How Afrocentrism became an excuse to teach myth instead of history.

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Product Description

Was Socrates black? How about Cleopatra? Was Greece colonized by Egypt? As absurd as these claims seem to be, they, and other "truths" are being taught today to college students across the country.

Not Out of Africa is the first book to debunk these claims made by the Afrocentric movement. Dispensing with political correctness in favor of historical accuracy, professor Mary Lefkowitz presents a fascinating and scholarly look at each of these myths, meticulously dismantling them and explaining why they have propagated despite an overwhelming lack of real evidence. At the same time, she sounds a ringing clarion call that warns us all about the social and intellectual dangers inherent in suspending academic standards to indulge a political agenda.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #469730 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780465098385
• BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Amazon.com Review
Wellesley classics professor Mary Lefkowitz takes aim at the basic claims of leading proponents of Afro-centrism, in this expansion of her New Republic article exposing flaws in the argument that black Africans were responsible for the great civilizations of Egypt and Greece that brought praise from historians and criticism from Afrocentrists. Lefkowitz argues that the Greeks' African heritage touted by Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop is based upon a single dubious source and that Egyptians never considered themselves black Africans, in fact, that they consciously disassociated themselves from blacks. She argues that the legacy of these two cultures remains so rich even foes of European civilization want to claim that legacy for themselves.

From Publishers Weekly
"I am defending academic standards," declares Wellesley College classics professor Lefkowitz, expanding on a New Republic article that brought her praise from historians and criticism from Afro-centrists. Her methodical study, moderate in tone, does not survey the full flower of Afro-centrism in American curricula but takes potent aim at some of the basic claims of leading proponents of Afro-centrism. For example, she shows that influential Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop asserted the Greeks' African heritage based on a single, highly dubious source. Similarly, she explains how claims tracing Greek religion and philosophy to Egyptian origins are based on clearly suspect Greek sources. Moreover, she shows how those Afro-centrists who say the Greeks borrowed an "Egyptian Mystery System" from Africa are actually relying on an 18th-century French novel. This book is a sobering rebuttal of those academics too spineless to challenge teachings based more on identity politics than on solid scholarship.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Lefkowitz (classics, Wellesley Coll.) here refutes the idea that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt. Those classicists who believe there are Egyptian antecedents for Greek philosophy are known as Afrocentrists, and it is Lefkowitz's intention to show that their "theories are based on false assumption and faulty reasoning, and cannot be supported by time-tested methods of inquiry." Lefkowitz claims that the Afrocentrists are perpetuating myths and that they protect their claims by labeling those who question those claims as narrow-minded or racist. The author does not challenge the need to present these ideas in classrooms and public forums, but she adamantly opposes the concept of these theories being represented as fact. As she points out: "The events of this century have shown that it is dangerous to allow propaganda to usurp historical truth." Recommended for higher-education libraries and for African American collections.?Jonathan Jeffrey, Western Kentucky Univ., Bowling Green
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

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In the fall of 1991 I was asked to write a review-article for The New Republic about Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its relation
to the Afrocentrist movement. The assignment literally changed my life. Once I began to work on the article I realized that here was
a subject that needed all the attention, and more, that I could give to it. Although I had been completely unaware of it, there was in
existence a whole literature that denied that the ancient Greeks were the inventors of democracy, philosophy, and science. There were
books in circulation that claimed that Socrates and Cleopatra were of African descent, and that Greek philosophy had actually been
stolen from Egypt. Not only were these books being read and widely distributed; some of these ideas were being taught in schools
and even in universities.

Ordinarily, if someone has a theory which involves a radical departure from what the experts have professed, he is expected to defend
his position by providing evidence in its support. But no one seemed to think it was appropriate to ask for evidence from the
instructors who claimed that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt.
-Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa

One is torn by two competing emotions in reading Not Out of Africa. On the one hand, there's the visceral thrill of watching idiotic
ideas get an old-fashioned butt-whipping. But, on the other hand, there's something poignant about the need of black scholars to claim
the accomplishments of the Greeks and Egyptians as their own. It is very nearly painful to watch the ease with which Ms Lefkowitz
disposes of the lunatic ideas that make up Afrocentrism, though she deserves great credit for taking them seriously enough to lay them
out systematically, and demonstrating that they actually do have ancient sources, before annihilating them. Still, as you near the end of
the book, the contest has been so uneven that it's natural to wonder if this bloodbath was really necessary.

However, in her conclusion, Ms Lefkowitz makes the case for why it is necessary to utterly destroy Afrocentrism, and here she is
equally persuasive. Her reasons are as follows :

(1) By claiming European civilization as a product of Africans, Afrocentrism has the perverse effect of making blacks responsible
for the culture which justified their enslavement and oppression for centuries.

(2) By focussing solely on the achievements of the Egyptians, Afrocentrism fails to consider genuinely black African cultures, like
that of Nubia.

(3) By teaching black students that white Europeans stole their culture, Afrocentrism fosters racial animosity.

(4) Afrocentrism is not only antihistorical it is also antiscientific--denying genetic, archaeological, linguistic, and other forms of
data.

(5) It wastes precious educational time; the time that students spend learning the lies of Afrocentrism is time that they are not
spending learning the truth.

And she closes with a very strong statement :

Students of the modern world may think it is a matter of indifference whether or not Aristotle stole his philosophy from Egypt. They
may believe that even if the story is not true, it can be used to serve a positive purpose. But the question, and many others like it,
should be a matter of serious concern to everyone, because if you assert that he did steal his philosophy, you are prepared to ignore or
to conceal a substantial body of historical evidence that proves the contrary. Once you start doing that, you can have no scientific or
even social-scientific discourse, nor can you have a community, or a university.

That's pretty bracing stuff, but it cuts to the quick : are we truly prepared to sacrifice our universities and our students on the altar of
political correctness, self esteem, and multicultural hogwash? One would certainly hope not, and we can only thank Ms Lefkowitz for
having the courage to take on the racially charged task of confronting these issues head on. She has done us all a great service.

GRADE : A

Not for the Timid
After having had enough caffeine to float a ship, I finished Mary Lefkowitz's "Not Out of Africa." The arguments of the book are compelling; it was the author writing like an academic that required shots for the attention span. Nevertheless, her scholarship and knowledge of ancient Egypt is obvious.

Her reason for writing the book was simple. She saw history being revised to enhance racial and cultural esteem by the introduction of fantastic and nonsensical theories that she enumerates in detail.

The revisionism taking place today follows an inductive pattern of thought. Egypt is in Africa; therefore it was a Nubian culture. Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt was obviously black because one of her parents probably conceived with a slave. "Proof" of her African heritage comes from a nineteenth century painting by a black artist depicting her as being black, and a description of her in William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" where she is described as being "tawny brown."

Professor Lefkowitz correctly counters that Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, not Egyptian, a descendent from a Macedonian conqueror who ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great. William Shakespeare's description of her had nothing to do with her skin color, and that the Bard had never left England, let alone traveled to Egypt. (How would he have known?) She refutes the theory that Cleopatra was (likely) conceived by a slave.

She presents compelling arguments against the notion that the Greeks stole the alphabet and philosophy from Egypt pointing out the obvious evidence that both cultures had contrasts on every level. It is like the other theory that Plato stole the African philosophy and ideas from the library at Alexandria and then burned it to the ground, quite a feat since the library wasn't started until Plato was long in the tooth, and then took years to complete. Besides, how do you steal ideas and thought? Even if you do, don't more ideas simply return to those who thought of them in the first place?

Some charge Lefkowitz and her supporters with racism. This is an act of desperation that is tantamount to academic extortion. It is the same as saying that if you don't support the president, you are hurting our troops. Both challenges are nonsense. The good professor is not intimidated.

Warning: the book is not an easy read for those looking for lively narrative. This is very scholarly but academic, and may give new meaning to the word dry.

Slam dunk for Lefkowitz.
The Afrocentrist argument seems to proceed as follows:

Egypt was located in Africa, hence Egyptians were negroid.

Egypt exerted an enormous influence on Greece.

Greek accomplishments were "stolen" from Egypt, i.e. from Black Africa, and many famous Greeks were in fact black Africans, including Socrates and Cleopatra.

Therefore, (white) European civilization, built on that of Greece, actually stole the heritage of black Africa and claimed it for itself.

The argument is absurd, of course, for a great number of reasons. Firstly, Egypt had far more in common culturally with its Middle Eastern neighbors (which included Jews, Arabs, Midianites, Edomites, Nabateans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Akkadians, Hittites, etc.) than with sub-Saharan Africa. Interestingly, the civilizations to the south of Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia, could also be characterized as having greater ties with the Middle East than with sub-Saharan Africa. The ancient Egyptian language, and the descended Coptic language of the Coptic Christians in Egypt, was a Hamito-Semitic language (as is Ethiopic), rather than Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congan, or Khoisan. A cursory glance at the Copts of Egypt (e.g. Bhoutros Bhoutros Ghali) will indicate that they are certainly not negroid. The art of the Egyptians depicts a people with large almond-shaped dark eyes, tan to reddish-tan skin (not black), and black hair. Some admixture with sub-Saharan Africans is undeniable, yet the Egyptian language was undeniably Hamito-Semitic and culture was Middle Eastern. And why is the race of the Egyptians so important, anyway?

The Egyptians certainly had an influence on the Greeks, as did other peoples. But to erroneously claim that the Greek religion, art, music, mathematics, science, philosophy, literature, and government all came from Egypt or from anywhere else, and with no evidence, is absurd. Egyptian mathematicians were capable of solving linear equations, for example, but not quadratic equations (as could the Babylonians), nor did they know of the binomial theorem (as did the Chinese). The Greeks, on the other hand, developed mathematics to the point of a rudimentary calculus, and were capable of measuring the radius of the Earth to within 1%. Greek philosophy or literature had no rival in its sophistication. To claim that Socrates, an ethnic Greek, or Cleopatra, also an ethnic Greek of the Hellenistic period, were black, is ridiculous.

This is not a racial thing. It is a matter of an ideology attempting to twist history and reality to conform to its theses. We saw it when Nazi Germany said that Slavs had stolen all the accomplishments of their cultures from the Germans, or that Jewish composers (like Mendelssohn) were cold and uncreative (and a lot worse things than that). Interestingly, we also saw it when Prussian racists claimed that the ancient Greeks were a largely blond people (so that they would be like the Germans), whereas Greek art (look at the amphorae) depicts a tan-skinned, dark eyed, black curly-haired people. This form of "scientific" racism is sick and dangerous, and I hope people will not be duped by it.