Toward an African Cultural Paradigm

• In Event: Afrocentricity, Generations of Theory in Practice

Abstract

In this presentation I will be investigating the Afrocentric theories presented in Asante and Dove’s brilliant work, Being Human Being. In particular, I will be discussing the notions of “being human”, the racial ladder, as well as Maaticity. In Asante and Dove’s Being Human Being, they argue the existence of a racial ladder, which I find to be a useful metaphor. African people exist at the bottom rung of this ladder while all others ascend categorically upwards. The authors introduce “the house of humanity” as an alternative to the paradigm of race, or “the house of race”. It’s a worthwhile alternative and leaves room for the identification of culture as paradigmatic centers for various ethnic groups as well as larger, transcontinental groupings of people once bound by the problematic boundaries of racial grouping (i.e., African, Asian, European).
Asante and Dove argue for the complete and utter destruction of the racial paradigm. I argue that the destruction of the racial paradigm would require the complete fall of the Western world and the development of the African world into a truly sovereign domain of power. Without such tremendous shifts in historical reality, the philosophical paradigm of humanity, being so dominated by Eurocentric universalism that any such paradigm will ultimately center Eurocentric ethos as long as the European world remains in power. While Africa may be the genetic home of humanity, the idea of a sociocultural humanity is a modern construction brought on by the events of war, colonialism, and domination that led to the shrinking of the world and the opening of borders which exposed the world to a set of Eurocentric subjectivities that purports itself to be an objective and universal humanism.

Author

• Taharka Adé, San Diego State University