Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History

Rating:
Summary: A very flawed book......
Review: This books focus is not on the core arguments on Egypt, She Surreptitiously talks about Cleopatra not being black, which she or no "Serious" Scholar has said, from the books that I have read. This book gets 0 star, in my opinion, however I can only give it one star

Linguistically, culturally, phenotypically or religiously, the Ancient Egyptians were not related to western Asiatic peoples. Their roots were in Africa. They traced their origins (Papyrus of Henefur) to the Mountains of the Moon, which is at the source of the White Nile in Uganda. Their legends always referred to the land south of them as Ta-Meri (land of the ancestors/fathers). Also the Edfu Account which tells of a Ta-Seti[Ethiopian-Nubian Land of the Bow] King who conquered Upper Egypt with blacksmiths before Egyptian Civilization was founded.

The White Crown of Egypt and Hawk were found in Nubia, 200-300 years before Egypt was founded.

This is truly sad that her arguments were not focused on the hard facts, but trivial mistakes of older scholars. That is truly sad.

"Those who are too black are cowards, like for instance, the Egyptians and Ethiopians. But those who are excessively white are also cowards as we can see from the example of women, the complexion of courage is between the two." (?) (Aristotle, _Physiognomy, 6)

Lycinus (describing an Egyptian): 'this boy is not merely black; he has thick lips and his legs are too thin...his hair worn in a plait shows that he is not a freeman.' (Lucian, _Navigations_, paras 2-3)

Danaos (describing the Aegyptiads): 'I can see the crew with their black limbs and white tunics.' (Aeschylus, _The Suppliants_, vv. 719- 20,

I don't believe the AE's were a completely homogeneous culture all throughout their 2500 yr. long history of successive dynasties. However, in the face of all the evidence, many scholars are beginning to realize that AE was a fundamentally African civilization that encompassed the full range of physical characteristics present in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and all throughout the Nile Valley.

Don't buy this book, It is a big waste of money and truly poor scholarship.

Rating:
Summary: If you are afraid of truth this is the book for you!
Review: I would give this book a flat zero but it gets 1 star because that is the minimun.As a white student am really tired of reading such outdated material.Who really cares what race the ancients were? Only someone who might be afraid of thier own past.All races made significant contributions to society and if blacks were the first it does not bother me.Come'on lets get over it!

Rating:
Summary: An extra star on principle (or to balance detractors)
Review: In isolation, I'd give this book 3-stars: it's ok, but really all you need is the original article in the New Republic to get the point. Still, it's sad to see the comments of her detractors here - comparisons to "The Bell Curve" and barely-contained seething. It recalls the shameful 60 minutes show when she went to an African American college and was barely allowed to speak - even the supposed-to-be-neutral "moderator" showed utter hostility to her. I'm not an antrhopologist, but so far I've seen or read nothing to contradict the specific facts she has presented other than sweeping generalizations, and that includes an article in Emerge that purported to do just that. Will a real Afrocentrist anthropologist please stand up?

Rating:
Summary: Exploding the Afrocentric Myth
Review: Everyone knows Afrocentricity is a sham. Even the "professors" that teach this pap admit it's purpose is to build esteem rather than provide historically accurate information. Actually, the existence of this book, by classical scholar Mary Lefkowitz, shows how far down the path to ruin we've come. To even have to debate the ridiculous idea of Afrocentric ideology exposes the deep corruption of higher education. At least Lefkowitz delivers powerful, punishing blows to the Afrocentric scholars in this book.

The central idea of Afrocentric thought is that the Greeks, those wonderful people who contributed so much to Western thought, actually stole much of their ideas and concepts from the Egyptians. Since Egypt is in Africa, that means the Greeks took these ideas from blacks. Lefkowitz shows, in minute detail, how this is just not true. She also refutes the Afrocentric belief that Cleopatra and Socrates were black. One of the funniest parts of the book takes place during her discussion on Cleopatra. Some Afrocentric scholars actually use Shakespeare as a source! As a historian myself, I find this absolutely hysterical. Note to others: you know you're in trouble when you have to use a 16th century English playwright as a reference for historical information on 1st century AD figures. Lefkowitz goes on to show that Afrocentric scholars actually get most of their theories from a French Freemason. The origins of Afrocentric belief comes from a white European! Could it get anymore delicious? It does, actually. Lefkowitz also talks about how early Hebrews actually tried to do the same thing the Afrocentrists are doing now; that is, trying to take credit for Greek ideas and beliefs. The Greeks were so great that people have been trying to take credit for their ideas for two millenia! Jealousy knows no bounds! As for Africans developing these ideas themselves, forget about it. It has been proven that Africans never even developed a written language. It's hard to pass on a belief system without a written language. This isn't to say that Africans didn't have development. Mali and Songhey were powerful and rich kingdoms. But they just don't compare with the Greeks. There is nothing wrong with that. Why can't Afrocentric scholars be pleased with those developments that really occurred in Africa? Apparently, some of them have frail egos.

I'm really glad Mary Lefkowitz took the time to write this book. She should be commended for her bravery in standing up to this threat to academe. She'll suffer many slings and arrows for her beliefs. I'm also glad I had some Greek history and language under my belt. She delves pretty deep into Greek names and ideas. Still, this is a quick read on an important topic. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Weak!
Review: Hotep!

I read this book about three years ago, I was sixteen at the time and was just starting to enter a Afrikan - centered process. ONe in which allowed me to understand my people and know my history). I was Christian. I went to some of the best Catholic schools New York had to offer, so I knew European history. Though when it came to Afrikan history, I didn't even know who Frederick Douglass was. So I went along in my process, but I was still in denial that my people had such a great history. When I came acroos Lekowitz' book, I thought that she would probably show me that what I was learning was a big lie. BUt, as a read the first few chapters of her book, I realized that it wasn't making sense. Ms. Lefkowitz has to be a racist, and if not, then she's really close minded. Well, whatever it may be, Lefkowitz was not able to recapture me into the European mode of life; the materialistic, selfish, rat-race that Europeans call civilization. The format of the books is confusing, she sounds as if she is whining. The book does not give any concrete facts, and she dwells on the surface issues of people saying that other historical figures (Socrates etc.) are Afrikan. The depth in which she should have reached would be to make people understand why the person was NOT Afrikan and why they did not fit into the "pail of Afrikan history". Well, maybe in her next fiction she'll attempt this. Good try though! Maybe she never took anthropology in college, but EVERYTHING came out of AFRIKA. And these "historical figures" I spoke about turned to Kemit/Egypt and Nubia for guidance. They imitated Afrikan people. In Greek art, you see people of dark and light complexion interacting.. and don't tell me it's because of the traditional black and red figure painting style. It's because they DID interact with all types of people. IT's right there on the pottery.

Anyway, You will one day meet me Ms. Lefkowitz in a great debate of historians and scholars and the debate that I have with you, will crush you and everything you have ever written. :O)

Afrikan scholar in the making, Kembahli Sankofa

(For Bernal, James, ben-Jochanan, Ani, Afua, Clarke, X, Rodney, Jackson, Browder, Iweriebor, Asante, Turner, etc. etc. etc.....)

Rating:
Summary: Racist at a deep level
Review: The most disappointing aspect of this book ... has tobe the complete acceptance of race as an actually existing,trans-historical fact. Like every other white-supremist, Lefkowitzacts as if the highly racialized world which has developed sinceEUROPEAN capital-driven slavery arose in the 15th and 16th centuries,always existed. Then she simply recycles the worst garbage ... .

If you wantto understand the relationship of "Africa" to"Europe", you have to start with the FACTS. For example: 1.Africa and Europe DID NOT EXIST. Africa and Europe representpolitical and social entities, not natural geographic entities. theGreeks did not call themselves Europeans. They viewed all non-Greeksas barbarians, and they viewed the "Europeans" to the northof them as more barbaric than the peoples of "Africa" and"Asia" (lest we forget that Europe and Asia form a singleland mass, and even had a connection with Africa until the Suez Canal,so that we have one complicated land mass, not three"continents".)

2. The Greeks viewed Africa as more a partof their world, and they as a part of its world, than they did ANYother part of Europe. So why should we be surprised bycross-fertilization. Library at Alexandria, anyone??

3. Everysociety is interpenetrated by other societies, but they also developtheir own unique contributions. An even-handed history has to give"Africa" its place in "European" Antiquity, andvice versa, while allowing that each developed its own existence aswell. The failing of Afrocentrism is that sometimes it loses sight ofthe second point, while white supremists like Lefkowitz lose sight ofboth.

4. I prefer the mistakes of anti-racists/anti-whitesupremacists/anti-imperialists to white supremist/imperialists becauseone is motivated by a liberatory ethos, while the other is thehistorical justification of lynch law.

5. Having said that, Onlythe Truth is Revolutionary! We shall have to continue theintellectual labor with open eyes and a critical mind. For a critiqueof everything existing!

Rating:
Summary: Terrible! Nice work of fiction though.
Review: I hold a degree with honours in Latin and I have never read anything as perversely misleading under the thin guise of an anthropological work. It saddens me to see racists twist history to their own means as Lefkowitz has. Though I would think that if someone were as silly to state that the holocaust never occured she would be among the first to write to the contrary. To entirely discount the immense contributions that the dark continent has made to the world is incredibly foolhardy, and yet that's precisely what Lefkowitz sets out to accomplish using poorly constructed circular logic.

Rating:
Summary: Courageous Assault on True Racism
Review: Mary Lefkowitz presents a well-documented case against many of the myths now being taught in American universities under the faddish guise of multi-culturalism. The only argument against her thesis is that truth is fungible depending upon ones point of view, and unfortunately ideas grounded in fantasy cannot be refuted by verity. As she astutely points out, it is disingenuous to project current unhealthy race-based obsessions on to those who lived in ancient Greece and Egypt. She states, "we can learn from the ancients; to them culture was a far more important factor in human behavior than skin color or other 'racial characteristics.'"

While she may be preaching to the choir, her sermon is thoroughly supported. It is the wealth of details that I found to be the book's sole drawback; the extensive minutia make it a somewhat dry and slightly confusing read to the layman not well versed in Classical Greece, but she offers a wide array of sources to back all her arguments.

Ms. Lefkowitz is very brave to have undertaken such a work knowing she would be widely traduced with calumnious charges of racism. Her belief that factual evidence should support all teaching at the university level is only polemical to those fanatical diversity proponents who demand that race issues trump all other considerations--even truth itself. She wisely warns "where history-without-facts can lead us which is right back to fictive history of the kind developed to serve the Third Reich. It is not coincidental that ours is the era not just of Holocaust denial but of denial that the ancient Greeks were ancient Greeks and creators of their own intellectual heritage." Despite the slurs of her accusers, it is Mary Lefkowitz who is fighting true racism by advocating that people be credited with their own accomplishments--in short judged by the content of their character. Hopefully, this liberal attitude will once again take precedence at America's institutions of higher learning.

Rating:
Summary: Twisted Logic!
Review: I enjoy the logic of the persons who "prove" that ancient Egyptians were black by saying "you can see from the population today! Some of the are my color and I'm light skinned." Well let me see... I went to Colorado and I saw a great deal of whites and a few blacks, the same for ALbany N.Y.. Hmmm... this must prove the original native americas were white and black! I am black and am saddened these by attempts to bloster self-esteem by re-writting history. What nonsense. Great book.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth Hurts!
Review: That phrase has never been more true! What Lefkowitz has done with his book is blow down the house of cards that is Afrocentrism with one breath. If one has any doubt about the accuracy of Ms. Lefkowitz criticisms of Afrocentrism, just read the content of some of the negative reviews seen here. Some of these people write as if they were five-year-olds who were told there was no Santa Claus. Lefkowitz was so systematic, rational, and convincing, that it has left the negative reviewers little choice but to circumvent her substance. One negative reviewer in particular mentiomned how he or she was tired of Farrakhan being compared to Hitler. Let me say the only thing separating those two is power. Hitler had it, Louis doesn't (yet!). Afrocentrism is just one arm of the black racist machine that wants to give a guy like Louis power. What makes black racism so dangerous is the reluctance of the mainstream media, etc to confront it. Its time someone started. KEEP TELLING THE TRUTH MARY!