is one point that is quite clear from my fledgling explorations in social work and from studying various African-centered texts, it is that the African problem today is primarily a mental problem requiring in the beginning a revolution in thought. This is the context in which African-centered social theories become primary and must be studied seriously by practitioners and students of African studies. As our social situation demands of us, we who want to address the social problems of Africans throughout the diaspora, must find ways to wrestle our people from the mental control of those who would continue to exploit us. Amos Wilson creates a space for us–the “activist academics�–and necessarily provides a proper link between theory and practice when he stated,

"The most practical thing you can have is a good theory, is a good concept to guide your behavior, to be used as an instrument to measure reality, as a instrument to test reality. A good theory then organizes the world and organizes ones approach to the world and permits one to be able to evaluate the world in terms of where one wants to go and in terms of what one wants to do. To be without theory is to approach the world on an ad hoc basis, not to approach it in a systematic form, to live reactionarily, always reacting to what other people are doing, always being overwhelmed by events and overwhelmed by the future, instead of creating the events and the future."

Uhuru!

[IfasehunReincarnated]

I only got to about 1/4 of it so far and I enjoyed it. You are an excellent writer and more importantly, you've given some thought to the condition of things. I will comment further when I get a chance to read the whole article.

[Ajaguna]

I thoroughly enjoyed your paper brother Kimani! Your thoughts introduce much needed clarity to an often mystified discourse! Me da wo ase pa ara!

[Kimani]

Asante for the kind words Bruhs!