Week8 midterm packet

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AAS 27100 Introduction to African American Studies (online)

“Surveying African American Studies” Midterm Packet Instructions

Deadline: Friday, March 6, 2020 by 11:59 PM to Blackboard

Purpose: The central purpose of this assignment is for students to collectively familiarize

themselves with the breath of terms, concepts, histories, methods, and theories that comprise

African American Studies. Through a critical and concise synthesizing of multiple works written

by multiple African American Studies scholars, students will be able to comprehensively define

and conceptualize what African American Studies is and who it serves as an academic discipline.

Additionally, this assignment will familiarize students with prominent African American Studies

scholars whose works mark the origin and continued evolution of African American Studies.

This assignment can then serve as a carefully composed reference guide of African American

Studies’ core concepts and understandings that students can utilize throughout the semester and

in future African American Studies courses.

Objective: Students will compose a series of article reviews that summarize, evaluate, and

reflect on critical works written about African American Studies as a discipline and its essential

theories/methodologies, Afrocentricity and Black Feminism. Students will read core scholarly

sources, contemporary sources, and application sources that I, the instructor, provide and then

summarize, evaluate, and reflect on each. The assignment is broken into five parts.

Tasks:

Part I: African American Studies

 Read both articles about African American Studies that are listed below:
o Karenga, Maulana. “Introduction,” Introduction to African American Studies
o Harris, Robert L. “The Intellectual and Institutional Development of Africana

Studies”

argument, and it should include your critical evaluation.

o The second paragraph should be your reflection.

Part II: Afrocentricity

 Read both articles about Afrocentricity that are listed below:
o Stewart, James. “Reaching for Higher Ground: Toward and Understanding of

Black/Africana Studies”

o Asante, Molefi. “Afrocentricity and Education,” Facing South to Africa: Toward
an Afrocentric Critical Orientation

 Write a two-paragraph review of each article using MLA format.
o List the MLA citation of each article at the beginning of each review in bold.
o The first paragraph should include a summary of the article and its main
argument, and it should include your critical evaluation.

o The second paragraph should be your reflection.

Page 2 of 3

Part III: Black Feminism/Womanism

 Read both articles about Black Feminism/Womanism on the list below:
o Aldridge, Delores. “Womanist Issues in Black Studies: Towards Integrating

Africana Womanism into Africana Studies”

o Hudson, Weems, Clenora. “Africana Womanism: An Overview”

Part IV: Contemporary Defining & Evolution of the Field

 Read both of the following articles:

o Aldridge, Delores P. “Women in the Development of Africana Studies”
o Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. “African American Studies: Legacies & Challenges:

‘What Would Black Studies Be If We’d Listened to Toni Cade?’”

Part V: Theoretical Applications

 Read both of the following articles:

o Tyree, Tia C. M. and Adrian Krishnasamy “Bringing Afrocentricity to the

Funnies: An Analysis of Afrocentricity Within Aaron McGruder’s ‘The

Boondocks’”

o Lindsay-Dennis, LaShawnda. “Black Feminist-Womanist Research Paradigms:

Toward a Culturally Relevant Research Model Focused on African American

Girls”

o The second paragraph should be your reflection.

 Proofread.

o Are there any grammar errors (run-on sentences, incomplete sentences,

misspelled words)?

o Have you incorporated all elements of the assignment instructions?

Page 3 of 3

 Submit on Friday, February 21, 2020 by 11:59 PM to Blackboard as Word document

( or x, only).

How to Summarize, Evaluate, and Reflect:

✓ Read and summarize the article.

▪ What is the thesis/

main argument?

▪ What points did the author(s) make to construct the main argument?

▪ What evidence (source material/examples/histories) is used to support/prove the

main argument?

✓ Critically evaluate the argument of the article.

▪ Was the thesis or main argument of the article clear? If so, what made it clear? If

not, how could it have been clearer?

▪ Was the evidence (source material/examples/histories) used helpful in

understanding the main argument and points in the article? How or how not?

▪ What in the article did you agree with? What was successful in relaying the

overall message? Why?

▪ What in this article did you disagree with? What was not successful in relaying

the overall message? Why?

✓ Reflect on how the argument of the article relates to ideas and content discussed in the

assigned course readings.

▪ How is the argument of the article similar or different from the argument(s) made

in the assigned course readings? What readings specifically?

▪ Does the argument of the article expand on ideas and concepts about African

American Studies, Black Feminism, Afrocentricity, and/or peoples of the African

diaspora that have been discussed in the course readings? If so, how? If not, how?

▪ How does the argument of the article enhance or transform your ideas about

African American Studies, people of African descent, and/or your ideas about

how race, gender, class, etc. shape the lived experience of Black people?

Criteria for Success (i.e., How to Get All the Points):

✓ Use the tasks listed above as a checklist for all the elements you need to include.

✓ Provide evidence, reasoning and justifications for your critique of the article. Explain in

detail why you made the statements and interpretations you made. You must work

within in the two-paragraph limit for each review, so no fluff!

✓ If you used a citation machines to generate your MLA citation, check it against the MLA

guidelines provided by Purdue Owl.

✓ Use template on Blackboard. The template includes the correct citations for each source.

It will be your responsibility to change the generic information to your identifying

information and to make sure your paragraphs have a first line indention and not a

hanging indention like your citations.

Points Possible: 250 pts

1st

Paragraph

2nd

Paragraph

Student Last Name 2

Student Name
AAS 27100
Ms. Xx
6 March 2020
“Surveying African American
Studies” Midterm Packet
Part I: African American
Studies
Harris, Robert L. “The
Intellectual and Institutional
Development of Africana
Studies.” The African
American Studies Reader,
2nd ed., edited by Nathaniel
Norment, Jr., Carolina
Academic Press, 2007,
395-400.
Karenga, Maulana.
Introduction to African
American Studies. Los
Angeles, University of
Sankore Press, 1982.
Part II: Afrocentricity
Stewart, James. “Reaching
for Higher Ground: Toward
an Understanding of Black/
Africana,” Africana Studies:
A Disciplinary Quest for
Both Theory and Method,
edited by James L. Conyers,
Jr., McFarland & Company,

1997, 108-29.
Asante, Molefi Kete.
Facing South to Africa:
Toward an Afrocentric
Critical Orientation,
Lexington Books, 2014.
ProQuest Ebook
Central, http://
ebookcentral.proquest.
com/lib/purdue/
detail.action?
docID=1776000.

Part III: Black Feminism/
Womanism
Aldridge, Delores.
“Womanist Issues in Black
Studies: Towards
Integrating Africana
Womanism into Africana
Studies,” Out of the
Revolution: The
Development of Africana
Studies, edited by Delores
Aldridge and Carlene Young,
Lexington Books, 2002,
191-201.
Hudson-Weems, Clenora.
“Africana Womanism: An
Overview,” Out of the
Revolution: The
Development of Africana
Studies, edited by Delores
Aldridge and Carlene Young,

Lexington Books, 2002,
205-217.

Part IV: Contemporary
Defining & Evolution of the
Field
Aldridge, Delores P.
“Women in the Development
of Africana Studies.”
Handbook of Black Studies,
edited by Molefi K. Asante
and Maulana Karenga, 2006,
51-66.
Guy-Sheftall, Beverly.
“African American Studies:
Legacies and Challenges:
‘What Would Black Studies
Be If We Listened to Toni
Cade?’” The Black Scholar,
vol. 35, no. 2, 2015, https://
doi.org/
10.1080/00064246.2005.11
413308. Accessed 22 Jan
2020.

Part V: Theoretical
Applications of Afrocentricity
and Black Feminism
Lindsay-Dennis,
LaShawnda. “Black
Feminist-Womanist
Research Paradigms:
Toward a Culturally Relevant

Research Model Focused on
African American Girls.”
Journal of Black Studies,
vol. 45, no. 5, 2015, https://
doi-
org.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/
10.1177/002193471558366
4. Accessed 22 Jan 2020.
Tyree, Tia C.M. and Adrian
Krishnasamy. “Bringing
Afrocentricity to the
Funnies: An Analysis of
Afrocentricity Within Aaron
McGruder’s ‘The
Boondocks’.” Journal of
Black Studies, vol. 42, no. 1,
2011, https://www.jstor.org/
stable/25780790. Accessed
22 Jan 2020.

Journal of Black Studies
2015, Vol. 46(5) 506 –520

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0021934715583664

jbs.sagepub.com

Article

Black Feminist-Womanist
Research Paradigm:
Toward a Culturally
Relevant Research Model
Focused on African
American Girls

LaShawnda Lindsay-Dennis1

Abstract
Black Feminist and Womanist theories are culturally based perspectives
that take into consideration the contextual and interactive effects of
herstory culture, race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression. These
frameworks provide a contextualized understanding of African American
girls’ experiences and perspectives. The purpose of this article is to provide
an overview of the current status of research about African American girls.
In addition, this article demonstrates the need for a theoretical perspective
that can be used to produce research that accurately examines the lives
of African American girls. Major themes of Black Feminist Thought and
Womanism will serve as a viable theoretical framework for studying this
population. Last, principles of a Black Feminist-Womanist research model
will be defined.

Keywords
African American girls, Black Feminisim, Womanism, culturally responsive
research

1Paine College, Augusta, GA, USA

Corresponding Author:
LaShawnda Lindsay-Dennis, Department of Education, Paine College, 1235 15th Street,
Candler Memorial Library 101F, Augusta, GA 30904, USA.
Email: llindsaydennis@paine.edu

583664 JBSXXX10.1177/0021934715583664Journal of Black StudiesLindsay-Dennis
research-article2015

mailto:llindsaydennis@paine.edu

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F0021934715583664&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2015-04-23

Lindsay-Dennis 507

In general, African American1 girls are an understudied group in educational
research (Lindsay-Dennis, 2010; Rozie-Battle, 2002). Most often, they
appear in the research literature as comparison groups for African American
boys and White girls. As a scholar with a vested interest in African American
girls, I have noticed a shift in this area of inquiry. In 2009, the Institute for
Women’s Policy Research released Black Girls in New York City: Untold
Strength and Resilience (Jones-DeWeever, 2009). This report was one of the
first publicly disseminated strength-focused work on African American girls.
Prior to 2009, a search of public and research databases using the terms
African American girls, Black girls, and African American female adoles-
cents mostly resulted in empirical and theoretical sources that focused on risk
behaviors (sexual behaviors, teenage pregnancy, obesity, sexual attitudes,
HIV/AIDS, and drug use). Focusing on the “problems” that African American
girls face pose to society has not furthered scholarship on the Black girlhood
or their lived experiences. Instead, deficit-focused research reinforces a one-
dimensional view of African American girls as loud, unintelligent, sexually
promiscuous, and welfare dependent (Stephens & Phillips, 2003; Townsend,
Thomas, Neilands, & Jackson, 2010).

A large portion of research about Black girlhood utilizes a positivistic per-
spective, which focuses on variables that are “measurable” and “observable.”
A positivist approach to research is based on the belief that knowledge is
gained from positive verification of observable experience as opposed to
introspection or intuition. Positivistic research focuses on prediction and con-
trol, empirical verification, and value-free research (Cohen & Crabtree,
2006). With this perspective, it is difficult for researchers to determine the
interpretive effects of metaphysical experiences. For example, positivism
does not allow investigation of the residual effects of multigenerational
trauma through continued oppression (Leary, 2005). Ignoring this aspect of
Black girlhood fails to situate girls’ experiences and their perspectives within
the appropriate cultural context. This limitation contributes to a pathological
view of African American girls’ behaviors in which they are viewed out of
context. Therefore, perspectives that consider the “immeasurable” aspect of
Black girlhood is greatly needed (Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010).

In addition, positivistic research stresses the importance of an objective
and dispassionate stance in the research process. Within this framework, a
realist ontological stance, which assumes that there are real-world objects
apart from the human knower, is used to conduct an investigation (Cohen &
Crabtree, 2006). A dispassionate researcher allegedly suspends personal bias,
feelings, and thoughts about a topic and/or participants. Possessing a dispas-
sionate view of research is believed to increase validity and credibility of
one’s study. However, possessing an objective and dispassionate stance does

508 Journal of Black Studies 46(5)

not ensure that one’s research is credible and valid. Personal bias influences
what is studied, who is studied, how it is studied, how the data are interpreted,
and what conclusions are drawn (V. G. Thomas & Miles, 1995). Research
that has consistently portrayed African American girls as “the problem” is a
direct result of and will continue to produce one-dimensional views of
African American girls’ developmental trajectory.

The Need for a Culturally Relevant Research
Model

Since 2009, there has been steady increase in information about African
American girls in research and public spheres. This “sudden” interest in Black
girls is best documented by recent reports. These reports include Black Girls
Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected (Crenshaw, Ocen, &
Nanda, 2015); Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to
Action for Educational Equity (Smith-Evans & George, 2014); The State of
Girls: Unfinished Business Black/African American Girls (Girl Scouts, 2013);
Race, Gender, and the “School to Prison Pipeline”: Expanding Our Discussion
to Include Black Girls (M. W. Morris, 2012); Black Girls in Franklin County,
Ohio: Progress, Power and Possibility (Reno, Stanley, Staats, Baek, & Jemczura,
2011); and Placing Black Girls at Promise: Report of the Rise Sister Rise Study
(Frazier, Belliston, Brower, & Knudsen, 2011). These reports documented the
multifaceted, complex, and unique experiences of African American girls.

Other Black female scholars have made tremendous strides to widen the
scope of educational and psychological research about African American
girls (Belgrave, 2009; Brown, 2009; Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010;
Lindsay-Dennis & Cummings, 2014; Love, 2012; A. Thomas, Speight,
Turner-Essel, & Barrie, 2012; Townsend, 2008; Townsend et al., 2010; Winn,
2010). However, culturally relevant theories and research methodology to
study African American girls have lagged behind the research in this area.
Evans-Winters and Esposito (2010) state,

Girls of African descent are at the bottom of the social totem pole in society;
thus, there is an urgent need for a theoretical framework that serves to expose,
confront and eradicate race, class and gender oppression in our families,
communities and schools. (p. 22)

Limitations of Developmental Theories

Given the influx of interest in this area, there is a demonstrated need to utilize
culturally relevant research paradigms that do not rely solely on positivism

Lindsay-Dennis 509

and normative developmental theories (Wong & Rowley, 2001). Many devel-
opmental theories are based on middle-class, White male norms. This does
not suggest that challenges associated with membership in devalued racial/
ethnic, gender, and economic groups directly cause any particular develop-
mental outcome. However, problems arise when deviations from White, male
normative behavior is perceived as negative and interpreted as evidence of
maladjustment. For example, identity development theory proposes identity
formation is achieved once a youth develops a sense of self that is indepen-
dent of family relationships. For girls and ethnic minorities, a sense of self is
developed in relation to one’s family. Applying traditional identity theory to
African American girls would suggest that they are not meeting developmen-
tal trends (Townsend, 2008). In contrast, consideration of culture would help
one to understand Black female identity development. Therefore, examining
African American girls’ experiences within a cultural context can better
inform this domain of research.

Black Feminism and Womanism: A Dual Cultural Lens

Furthering the scholarship on African American girls requires scholars to
integrate existing theories and/or develop theories that provide an appropriate
lens to accurately identify, name, interpret, and write about this group’s expe-
rience (Few, Stephens, & Rouse-Arnett, 2003). Black Feminist Thought and
Womanism are culturally based perspectives that take into consideration the
contextual and interactive effects of herstory, culture, race, class, gender, and
other forms of oppression (V. G. Thomas, 2004). These frameworks encour-
age incorporation of African American girls’ social location in the research
process. Collectively, Black Feminist Thought and Womanism situates
African American girls’ development, attitudes, and behaviors in a cultural
context. Although Black Feminist Thought and Womanism are different theo-
retical frameworks (refer to Table 1), both theories allow for examination of
the Black female psyche and social experiences, providing a means to con-
textualize Black girlhood.

Black Feminist Thought centers on African American girls’ experiences
and empowers them with the right to interpret their reality and define their
experiences (Taylor, 1998). The guiding premise of this perspective is that
“academic knowledge” and “everyday experiences” should guide research-
ers’ theorizing about African American girls. In addition, Black feminism
situates “academic knowledge” and “everyday experiences” within the con-
text of racial, gender, and class oppression. These intersecting oppressive
forces shape the collective and individual worldviews, behaviors, and out-
comes of African American girls. There are four principles of Black Feminist

510 Journal of Black Studies 46(5)

Thought: (a) concrete experience as a criterion of meaning, (b) use of dia-
logue in assessing knowledge claims, (c) an ethic of caring, and (d) an ethic
of responsibility. Each domain lends meaning to the lived experiences of
Black girls.

Adding Womanism into this discussion further contextualizes research
about Black girlhood. Many scholars view Womanism as another term for,
extension of, or a form of Black feminism (Banks-Wallace, 2000; Collins,
2000). However, Phillips and McCaskill (2006) define Womanism as a sepa-
rate concept with its own goals, characteristics, and methods that are not
equivalent to Black feminism. The central principle of Womanism is the
absolute necessity of speaking from and about one’s own experiential loca-
tion (Phillips & McCaskill, 2006). Womanism is a social change methodol-
ogy that stems from everyday experiences of Black women and their modes
of solving practical problems. The goals of Womanism include using

Table 1. Overview of Black Feminist Thought and Womanism.

Black feminist thought
(Collins, 2000)

Womanism
(Phillips, 2006)

Purpose Empowerment self-definition Social change
Activism
Ending all forms of oppression
Guiding

premise
African American women

share the common
experience of being Black
in a society that denigrates
women of African descent

Black womanhood serves
as the origin point for a
speaking position that freely
and autonomously addresses
any topic or problem

Characteristics Lived experience as a criterion
of meaning

Use of dialogue in assessing
knowledge claims

Ethic of caring
Ethic of personal accountability

Anti-oppressionist
Vernacular
Non-ideological
Communitarian
Spiritualized

Values Everyday intellectuals
Lived experiences
Within group diversity
Outsider within status
Communal mothering

Everyday experiences and
problem solving

Dialogue
Cultural harmony
Self-help and mutual aid
Arbitration and mediation
Spirituality
Motherhood
Healing

Lindsay-Dennis 511

everyday people to solve problems, ending all forms of oppression for all
people, restoring the balance between people and nature, and reconnecting
humans with the spirit realm.

Womanism encourages researchers to examine intergenerational survival
strategies used to achieve and maintain balance among people, nature, and the
spiritual world. These survival strategies include mothering, dialoguing, using
mutual aid/self-help, and spirituality as a means for solving problems. Black
girls learn these strategies through socialization. Socialization constitutes the
indirect and direct messages transmitted from one generation to the next that
contribute to identity formation. Mothers, grandmothers, and other mothers
teach/show Black girls how to use these strategies to navigate through multi-
ple spaces. Womanism stresses the importance of viewing intergenerational
strategies of survival as an intuitive and measurable process.

Collectively, Black feminism and Womanism acknowledge that African
American girls inherit an unearned legacy of race, gender, and class oppres-
sion as descendants of the only group of women that were enslaved and
brought to the United States to work, to produce, and to reproduce (Collins,
2000; Shorter-Gooden & Washington, 1996). Black feminism and Womanism
recognize that many African American girls thrive in a unique racial and gen-
dered context, which shapes their worldviews, emotional and behavioral
responses. The experiences of Black girls are clearly intersectional and can-
not be adequately explained with an isolated emphasis on either race or gen-
der. Black feminism and Womanism provide a dual lens for researchers to
authentically investigate the nuances of Black girlhood. Also, Black femi-
nism and Womanism provide a means for examining African American girls
through a strength-oriented perspective by placing them at the center of anal-
ysis. This dual lens forces one to examine the intersection of race, gender,
class, sexuality, and socially defined markers of identity that impact Black
girls’ lives.

Black Feminist-Womanist (BFW) Research:
Defined

BFW research is a culturally congruent model to guide studies about African
American girls. This research paradigm allows for consideration of intersec-
tionality and metaphysical aspects of African American girls’ cultural perspec-
tives, and demonstrates a commitment to social change and community
building. This paradigm invites researchers to view their research on a con-
tinuum rather than isolated acts of data collection. More specifically, this pro-
cess includes examining young African American girls’ decisions and actions
as outputs related to their worldviews and experiences. BFW researchers

512 Journal of Black Studies 46(5)

understand that African American girls do not develop in a vacuum. The BFW
research paradigm acknowledges that only within the context of the commu-
nity does the individual appear and, through dialogue, continues to emerge
(Dillard, 2000). As a result, the researcher recognizes that intergenerational
transmission of worldviews, behaviors, and coping mechanisms affects Black
girls’ development (Banks-Wallace, 2000; Collins, 2000; Phillips, 2006).

Unlike positivistic, dispassionate research modalities, BFW research
encourages active engagement and passion to guide the research process.
Therefore, one’s cultural lens and experiences is not bracketed for the sake of
validity and credibility. A researcher’s multiple identities (cultural, race, eth-
nicity, gender, sexual, religion, and spiritual) shape her or his interest in,
engagement with, and responsibility to African American girls (Dillard,
2000). A passionate, engaged approach to research forces the individual to
explore the meaning of one’s lived experience and research training. This
reflection process helps the researcher to determine whether those experi-
ences infer with the study of Black girlhood.

A BFW researcher has a deep sense of personal and professional responsi-
bility to the Black girlhood scholarship. For many African American women,
research about African American girls is both an intellectual and spiritual
pursuit of purpose, whereby one’s own lived experiences emerge (Dillard,
2000) and serve as an impetus for social and personal change. For many
African American female scholars, the connection between their intellectual
pursuits and spiritual awareness is a metaphysical reality that must be
acknowledged (Heath, 2006; Phillips, 2006). Allowing these experiences to
come forth in research process honors the phenomenological experience of
researcher and the population under investigation. Often, this research is an
extension of them. Therefore, honoring and validating the whole self in the
research process creates a space for self-definition, healing, and wholeness.

Researcher Role as Bricoleur

A BFW researcher may often experience difficulty when trying to construct a
literature view about African American girls using available sources within
one’s academic discipline. For example, a recent search about “African
American girls’ experiences in school” yielded about 30 sources; only about
15 to 20 articles have been published within the last 10 years. Constructing a
literature review with these limited sources will undoubtedly provide an
underdeveloped synopsis about Black girls’ experiences in schools. BFW
research proposes that gathering all relevant information will help to uncover
intricacies of African American girls’ lives. Therefore, using multiple sources
of information provides a means to examine a variety of issues and causes of

Lindsay-Dennis 513

Black girls’ behavior (Stephens, Phillips, & Few, 2009). Therefore, it is
imperative for the BFW researcher to read widely to gain a comprehensive
understanding of the developmental trends and cultural strengths that African
American girls employ in their everyday lives. This process includes explor-
ing literature outside of one’s immediate discipline (Evans-Winters &
Esposito, 2010).

The ability to conceptualize one’s research agenda using information
from multiple disciplines is a vital aspect of BFW research. This “Jill of all
trades” scholarship embraces flexibility and plurality by amalgamating
multiple disciplines, multiple methodologies, and varying theoretical per-
spectives. The “Jill of all trades” metaphor is drawn from the French word
bricoleur, which describes a handywoman who makes use of the tools
available to complete a task (Kincheloe, 2001). Bricoleurs view the research
process as involving far more than one “correct” procedure and source of
information. Within the African American context, a bricoleur is parallel to
a quilt maker, Black woman, who stitches scraps of fabric to create a quilt
that often depicts her family heritage. Similarly, the researcher stitches
theoretical scraps, and methodologies to create comprehensive “quilt” cap-
tures the essence of African American girls’ worldview, behaviors, and psy-
chosocial outcomes (Banks-Wallace, 2000; Kincheloe, 2001; Sheared,
1994).

Not only does the BFW scholar approach research using wide lens, but she
also recognizes the ethic of risk that permeates educational and social science
literature (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2002). This does not translate into ignoring
the risks that African American girls face; however, it does require that girls
are always the focal point of the research (Collins, 2000). Centering the
research on Black girls moves them from the margins to the heart of the
inquiry. Based on the BFW perspective, the researcher understands that per-
sonal bias influences decisions about research questions, data collection, and
data analysis procedures. Instead of ignoring these nuances, acknowledgment
of how personal assumptions about Black girlhood impact the investigation
is critical. Although it is not necessary for one to suspend personal beliefs and
experiences, it is necessary to monitor personal biases and assumptions. One
strategy that a researcher can use to monitor bias is to keep extensive field
notes and journal about the entire process. This information can also be used
to record beliefs and judgments. Awareness of bias can lessen the likelihood
of inaccurately interpreting the data, silencing the participants, and ignoring
the diverse experiences and perceptions of participants (Few et al., 2003).
Thus, the researcher relies on personal responsibility and self-awareness to
ensure that studies conducted about/on African American girls is rigorous,
authentic, and accurate (Collins, 2000).

514 Journal of Black Studies 46(5)

The BFW perspective stresses the understanding of how intersecting iden-
tities and personal differences may enhance and impede a researcher’s ability
to gain access to Black girls. Therefore, a researcher should not assume one’s
race/ethnicity and gender will result in immediate access, trust, and insider
status. Differences in experience, age, geographical location, job status, edu-
cation, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and many other factors may relegate
a researcher to an outsider status. To be awarded insider status, the researcher
must demonstrate a level of high commitment, ethic of caring, and personal
accountability to the girls and their parents.

Employing culturally congruent research methods to ensure that Black
girlhood is at the center of the analysis is another component of BFW
research. Placing Black girls at the center of analysis requires the use of inno-
vative research methods (Few et al., 2003). One of the goals of BFW research
is to provide a space for self-definition for marginalized individuals; there-
fore, the sole usage of quantitative methods is often ineffective. Providing
opportunities for African American girls to share their experiences is an
important aspect of the self-definition process (Banks-Wallace, 2000).
Research designs that facilitate dialogue, accompanied by reflection of ideas/
theories generated throughout this process, may enhance participants’ ability
to speak for themselves, name their own experiences, and make decisions
about their lives. Dialoging and sharing stories in the research context can
provide opportunities for healing because it may allow some African
American girls to share experiences, knowledge, and/or exchange wisdom
that is often devalued in other settings (Lindsay-Dennis, Cummings, &
McClendon, 2011). Providing this opportunity for Black girls transmits an
important message communicating to them that they are capable generators,
interpreters, and validators of knowledge and their lived experiences (Phillips
& McCaskill, 2006).

Quantitative measures can also silence African American girls by forcing
them to rate themselves and their lived experiences on scales that are cultur-
ally incongruent. Many educational and psychosocial assessments, survey,
and measures lack cultural validity for African American female participants
(Tillman, 2002). Examining the cultural validity of research tools is an impor-
tant aspect of advancing the scholarship on Black girlhood. Although quanti-
tative methods have limitations, there are many advantages to this approach.
Quantitative methods used in conjunction with qualitative research methods
(i.e., focus groups, interviewing, and participant observation) can enrich the
data. Quantitative methods utilized to expound upon reoccurring themes that
emerge from several qualitative studies can further our understanding of
African American girls’ development. Adding voices behind the numbers can
be a powerful way to enact social change and community building.

Lindsay-Dennis 515

The BFW scholar does not assume that conducting qualitative research
with African American girls is a simple task. In fact, individuals that con-
duct research with this population must be prepared to engage in participa-
tory witnessing. Participatory witnessing includes active engagement of the
self in the research, which includes being physically present and actively
involved in all aspects of steps of research plan (Taylor, 1998). Participatory
witnessing may also involve sharing one’s lived experiences, paper (i.e.,
academic) credentials, and professional obligations with research partici-
pants (Banks-Wallace, 2000). The researcher can demonstrate an ethic of
personal responsibility by establishing credibility at the beginning of the
research project. For example, researchers would need to show a vested
interest in learning from the participants. The BFW investigator must also
recognize that historical experiences of racism and unethical research have
contributed to intergenerational mistrust of research. Therefore, demon-
strating a commitment to the community that extends beyond data collec-
tion is essential. Collaborating with participants to analyze the data will not
only increase content validity but also demonstrate an ethic of caring.
Reciprocal dialogue with the research community is a critical aspect of
BFW research (Collins, 2000; Phillips, 2006). Dialogue that communicates
the importance of “telling our stories” and acknowledges the wholeness of
African American girls’ experiences strengthens the richness of the data. A
dialogical relationship increases the researcher’s ability to engage partici-
pants in authentic ways. It also provides a means to better understand the
sociocultural, individual, and other nuanced factors that influence the vari-
ables under investigation (Banks-Wallace, 2007). Researchers can gain
significant additional insight into Black girlhood by observing and partici-
pating in dialogue with community members (i.e., African American adult
women).

Last, a researcher who embraces the BFW perspective seeks to give voice
to the participants and shares their voices with them. Thus, it is important for
one to develop a plan to disseminate research findings in the community
where the data were collected. Sharing the results with African American
girls and their families shows the researcher’s commitment to BFW research
goals, particularly social change and community building. As the arbitrator
between Black girls and larger society, the BFW researcher has a duty to dis-
seminate the information widely through traditional (scholarly journal, pol-
icy reports, books, and conference presentation) and non-traditional venues
(news media outlets, social media, and community forum/workshops).
Employing these strategies helps to bridge the gap between academic knowl-
edge and everyday life while creating opportunities for data-driven social
change and community building.

516 Journal of Black Studies 46(5)

Conclusion

The growing interests in African American girls as a social and cultural group
calls for a unique methodology that contextualizes their experiences and per-
spective. This article argues that Black Feminist Thought and Womanism
have theoretical and methodological implications that should be used to fur-
ther the scholarship about African American girls. By identifying common
themes, principles, and research strategies’ within these frameworks, the
BFW research paradigm has been established. This comprehensive paradigm
can be used to ground the experiences and outcomes of Black girls in a cul-
turally relevant, strength-focused way.

African American girls share the common devalued status of being Black
and female in the United States (Collins, 2000; Phillips, 2006). Grounding
investigations in BFW research principles can help to diversify the research
on African American girlhood. Although commonalities among African
American girls exist, this does not equate to universal truths about Black
Girlhood. Many African American girls are considered to be “resilient” given
their ability to adapt and achieve in contexts of familial, social, and economic
risks; however, there is little investigation of this segment of the African
American female population. To develop prevention and intervention pro-
grams that speak to the unique and diverse needs of African American girls,
there is a dire need to understand how some African American girls are able
to maintain high self-esteem, develop healthy identities, achieve academi-
cally, and thrive in psychologically and socially threatening environments
(Fordham, 1993; E. W. Morris, 2007). BFW research provides a comprehen-
sive understanding of risks; it also helps to examine the varied responses and
strengths of African American girls.

African American girls are an understudied group in social science and
education research (Rozie-Battle, 2002). Therefore, the BFW research para-
digm calls for more systematic, authentic, well-informed research that places
them at the center of the analysis. The BFW research paradigm addresses this
gap by providing researchers with a culturally responsive perspective and
research strategies to advance the state of Black girlhood scholarship. This
paradigm furthers our understanding of the factors influencing and outcomes
associated with Black girlhood: (a) racial, cultural, and gender socialization;
(b) media influences on developmental outcomes; (c) cultural and economic
influences on the physical health and development; (d) body image (i.e., skin
color, and hair texture); (e) educational attainment, achievement, and occupa-
tional goals; (f) multiple (racial, cultural ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, and
spiritual) identity development; (g) experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) girls of African descent; (h) protective factors/strengths

Lindsay-Dennis 517

that influence the academic, social, and personal outcomes; (i) peer influence
on social, moral, sexual and relational behaviors; (j) religiosity and spiritual-
ity; (k) criminal justice issues that influence girls of African descent; (l) sup-
port systems and supportive networks (family, peers, and so on); (m)
experiences of molestation, incest, rape, sexual assault, and sexual exploita-
tion/oppression; (n) effective prevention and intervention programs for girls
of African descent; and (o) social and educational policies that affect girls of
African descent. In addition to more research on African American girls,
there is a need for scholarly journals, books, workshops, policies, and youth
development programs that are committed to BFW principles and research
goals.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article.

Note

1. African American and Black will be used interchangeable. Both terms refer to
girls of African descent living in the United States.

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Author Biography

LaShawnda Lindsay-Dennis serves as an Associate Professor of Education at Paine
College in Augusta, Georgia. Dr. Lindsay-Dennis has vigorously accepted the call to
enhance the well-being and lives of Black girls globally. Her wide array of research
over the past decade has created a platform that sheds light on the social determinants,
racial injustices, and cultural biases that burden the progression and viability of Black
girls and women. She has also mentored, implemented sustainable programs and ini-
tiatives and most recently founded Black Girls Matter, Inc (April 2014).

Bringing Afrocentricity to the Funnies: An Analysis of Afrocentricity Within Aaron
McGruder’s “The Boondocks”
Author(s): Tia C. M. Tyree and Adrian Krishnasamy
Source: Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (JANUARY 2011), pp. 23-42
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25780790
Accessed: 22-01-2020 00:06 UTC

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Bringing Afrocentricity to
the Funnies: An Analysis
of Afrocentricity Within
Aaron McGruder’s The

Journal of Black Studies
42(1) 23^2

?TheAuthor(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0021934709359081
http://jbs.sagepub.com

(DSAGE

Boondocks

Tia C. M.Tyree1 and Adrian Krishnasamy2

Abstract

Cartoonist Aaron McGruder entered the syndicated comic strip arena
in 1998. As an African American, McGruder’s social commentary, political
criticism, and jokes have a perspective on America unlike White syndicated
cartoonists. Yet one cannot assume that his comic strip is Afrocentric simply
because McGruder is African American. The authors of this work attempt
to determine if McGruder?through his characters?speaks from an
Afrocentric perspective. More specifically, the authors analyzed McGruder’s
comic strips to determine if the principles and concepts of Afrocentricity,
including the 10 principles of nommo, were present within the comic strip.
It was determined through The Boondocks, he speaks of resistance, liberation,
peace, harmony, and does so in the “language” of African Americans?Ebonics.
He places African Americans at the center of his discourse and gauges the
external world through the lens of his young African American characters.

Keywords
Nommo, Afrocentricity, The Boondocks, comic strips, Aaron McGruder

“I think we as Black people spend way too much time worrying about
what White people think of us. I don’t give a (expletive) about what
White people think.”

?Aaron McGruder

‘Howard University,Washington, D.C.
2Bowie State University, MD

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24 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

Each day Americans open their newspapers to read comics. Some are after a
quick laugh, others want to read what obstacle their favorite characters are
tackling and still others are looking for the underlying political and social
commentaries that lie deep within the comedic lines of three little African
American boys in the comic strip The Boondocks. Cartoonist Aaron
McGruder is the creator of the comic strip, and as an African American,
McGruder’s social commentary, political criticism, and jokes have a per
spective on America unlike the White syndicated cartoonists.

Through socially constructed institutions such as slavery and segregation,
African Americans faced unequal treatment in America. Hundreds of years
of mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government and White Americans
caused African Americans financial, spiritual, educational and other hard
ships. Nonetheless, African Americans found various outlets to express their
frustrations, perseverance, and desire for social change. Negro spirituals,
heroic tales of African Americans achieving success or outsmarting White
Americans, and even jokes brought hope and inspiration to many. However,
the most powerful force of the three perhaps may be jokes and their ability to
bring laughter and transformation to the minds and situations of those in the
African American community.

Humor is important to African Americans. It is referred to as “the gift of
laughter” (Fauset, 1994). Laughter allows African Americans to put their
desires, situations, and ideals into perspective. Throughout history, humor
exposed the absurd treatment of African Americans in America, highlighted
the hypocrisies and pretensions of White Americans, and helped to reveal
and mock the rationalization of the mistreatment of African Americans

(Levine, 1977). Despite White Americans’ insistence that African Americans
were unintelligent, uncultured, and unaware of their self-worth, the manner

in which African Americans mastered the use of humor showed they com
pletely understood the perversions, absurdities, and impossibilities of Ameri
can social structures (Levine, 1977).

Sharing a laugh is a social experience. Whether laughter manifests itself
from a joke, anecdote, gesture, or tale, an individual must understand the
experiences, people, places, or ideas within the community in order to really
share in a laugh. According to Levine (1977), laughter provided African
Americans with a sense of their condition in America as well as an important
degree of self- and group knowledge. This concept created the foundation
of this research study. The authors of this work attempt to determine if
McGruder?through his characters?enlighten African American readers
using Afrocentrictiy. More specifically, the authors analyzed McGruder’s
comic strips to determine if the principles and concepts of Afrocentricity,

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 25

including the 10 principles of nommo, were present within the dialogue of
McGruder’s The Boondocks comic strips.

Literature Review

The History of Comic Strips and The Boondocks

A comic strip is a short strip or sequence of drawings that tells a story. Comic
strips derived from the cartoon. It was widely popular in the late 19th century
and originally developed as a marketing tool to attract customers to the Sun
day edition of local newspapers. Richard Outcault, William Randolph Hearst,
Joseph Pulitzer, James Swinnerton, and Rudolph Dirks are commonly cred
ited as the creators of the modern-day comic strip. While evidence of comic
strips appearing in newspapers can be traced back as early as 1892, the pub
lishing of Richard Outcault’s The Yellow Kid in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York

World in 1886 is most widely accepted as the birth of the comic strip genre in
the American press. By the early 1900s, there were more than 150 comic
strips in syndication. However, it would not be until the early 1920s that daily
or Sunday installments of cartoons began to introduce plotlines, which
spanned more than a single day.

Today, comic strips are a staple in newspapers, and many comic strip char
acters are the subject of books, movies, and television programs. However,
similar to other American traditions, African Americans are not historically
the main subject of comic strips, nor are their experiences chronicled in
nationally recognized and respected syndicated comic strips. While there are
dozens of syndicated White cartoonists, there are less than a dozen popular
African American syndicated cartoonists in mainstream American newspa
pers. Some of the most popular African American cartoons and cartoonists
are Robb Armstrong’s Jump Start, Ray Billingsley’s Curtis, Stephen Bent
ley’s Herb and Jamaal, Jerry Craft’s Mama s Boyz, and Aaron McGruder’s
The Boondocks.

McGruder is one of the newest and arguably the most famous and success
ful African American cartoonist. The Boondocks started within the Univer

sity of Maryland’s Diamondback student newspaper in 1997. After striking
an agreement with Universal Press Syndicate, The Boondocks made its
national debut on April 19, 1999. His comic strip is syndicated in about 350
newspapers, and an animated television show based on his popular comic
strip began to air in November 2005 on Cartoon Network. McGruder’s origi
nally conceived his anime-style comic strip as a television show, but he felt it
would be easier to have his creative work placed in newspapers than on

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26 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

Figure I. The Boondocks main characters (left to right): Riley Freeman, Huey Freeman, and
Robert Freeman

television (Owen, 2005). The cartoonist authored four best-selling books of
his comic strips and coauthored another book of his work.

In the media, some called McGruder a “very dangerous Black man” and
the “most dangerous Black man in America” because of the views expressed
within the comic strip (Wickham, 2002, p. 11 A). McGruder is an equal
opportunity critic who targets both African American and White public fig
ures, including politicians, civil rights leaders, and entertainers (McGruder,
2005). He is the archrival of Blacks who have “gone astray” as well as Whites
whom he believes undermine the interests of his race (Wickham, 2002, p.
11 A). His comic strip is categorized as more “in-your-face” than “tongue-in
cheek” and is a mix of social commentary and comic relief (Wickham, 2002,
p. 11 A). It touches on political and social issues, such as war, religion, socio
economics, and racism, and it is often the subject of much controversy and
public debate. In response to the comic strip’s content, many publishers do
not publish those with potentially controversial topics or offensive language
in their daily newspapers, do not pay for the rights to publish the strip, or do
not place it in the Opinion-Editorial section, instead of on the pages with
other comic strips. Examples of unpublished comic strips include those cov
ering the fierce attack against the war in Iraq in 1991 and the 2003 comic
strips about the love life of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

An Afrocentric Approach

Since each culture has its own set of values, language, and ideologies, it is
important to analyze cultural discourse using the proper lens. With McGruder

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 27

being African American, it is best and most appropriate to view his works
through the lens of Afrocentricity. Karenga (1988) posits Afrocentricity is a
theoretical perspective founded in the human interests and cultural images of
people from African descent. According to Molefi Asante (2003), Afrocen
tricity is a mode of thought and action that places Africa at the center and
African interests, values, and perspectives as dominant. This is often seen as
a radical approach, because usually the Eurocentric approach is reflected in
the White-centered hegemonic ideology of America. In addition, to be Black
and an Afrocentric is to be against all forms of oppression, including racism,
classism, child abuse, homophobia, patriarchy, pedophilia, and White racial
domination (Asante, 2003, p. 2). Afrocentricity is a critical component of
Black studies and allows scholars to have a different perspective to under
stand the intellectual works of Africans and African Americans that is not

Eurocentricity (Asante, 1998, p. 58).
African Americans have a unique culture independent of mainstream White

America. Black culture is a reality (Chimezie, 1984). Therefore, it is imperative
that Afrocentric methodologies are considered and connected to African Ameri
can communication patterns (Jackson, 1995). To understand communication,
one must understand the operative value of culture (Woodyard, 2003). Rhetoric
and culture are inseparable, and any attempt to interpret or critique rhetoric must

take the influence of culture into consideration (Woodyard, 2003).
In order for an Afrocentric thinker to have a well-grounded measure of

knowledge about experiences, one must understand that discourse is to be
analyzed with the knowledge gained through cosmology, society, religion,
medicine, and traditions (Asante, 1998). A non-Afrocentric person operates
in a manner that is negatively unpredictable, disparages traditions that give
people of African descent hope, and trivializes his own mobility (Asante,
1998, p. 3). Afrocentricity is the centerpiece of human regeneration; it chal
lenges and takes to task the perpetuation of White racial supremacist ideas in
the imagination of the African world and, by extension, the entire world
(Asante, 2003, p. 2).

Language is the standard and most easily identifiable component of any
culture. Charles Green and Ian Smart (1997) liken people without a sense of
cultural identity as a tree without roots, and they posit Africans in the Dias
pora who live in North America have embarked upon an unrelenting quest for
cultural identity. Since African Americans were long denied the opportunity
to learn, read, and write standard English, Whites were able to manipulate
their communication. However, African Americans have long since been
resistant to the pressures and desires of White Americans to speak proper
English (Green & Smart, 1997). In Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line,
Michael Eric Dyson posits that African Americans always sought literacy,

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28 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

because it provided them the opportunity to reinvent themselves and to shape
their identities.

Asante (1998) and other scholars believe Ebonics is the language of Afri
can Americans. It was named in 1973 as a combination of the word ebony
and phonics (Green & Smart, 1997). The development of a “Black vernacu
lar” is an essential form of resistance (Green & Smart, 1997). While the dom
inant White culture has traditionally frowned upon Ebonics as substandard
English, Asante (1998) insists “Ebonics is a creative enterprise, born out of
the materials of interrelationships and the energies of the African ancestral
past” (p. 69). Furthermore, Asante insists it is critical for the African Ameri
can protester not to use rhetoric of the established order, because the protes
tor cannot master the language as skillfully as those in the established order.
Instead, by using a “Black discourse” with words, tones, and sounds reflec
tive of the African American protesters culture, he subverts the established
order through the use of “guerrilla rhetoric tactics” (Asante, 1998,
p. 128). Ultimately, Ebonics represents an intersection of identity, language,
and resistance, and it is just one of the vehicles African Americans can use to
liberate, cleanse, and humanize their culture in the “White supremacist con
trolled and operated media” (Green & Smart, 1997).

Afrocentrists speak of liberation, harmony, and aim to raise consciousness
of African Americans. Asante (1998, p. 171) posits that for the African Ameri
can orator and writer, the quest for harmony is the ultimate aspiration. For
Africans, attaining spiritual harmony is possible, and a person’s humanity is
linked to his pursuit and fulfillment of harmony (Alkebulan, 2003). From the

African American perspective, a healthy individual must be harmonized to
ensure harmony within the society and one is “human only in the midst of
others and the person is defined as human by performing actions that lead to
harmony” (Asante, 1998, p. 200). The concepts of harmony and liberation are
linked and become key components in Afrocentric discourse (Jackson, 2003).
The concept of Maat brings these powerful and complex forces together.
According to Karenga (1994), Maat evolves through seven virtues of truth,
justice, propriety, harmony, balance, and reciprocity. In addition, Asante
(1998) posits Maat applies to all Black culture, and Obenga (1995) asserts

Maat is the ruling force between good and evil and provides individuals with
an understanding of their role and interdependency with the universe.

Manifestations of Nommo

In the African American community, nommo is a word that generates power
to a speaker. McPhail (1996) urges people to recognize their shared humility

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 29

“coherence” with one another, with the goal of achieving freedom from
oppression and domination. Based on an oral tradition, nommo creates a
sense of “sharing, giving, generative, productive and ultimately creative and
full of power” (Asante, 1998, p. 105). Nommo also defines the idea of
messianism

where the speaker had to believe in a special calling not in the mere
sense of a religious person who believes that she or he is called to
preach, but more in the classical messianic sense of someone who
believes she or he is called to lead people out of physical bondage.
(Asante, 1998, p. 140)

Several scholars have viewed African American discourse through the
manifestations of nommo (Clarke, 2004; Cummings & Roy, 2002; Yancy,
2004). However, Afrocentric scholars recognize the generative power of
language or nommo (Cummings & Roy, 2002). According to Yancy
(2004, p. 290), nommo is the creative “power of the word” that identifies
life as its beginning and end. Yancy (2004, pp. 293-296) adds nommo is a

means to define the Black self and lived experiences, has the power “to
move Black folk toward a greater sense of community,” and provides
what is “fundamental to the traditional African world view.” Clarke

(2004) argues the concept of nommo represents the instrumental power of
speech to bring forth African American selfhood and the Black experi
ence. Numerous scholars believe one of the most important reflections of
nommo is to maintain communal harmony (Asante, 1998; Karenga,
2003). Karenga (1988) extends the power of nommo to transcend both
time and space by asserting it allows people to move forward in history
and society.

Nommo is not just about words, phrases, or linguistic conventions, but it
is about how the power of language can influence and inform all aspects of

African American life (Cummings & Roy, 2002). Nommo is about using lan
guage not just to define African Americans’ state in America but to liberate a
people through education and understanding of the power structures that
maintain the status quo. Nommo can be present in interpersonal, public,
group, or even mass communication events that relate to the African culture

and experiences (Cummings & Roy, 2002). Ten characteristics often mani
fest themselves in the presence of nommo, which are rhythm, soundin’ out,
call and response, stylin’, lyrical quality, improvisation, historical perspec
tive, repetition, indirection, and mystification. These manifestations have
been identified in many places, including speeches, closing arguments in

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30 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

legal cases, poems, spirituals, and rap lyrics, and those manifestations essen
tial to this work are discussed in the “Results and Discussion” section.

Research Questions
While research on comic strips and their content is extensive, there remains
little research focused on African American comic strips. In addition, the
research conducted often analyzes content without situating the findings
within the larger context of the African American community, which is
important since the characters and creators are African American. This
research attempts to do what has not been done in other research focused on

The Boondocks by taking an applied approach to Afrocentricity theory.
According to Walker and Greene (2006), the Afrocentric approach is not an
attempt to ignore or belittle the viewpoints of others but to bring attention to
the experience of communities whose voices have not been historically heard
in an oppressive system (Walker & Greene, 2006). Furthermore, one cannot
assume rhetorical discourse among African Americans is Afrocentric or is a
positive reflection of the African American community. In fact, it is often
“polluted, distorted and dismembered by the onslaught of European images
and symbols” (Asante, 2008, p. 48).

This research attempts to answer the following questions:

1. Is the content of The Boondocks comic strip Afrocentric?
2. Are the 10 principles of nommo present with The Boondocks comic

strip?

Method
For the purpose of this study, McGruder’s last complete book of compiled
syndicated comic strips, Public Enemy #2: An All-New Boondocks Collec
tion, was analyzed. Published in 2005, the book features daily and Sunday
comic strips from March 13, 2003 to November 13, 2004. In total, the book

contained 164 comic strips, which were presented in the same format as orig
inally published in newspapers across the country. The book is the last of five
compilations of his comic strips. It followed the publications of The Boon
docks: Because I Know You Don’t Read the Newspaper in October 2000,
Fresh for ’01. . . You Suckas in July 2001, A Right to Be Hostile in October
2003, and Birth of A Nation in August 2004. While McGruder released
another book in October 2007 titled All the Rage, it did not provide the same
amount of rich data as his final compilation, nor did it represent the exact
content of the comic strip as seen in its syndicated form in newspapers across

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 31

the country. Instead, the book incorporated reprinted daily and Sunday comic
strips, banned comics strips not printed in newspapers, commentary from

Aaron McGruder concerning those comic strips, interviews, and profiles.
Therefore, it was not analyzed.

A qualitative textual analysis was performed to determine if the comic
strip’s content represented key concepts present within Afrocentric theory,
including elements such as liberation and harmony, as well as the 10 mani
festations of nommo. This method is most effective, because it goes beyond
simply counting instances of the presence of keywords within texts. Instead,
it looks toward finding a deeper meaning within those texts. Starosta (1984,
1988) notes a qualitative textual analysis does the following: (a) explores the
rich meanings embedded in texts, (b) situates text in relation to other texts
that serve as a reference of the text, and (c) locates the significance of the text
in cultural and historical contexts. Furthermore, this method examines cul

tural products as strong forces that shape contemporary culture (Martin &
Nakayama, 2007). It is used to describe and interpret the characteristics of
recorded or visual messages through the analysis of language, symbols, num
bers, and nonverbal cues through rhetorical criticism and the use of content,
interaction, and discourse analysis (Frey, Botan, & Kreps, 2000).

Results and Discussion
After an extensive analysis of the 164 comic strips, it was determined that
The Boondocks both exhibited Afrocentric thought and 5 of the 10 manifesta
tions of nommo. While the characters and creator of The Boondocks are Afri

can American, this did not guarantee the comic strip did not echo dominate
Eurocentric ideology present within the United States. However, through the
actions of and worldview held by the cartoon characters, McGruder repre
sented elements of Afrocentricity designed to liberate the consciousness of

African Americans and teach them about the American power structures

keeping them in their current state.

Displaying the Fundamentals of Afrocentricity

What Afrocentricity demands of its followers is an emic not etic perspective.
Afrocentrists and Afrocentric works must be delivered from an insider’s per

spective. There must be an understanding of what is the African descendant’s
experience in America, what challenges have been faced by the people, what
has been accomplished, what still must be accomplished, and what is stand
ing in the way of liberation and equality of African Americans. In the January
25, 2005, comic strip, McGruder’s character Huey seems to provide insight

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32 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

into the creator’s purpose when he notes comedy should “expose the folly”
of the world and that comedians should use their humor to “question the
status quo.”

McGruder brings his Afrocentric message to comic strip readers through
the personalities, character names, plots, and dialogue. The main characters
are Huey Freeman and his younger brother Riley, who were moved to the
predominantly White suburb of Woodcrest, Illinois, by their grandfather (see
Figure 1). On the cover of the book under study, Huey is depicted in a manner
similar to a mug shot with classic references to his physical characteristics.
His race is described as “Black as the Ace of Spades” and his nationality is
“(Un)American.” As explained in the May 4, 1999, comic strip, 10-year-old
Huey is named after Black Panther Huey P. Newton. His last name can relate
to the desire of African Americans to be free in America. Huey’s discourse is
considered to be that of a Black national and is very critical of many aspects

of modern African American culture, politics, racism, elitism, socioeconom
ics, and other societal ills. The issues raised by this young African American
boy could be viewed as extraordinary or peculiar, but McGruder stated, “It’s
always easier to use kids to get across threatening ideas in a non-threatening
way” (Joy, 2005, p. C9). This speaks to a longstanding technique in Black
humor called inversion. This comedic technique is referred to as “universe
changing,” and it defines instances in which role reversals and situations are
used in jokes to inspire laughter (Levine, 1977).

Riley possesses many of the opposite characteristics of Huey. He is
engulfed in Hip Hop culture, enamored by “thug life,” lacks cultural knowl
edge, and often represents those aspects of the African American culture his
brother criticizes. Michael Caesar, Huey’s best friend, is a sounding board for
Huey’s ideas and acts both critical and supportive of his concepts. The tragic
mulatto character often represented in the U.S. media is also present in The
Boondocks. Jazmine is a biracial young girl, who by Huey’s account, is out
of touch with her African ancestry. Her father, Thomas Dubois, is a lawyer
and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People member.
His name is a reference to W.E.B. DuBois and the racial stereotype Uncle
Tom, who is a docile, selfless, kind, and supportive African American who
panders to the needs of White Americans (Bogle, 1974).

Language
McGruder not only uses Ebonics as a form of resistance, but he also speaks
of resistance and the power structures that oppress African Americans. Ebon

ics was noted throughout the dialogue of the main characters. Examples of

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 33

words and phrases used are deez, sista gurl, bruh,f’real, Yo, Spit game at,
I’m da bomb, F’shizzle, I got jacked, whuppins, youknowhowwedo, and
Nigga, which is presented in the cartoon as “N***A.” In an interview,
McGruder addressed his use of nigger in his television show. “I think it
makes the show sincere. At a certain point, sometimes we use bad language,
and the N-word is used so commonly now, not only by myself but people I
know, that I feel it’s fake to write around it and not use it” (Owen, 2005, para.
17). One might assume the same holds true for the use of the word in his
comic strip too.

An example of the use of Ebonics is in the January 1, 2004, comic strip.
Caesar is depicted in the exercise of establishing an Ebonics nickname for the
changing year. Examples of names he suggested included “the deuce-double
oh-quad,” “the two-k-quatro,” and “the dub and four pennies.” McGruder
asserts that Ebonics is a part of African American dialect, regardless of socio
economic status. In the July 18, 2003, comic strip, the two main characters
ponder whether Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice uses Ebonics. Caesar
speculates whether she speaks with her friend about having to put Donald
Rumsfeld “in check” when he “started talkin’ all crazy . . . umm-hmm, gurl
. . . f’real.'” A victim of “pressure” from his job, the February 26, 2004,
comic strip also depicts former Secretary of State Colin Powell using Ebon
ics during a debate with a U.S. Congressman. The most striking example of

McGruder embracing Ebonics is his series of comic strips that ran from July
4, 2003, to July 22, 2003, in which he suggests July is “Black English”
month, which was a time to celebrate the “richness and creativity” of African
American language. After acknowledging it is a reason to use a dispropor
tionate amount of slang in conversations, the main characters are astonished
that eventually the U.S. president and a telemarketer are using Ebonics.

Resistance

Contrary to some of the docile depictions of African Americans in the 19th
century, African Americans have long since had a stance of resistance, and
the militant images of African Americans in the media are a more accurate
depiction of their quest for African American agency and Black manhood
(Forbes, 2003). In the mid-1800s, racial hostility, violence, and disfranchise

ment were the most critical issues for African Americans (Forbes, 2003).
McGruder’s discourse shows African Americans are still disenfranchised and

that racial hostility and violence are still a reality. Most of the targets of
McGruder’s anger and hostility are Whites, the White elite, and the White
controlled media and government institutions. In the November 9, 2003,

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34 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

comic strip, McGruder has Huey questioning the treatment of elites in the
media. Huey notes a double standard exits in society, and when the poor
people use crack, they are considered the “garbage of society,” but when rich
people become addicted to painkillers, they are placed on the cover of News
week magazine. One example of blending Ebonics and the disenfranchise
ment of African Americans was in the June 20,2003, comic strip. Huey notes

the word bling-bling was added to The New Oxford English Dictionary, and
the “ultimate revenge” African Americans can have against the White man is
to make him “as ignorant as he has made us.” Throughout his comic strip,

McGruder chronicles of how African Americans cannot produce a winning
presidential candidate, how African Americans are victims of racial profiling
by the government, and how the government is spending money on a cam
paign to encourage Black people to get married, instead of campaigns focus
ing on education and health care.

Maat and Afrocentric Discourse

Within Aaron McGruder’s comic strips, his characters frequently pursue
harmony and peace. Smith (1972) posits Afrocentric rhetoric is concerned
with the stability of the community, and in cases of conflict and strife in the
community, Afrocentric public discourse functions to bring back harmony
and stability in those problematic areas. Discourse centers on bringing light
to the injustices of the Iraqi war, issues with racism in America, and the

mistreatment by and inabilities of the government to properly meet the
needs of Americans, especially African Americans. An example of how
McGruder deals with racism in America was present in his May 9, 2004,
comic strip. In this strip, a White man speeds in a red convertible and parks
in Riley’s suburban neighborhood. Riley, who is standing on the curb as the

man steps out of the car, startles him. Riley says “nice car” and the White
man thanks him and walks away. After the brief verbal exchange, Riley
notes the White man’s fear and claims he won’t get any sleep after the inter
action with him.

McGruder addressed an attempt to bring peace to the world on October
13, 2003, when Caesar claims to have a plan to bring peace and harmony to

world. The next day, Caesar offers his plan to find Secretary of State Condo
leezza Rice a boyfriend. He stated that if a man on this earth loved her, than
she would not “be so hell bent to destroy it.” In the October 27, 2003, comic
strip, Caesar stated they need to find her man to teach her “love is better than

war.” During the next 3 to 4 weeks, Huey and Caesar plot to find Rice a man.
They call the White House to see if she prefers White men or Black men;

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 35

ponder and call potential suitors, including talk-show host Montel Williams,
conservative pundit Larry Elder, and self-described “pimp” Archbishop Don
“Magic” Juan; and place a personal advertisement, in which they struggle to
make her seem appealing to possible suitors.

Harmony and liberation are not just external forces to the African Ameri
can community. Asante (2003, p. 41) posits there can be no freedom for Afri
can Americans until there is a freedom of the mind. Afrocentric discourse is

a powerful tool in bringing liberation and raising consciousness in the Afri
can American community. Black voices of resistance are often silenced by
those in society married to maintaining the racial status quo. The dominant

White discourse in the mass media idolizes Black passivity because it allows
Whites to stay in their comfort level (Forbes, 2003). McGruder forces Whites
outside of their comfort level by ensuring they are aware of the inadequate
treatment of African Americans and the influence of African Americans on

American culture. In the September 4,2003, comic strip, Huey’s grandfather
voices his frustration about Whites imitating Black culture. He claims the

White children on MTV try to look, talk, and sing like Blacks, but they are
different than those of his childhood because the “wannanbes” then had
talent.

Yet McGruder does not ignore African Americans. He questions their
frivolous spending, inappropriate behaviors, as well as other actions deemed
socially unacceptable in the African American community. As an African

American, McGruder raises questions about societal behaviors of Whites and
Blacks from an Afrocentric perspective by mentioning African American fig
ures and placing them within situations and contexts relevant to African
Americans. McGruder uses techniques such as dressing his characters in
clothing relevant to specific time periods and changing their hairstyles and
language to help put situations into proper perspective. In addition, McGruder
takes events and issues within American popular culture and alters them to fit

within the perspectives of African Americans. An example was McGruder’s
spoof of the popular television show The Apprentice. McGruder has several
comic strips that chronicle the contestants on a fictitious show hosted by
“business mogul Russell Simmons” titled “Can a N***A Get a Job.”

In the May 18, 2003, comic strip, Huey ponders how to bring conscious
ness to people. Huey claims to bring truth to the “ignorant masses” is a heavy
and complicated burden. A few days later in his two-panel May 25, 2005,
comic strip, Huey quotes Samuel Adams, “It does not require a majority to
prevail, but rather an irate tireless minority keen to set brushfires in the peo
ple’s minds.” In these two comic strips, the authors of this work believe
McGruder is actually pondering how he can use his skills to bring

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36 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

consciousness to his African American readers and plant thoughts into their
minds about what is and is not acceptable in their lives.

Through his characters, McGruder both directly and indirectly challenges
African Americans’ thoughts and level of consciousness. In the November
11, 2003, comic strip, Huey takes a more direct approach to venting frustra
tions about the UPN television network’s programming featuring African

Americans. He questions African Americans’ taste and pride, since they are
willing to accept the network’s programming. Caesar’s response to Huey is
to assert that if the Klu Klux Klan were hiring, many African Americans

would join the organization. Using a more indirect approach, McGruder
challenges African Americans by offering comic strips about the “Most
Embarrassing Black People Awards.” Using another approach, McGruder
has Caesar place a large stack of papers in front of Huey in the February 19,
2004, comic strip. The papers represent nominations, and Caesar states that it
was a busy year, because African Americans were “shaming themselves at a
furious pace.” In a series of comic strips, the characters offer nominations for
embarrassing behavior by celebrities and offer to recognize average African
Americans. Nominations for the celebrities included Janet Jackson for flash

ing her breast, R. Kelly for being himself, and Bobby Brown and James
Brown for alleged spousal abuse. Everyday people were nominated for plac
ing 26-inch spinning rims on a Honda Civic, having 5-inch nails or longer,
and possessing a diamond two-way pager. In an attempt to put the awards
into perspective for the reader, McGruder has the characters ponder giving
the award a “clever name” similar to the Oscars, which are given in recogni
tion of excellence in filmmaking, and the Emmys, which are given for excel
lence in television. In the March 4, 2004, comic strip, Caesar offers two
negative stereotypical names, Sambo and Mammy, as possible labels for the
award. However, in the next day’s comic strip, Caesar comes to a final reso
lution. He found the “perfect name” and “even sculpted a statue.” He pres
ents Huey with “The Whoopi,” which is a reference to the comedian and
actress Whoopi Goldberg. Goldberg is a frequent butt of McGruder jokes for
many reasons, including her “embarrassing and stereotypical movie roles,”
as referenced in his March 27, 2003, comic strip.

Manifestations of Nommo in The Boondocks

Indirection. McGruder used indirection in his comic strip, which is defined
as a nondirect approach to discussing an issue, idea, or image (Woodyard,
2003). Instead, an individual uses his artistry to circumvent direct references
to the topic or person being highlighted but manages to make a point. To use

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 37

a more literary explanation, it is when a person “beats around the bush.” With
only a few panels to convey a message to the audience, McGruder must be
able to evoke ideas, events, and concepts within the minds of his readers,
without having to actually state the details. Asante (1998) brings forth the
Afrocentric concept of cognitive ethnocentrism, which is similar to indirec
tion, and it can also be seen in the discourse of characters in The Boondocks.

Cognitive ethnocentrism is the hidden racism in discourse that is displayed
when a speaker uses subtle language to present his racist ideas so it is under
stood but not directly stated (Asante, 1998).

While the examples of McGruder’s use of indirection and cognitive eth
nocentrism are numerous, the authors of this study will only highlight a small
representative sample. In an attempt to enlighten the African American com
munity about frivolous spending, McGruder’s character Huey proclaims
African Americans do not need a flu vaccine, only one to prevent them from
placing 22-inch rims on a Saturn. In the December 29, 2003, comic strip,
McGruder uses a reference to the illegitimate biracial daughter of Strom
Thurman to highlight how Kwanza is viewed in America. Huey states
Kwanza is a shunned and forgotten holiday that operates “outside of the pub
lic eye.” Caesar retorts that Kwanza is the “Essie Mae Washington of holi
days.” McGruder uses a reference to two popular blind African American
singers to make a joke about President George W. Bush by stating that Ray
Charles and Stevie Wonder were the only witnesses who could verify Bush
was in the Air National Guard in 1972. Many African Americans voiced their
disappointment with the content of programming on Black Entertainment
Television (BET), the first cable network owned and operated by African
Americans. In the April 8, 2003, comic strip, Huey states that although Iraqi
television was bombed several times over the last week, it was still more
entertaining than BET.

Rhythm. Rhythm can manifest itself in many ways in rhetoric. Some schol
ars assert patterns in speech create rhythm. A speaker can create patterns by
pausing or fluctuating his pitch, rate of delivery, and loudness (Woodyard,
2003). Asante (1998) asserts rhythm is a basic measure of successful speech
and effective speakers understand the need to employ some form of rhythm
in their vocal expressions. In addition, rhythm is analyzed in terms of rhym
ing, repetition of sounds, and fluency (Wilson, 1996).
Within the text under study, McGruder used rhyming and repetition of

words to bring humor to a joke or to prove a point. In an interaction between
Huey and Caesar in the July 10, 2003, comic strip, both try to outdo each
other’s greetings. After exchanging a “My Homie!”, “My Dawg!”, “Brother
man!”, and “My Ace!”, Huey is finally outdone when Caesar adds, “My man,

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38 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

fifty grand, pots and pans, you the man!” With little dialogue, McGruder uses
rhythm in a comic strip featuring Riley. Riley is seen in three of four panels
of the October 11, 2004, comic strip stating “I dunno” to his grandfather,
brother, and teacher. In the final panel, Riley proclaims, “I’m a master at
sticking to the message.” In the July 9, 2003, strip, McGruder addresses both
racism and BET using indirection, cognitive ethnocentrism, and rhythm.
Huey notes that Strom Thurman teaches a powerful message, which is that
someone can “really, really, really, really, really hate Black people… and it’s
basically ok with everyone.” In response, Caesar mentioned since they were
speaking of hating Black people, if Huey saw the BET Awards.

Historical Perspective

McGruder makes references to historical African American figures or refers
to historical events involving African Americans in an attempt to make jokes,
including bringing back slavery, the comedic genius of Moms Mabley, the
fairness of affirmative action in America, media’s consistent negative depic
tions of African Americans, and how future generations of Americans will
remember the current era of Black history. In the January 5, 2004, comic
strip, Huey’s grandfather voices his frustrations of the reactions of his grand
son to following instructions and makes references to how African American
children used to listen to instructions by their “elders” when he was a child.
In one of many comic strips discussing Kobe Bryant’s rape allegations, Huey
asks Caesar what Emmett Till would say to Bryant about his legal troubles.
Caesar replies, “You think you got it bad? All I did was whistle!” One of the
most striking historical references to the treatment of African Americans in
America was present in the July 8, 2003, comic strip. In this strip, the grand
father explains to Huey that he met Strom Thurman once at a traffic light.
The grandfather stated Thurman, or Ronald Reagan as he later recalls, said he
called him a “Black Nigra slave darkie boy” and asked him where was the
closest gas station.

By focusing on recent historical events, White women were used as the
center of many jokes and the subject of much criticism in The Boondocks.

McGruder’s strips address a plot to place White women behind the bench of
the Los Angeles Lakers to distract players and former President William
Clinton’s desires to personally thank White women who have inundated him

with gifts and cards after his open-heart surgery. McGruder likens the high
gas prices after invading Iraq to America invading Europe and running out of

White women. In the March 2,2003, comic strip, McGruder uses indirection.
When Huey asks what the secret to happiness is, Caesar replies, “White
women.” To which Huey retorts, “Stop that.”

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Tyree and Krishnasamy 39

Stylin’or Soundin’Out

Alkebulan (2003) asserts that stylin’ out, soundin’, playing the dozens, rep
etition, and the creation of Ebonics, the language of Africans in the United
States, are all important aspects of African American rhetoric. According to
Asante (1998, p. 50), stylin’ is the “conscious or unconscious manipulation
of language or mannerisms to influence favorable the hearers of a message.”
Listeners are swayed by the physical movements of the speaker. Woodyard
(2003) clarifies that a speaker develops a personal repertoire of stylin’ that
becomes unique and expected by his audience by consistently displaying cer
tain movements, including gestures, postures, and facial expressions. Soun
din’ out is the natural vocal extension of stylin’. Woodyard (2003) defines
soundin’ out as vocal mannerism that speakers use as a form of rhythm in
vocal expression that act as vocal cues provide emphasis or signal impor
tance to the African American listener.

In the African American community, the Dozens is a longstanding oral
tradition in which the players exhibit humor, stylin’, and soundin out. By
playing the Dozens, the average individual can gain respect and draw laugh
ter from an audience of their family and friends. Levine (1977) offered two
functions of the Dozens in the African American community. First, it offers a
chance for the two opponents to sharpen their verbal skills. Secondly, oppo
nents learn self-discipline by learning to maintain self-control even in the
midst of grueling insult after insult.

In The Boondocks, the main characters frequently engage in the Dozens.
In several comic strips between July 27, 2003, and September 6, 2003, Cae
sar addresses Huey’s mother. While some jokes took the traditional “your

mother’s so …” approach, McGruder displayed his skills by offering insults
using nontraditional approaches. For example, in the August 10,2003, comic
strip, Caesar questions whether Huey hates having a lot of hair in the sum

mer, and he wonders if Huey’s mother’s full beard and hairy back bothered
her. In other exchanges, Caesar notes scientists plan to clone a woolly mam
moth and how good it was for Huey’s mother to donate a DNA sample.

Conclusion
McGruder used his comic strips to bring the African American perspective to
mainstream America. He speaks from an Afrocentric perspective and his dis
course embodies many of the manifestations and themes recognized by Afro

centric scholars. Through The Boondocks, he speaks of resistance, liberation,
peace, harmony, and does so in the language of African Americans?Ebonics.
He places African Americans at the center of his discourse and gauges the

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40 Journal of Black Studies 42(1)

external world through the lens of his young African American characters. In
an attempt to raise consciousness, he is unafraid of exposing the U.S. govern
ment’s frailties or those of the African American community.

Laughter is a gift within the African American community, and it can be
used as a method to escape the monotony and hardships of everyday Ameri
can life. He uses jokes, both directly and indirectly, as vehicles to liberate and
educate African Americans from their current state in America. At times, in

as little as a two-panel comic strip, McGruder provided readers with com
mentary, political satire, pop culture references, and Afrocentric thoughts
about their lives in America. Many of the comic strip topics reflect issues,
circumstances, or triumphs directly affecting the African American commu
nity, and whether it is intentional or unintentional, McGruder utilizes Afro
centric methods to help readers understand how they can improve, change, or
alter their situations. Despite what could be considered crude, rude, abrasive,
and low-brow humor, The Boondocks is an important part of American pop
culture, and in a comic strip industry where the influence of African Ameri
cans is relatively small, McGruder’s characters, topics, and Afrocentric influ
ences are important unique vehicles for the improvement of the African
American community.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.

References
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Bios
Tia C. M. Tyree, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Howard University within the
Department of Journalism. She is the Public Relations and Advertising Sequence
Coordinator and teaches several public relations courses. Her research interests
include hip hop, rap, pop culture, film, and African American representations in the

media.

Adrian Krishnasamy, PhD, is an assistant professor at Bowie State University. He
continues his research of how media affect certain communities. His main focus is on

issues regarding race, class, gender, and feminist research in communication.

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Contents

p. [23]
p. 24
p. 25
p. 26
p. 27
p. 28
p. 29
p. 30
p. 31
p. 32
p. 33
p. 34
p. 35
p. 36
p. 37
p. 38
p. 39
p. 40
p. 41
p. 42

Issue Table of Contents

Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (JANUARY 2011) pp. 1-122
Front Matter
Keepin’ It Real in Hip Hop Politics: A Political Perspective of Tupac Shakur [pp. 3-22]
Bringing Afrocentricity to the Funnies: An Analysis of Afrocentricity Within Aaron McGruder’s “The Boondocks” [pp. 23-42]
African Americans’ Lay Theories About the Detection of Prejudice and Nonprejudice [pp. 43-70]
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þÿ�þ�ÿ��A��f��r��i��c��a��n�� A��m��e��r��i��c��a��n��s�� a��n��d�� H��I��V��/��A��I��D��S��T��h��e�� E��p��i��d��e��m��i��c�� C��o��n��t��i��n��u��e��s��:�� A��n�� I��n��t��e��r��v��e��n��t��i��o��n�� t��o�� A��d��d��r��e��s��s�� t��h��e�� H��I��V��/��A��I��D��S�� P��a��n��d��e��m��i��c�� i��n�� t��h��e�� B��l��a��c��k�� C��o��m��m��u��n��i��t��y�� [��p��p��.�� 8��3��-��1��0��5��]
“Hating the Sin but not the Sinner”: A Study About Heterosexism and Religious Experiences Among Black Men [pp. 106-122]
Back Matter

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The Black Scholar
Journal of Black Studies and Research

ISSN: 0006-4246 (Print) 2162-5387 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtbs20

African-American Studies: Legacies & Challenges:
“What Would Black Studies Be If We’d Listened to
Toni Cade?”

Beverly Guy-Sheftall

To cite this article: Beverly Guy-Sheftall (2005) African-American Studies: Legacies & Challenges:
“What Would Black Studies Be If We’d Listened to Toni Cade?”, The Black Scholar, 35:2, 22-24,
DOI: 10.1080/00064246.2005.11413308

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2005.11413308

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African-American Studies: Legacies &
Challenges: “What Would Black Studies

Be If We’d Listened to Toni Cade?”

I wonder what it would take to fully integrate
gender and sexuality into Black political
consciousness. lVhat would it take for our public
intellectuals, the self appointed spokespersons, the
opinion leaders and the like to go beyond lip
service given to “unity” and “common interest” to
articulate a political sensibility that embraces
substantive equality as a value within our
community.

– Kimberle Crenshaw in Black Men on
Gender, Race and Sexuality, edited by
Devon Carbado, 1999

A S A GRADUATE STUDENT at Emory U niversi-ty in the late 1970s, I began my formal
training in both African-American Studies and
Women’s Studies and embarked upon a jour-
ney which continues to define my research and
teaching–gendering Mrican-American intel-
lectual history and articulating persistent femi-
nist impulses among black women and men
from slavery to the present. While much of this
work has focused on the US, increasingly I
have been exploring feminist politics within a
more global context, particularly in Africa, the
Caribbean and Brazil. My work, and the work
of other scholars that falls under the rubric of
black feminist studies, has been an important
intervention in what can be labeled hegemon-
ic Black Studies, whose conceptual frameworks
have been shaped by masculinist imperatives
and heterosexist paradigms that have failed to
capture the complexities of black experience
here and around the globe.

I T IS INSTRUCTIVE to consider the gendered aspects of the early history of Black Stud-
ies, which has heretofore been invisible to
scholars. This “herstory” of the development
of the field concerns itself with a little known

Page 22

by Beverly Guy-Sheftall

organization, the International Council of
Women of the Darker Races, which emerged
as a result of the racial uplift impulses and
international educational projects of the
black women’s club movement in the US.
Organized by several prominent club women
in 1924, most notably Margaret Murray
Washington, founder of the Tuskegee
Women’s Club in Alabama, the Council’s
first president, and a member of the
Tuskegee faculty, its purpose was to study the
history of peoples of color throughout the
world, particularly West Mrica, India, Haiti,
and Cuba, and to disseminate knowledge
about them for the purpose of engendering
racial pride. Study groups, which were called
Committees of Seven, were also formed to
infuse public school curricula with material
on blacks and other people of color.

It can now be argued that these curriculum
development efforts were certainly a precursor
to Black Studies. Field trips were also orga-
nized to gain first-hand experience of other
cultures. The Council also studied the situa-
tion of women and children of color transna-
tionally. Like Anna Julia Cooper, who men-
tioned Muslim harems and the Chinese
practice of foot-binding on the first page of
her pioneering 1892 text, A Voice from the South,
Council members were aware of the global
realities of women. Margaret Murray Washing-
ton taught a course at Tuskegee on the condi-
tion and status of women throughout the
world that clearly illustrated black women’s
awareness of the importance of gender long
before there was a women’s studies movement
within the mainstream academy. If black schol-
ars had followed the model of Margaret M.
Washington and the Council, they would have
understood the importance of a gendered
approach to understanding the experiences of
people of color.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 35, NO. 2

BLACK FEMINIST STUDIES, a corrective for traditional Black Studies, probes the
silences, erasures, and complexities sur-
rounding the experiences of peoples of
Mrican descent wherever they live. The early
scholarship was comparable to the painstak-
ing excavation projects of an archaeologist
digging for hidden treasures. Black feminist
literary critics made visible a rich, though
mostly invisible tradition of black women
writers going back to the nineteenth century.
These scholars disrupted a largely male nar-
rative in the construction of Mrican-Ameri-
can literary tradition. In this regard, the
early work of Mary Helen Washington and
Barbara Christian comes to mind-as well as
that of Alice Walker who is responsible for
rescuing Zora Neale Hurston from the shad-
ows-possibly from oblivion. When Roseann
Bell, Bettye Parker and myself published
Sturdy Black Bridges in 1979, it was the first
anthology of black women’s literature,
though courses on black women writers later
came to Black Studies.

My own contributions in this regard-that
is gendering Black Studies-have been most
satisfying in two projects, Words of Fire: An
Anthology of African Feminist Thought, which
re-imagines Mrican-American intellectual
and political history by including the voices
of black women as far back as 1832. More
transgressive, perhaps, has been Traps:
African American Men on Gender and Sexuality
(with Rudolph P. Byrd), which makes the
case that the gender progressive discourse of
African-American men has been largely
ignored in black political history, though
there is a growing body of scholarly work
about black masculinity. The silence sur-
rounding a significant aspect of black men’s
commitments to a broad range of social jus-
tice issues, especially around issues of gender
and sexuality, compelled the publication of
Traps, This anthology posits that despite the
commitment of some black men to the eradi-
cation of sexism and heterosexism, black lib-
eration has been conceptualized, generally
speaking, in the narrowest of terms and has
focused heavily on recuperating black man-
hood, constructing patriarchal families and
ending racism. As urgent as the struggles
against white supremacy have been (and

THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 35, NO. 2

Black Studies has contributed to its decline),
the relative lack of attention to the eradica-
tion of other oppressions has resulted in
inadequate conceptual frameworks for
understanding the black experience.

H EGEMONIC black nationalist discourse, characterized by both masculinist and
heterosexist frameworks, has been particu-
larly influential within activist-intellectual
communities and has stifled the develop-
ment of more egalitarian models of black
empowerment which are free from the ideo-
logical traps of sexism and homophobia. Put
another way, the tendency to conflate black
freedom with black manhood, our uncritical
acceptance of orthodox conceptions of gen-
der, the celebration of normative and rigid
constructions of black masculinity, and per-
sistent denials about homosexuality have
prevented Mrican-Americans from establish-
ing the truly revolution communities that
Toni Cade Bambara and others challenged
us to imagine over thirty years ago in her
groundbreaking anthology, The Black Woman.

My discussion of the legacies and chal-
lenges of Mrican-American Studies has been
shaped by an explicitly black feminist con-
ceptual framework and over thirty years of
undervalued scholarship and activism that
began with the publication of Bambara’s The
Black Woman in 1970, which has inspired the
topic of this article, “What Would Black Stud-
ies Be IfWe Had Listened to Toni Cade”?

What is needed are new questions and a
new angle of vision:

1.) Gender has become a major category of
historical analysis in the study of racial-
ized experience here and throughout the
Mrican diaspora. How have black schol-
ars responded to this major paradigm
shift and what can we expect over the
next several decades in this regard? What
difference would it make for the field of
Black Studies or Mrican Diaspora Studies
to examine black experience with new
frameworks in which gender and sexuali-
ty are major categories of analysis?

2.) Men are as influenced by their gender as
women. They have also actively participated
in the project of gender construction and

Page23

have been profoundly shaped by prevalent
notions of what it means to be a man in
American society. Since this is the case,
scholars must examine men of African
descent as gendered beings and continue to
mark the ways in which their racial experi-
ences have been shaped by gender. Men’s
lives have been impacted by particular mas-
culinity constructs as have women’s lives
been shaped by specific femininity con-
structs. That is, scholars need to explore
more fully and systematically how gender sys-
tems and gender constructs within particular
African diasporic contexts, over time, and
across class, have impacted the lived experi-
ences of people of African descent. A partic-
ular challenge is studying gender constructs
in the African context prior to the transat-
lantic slave trade, though these excavation
projects are necessary.

4.) Scholars must also analyze the taboo sub-
ject of sexuality throughout Africa and the
African diaspora, including the complexity
of our erotic desires and behaviors. The
AIDS pandemic and the controversial and
under-explored “down-low” phenomenon
are compelling issues in this regard.

5.) Despite the fact that Pan-Africanism, Afro-
centricism and black feminisms (to a lesser
extent) are corrective, oppositional dis-
courses that have been critical to the devel-
opment of conceptual paradigms and theo-
ry building within the interdisciplinary
fields of Black Studies, Africana Studies, or
African Diaspora Studies, it is also the case
that the work of African feminist scholars
and activists have been largely ignored in
these fields. Professors Sidney Lemele and
Robin Kelley have been particularly insight-
ful about what is needed to reinvigorate
African Diaspora Studies: “the failure to
adopt a serious gendered analysis has been
perhaps the biggest weakness in diaspora
studies, in general, and the historiography
of Pan Africanism, in particular; gender
offers the freshest and most exciting possi-
bilities for the study of diasporic political
and cultural movements.” It is certainly the
case that Black Studies scholars need to
explore the emergence of gender discours-
es within the African context beginning
with Filomena Chioma Steady’s foundation-
a! text, The Black Woman Crossculturally. In

Page 24

this anthology, she articulates an African
feminist framework that is radically differ-
ent from Euro-American feminism. Despite
the hegemony of Western feminist theory
and gender discourses, there is a growing
body of work since Steady that can be
placed under the rubric of “African femi-
nisms,” which provides an alternative lens
for examining women’s resistance transna-
tionally. Scholars are certainly compelled to
consider this important new work as the
field of Black or Africana Studies is re-imag-
ined. In particular, the work of contempo-
rary African feminist intellectuals, scholars,
writers, artists and activists, though they
continue to be accused at home of diluting
the struggle against imperialism and neo-
colonialism, has the potential for trans-
forming Black Studies, which has been lim-
ited in many ways by anti-feminist and
masculinist paradigms. These counter-dis-
courses by African women intellectuals
need to be taken seriously as the important
field of Black Studies continues to evolve.

BLACK STUDIES has contributed in impor-tant ways to the transformation of
American higher education and the strug-
gles of black people around the globe. If it
stays true to its liberatory politics, its trans-
gressive mission and its intellectual agenda,
it must now address a new set of questions
and issues that will illuminate the complex
experiences of African descended people in
even more profound ways.

Works Cited

Toni Cade Bambara, The Black Woman (New York: New
American Library, 1970).

Roseann Bell, Bettye Parker, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Sturdy
Black Bridges (Detroit: Gale Publishing, 1979)

Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, eds., Traps:
African American Men on Gender and Sexuality
(Bioomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).

Anna Julia Cooper. A Voice from the South (Xenia, OH:
The Aldine Printing House, 1892)

Kimberle Crenshaw in Black Men on Gender, Race and
Sexuality, Devon Carbado, ed. (New York: NYU Press,
1999).

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African
Feminist Thought (New York: The New Press, 1995).

Filomena Chioma Steady, The Black Woman Cross-
culturally, Boston: Schenkman Publishing Company,
Inc., 1981).

THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 35, NO. 2

Chapter 4
Afrocentricity and Education

Carter G

Woodson wrote in the book, The Mis-education of the Negro, that
Africans in the United States were being mis-educated by the promotion of Europe as
if it were the only source of human knowledge.[1] Indeed, Woodson’s classic reveals
the fundamental problems pertaining to the education of the African person in the
Americas. As Woodson contends, African people have been educated away from
their own culture and traditions and attached to the fringes of European culture; thus
dislocated from themselves, Woodson asserts that African Americans often valorize
European culture to the detriment of their own heritage.[2] Although Woodson does
not advocate rejection of citizenship or nationality, he believed that assuming Africans
hold the same position as European Americans vis-a-vis the realities of the United
States, Brazil, or Colombia would lead to the psychological and cultural death of the
African people. Furthermore, if education is ever to be substantive and meaningful
within the context of society, it must first address the African’s historical experiences.

I will examine the nature and scope of this approach, establish its necessity, and
suggest ways to develop and disseminate it throughout all levels of education. Two
propositions stand in the background of the theoretical and philosophical issues I will
present. These ideas represent the core presuppositions on which I have based most
of my work in the field of education, and they suggest the direction of my own thinking
about what education is capable of doing to and for an already politically and
economically marginalized population: (1) Education is fundamentally a social
phenomenon whose ultimate purpose is to socialize the learner; to send a child to
school is to prepare that child to become part of a social group. (2) Schools are
reflective of the societies that develop them (i.e., a white supremacist-dominated
society will develop a white supremacist educational system, a communist society will
develop a communist educational system, etc.).

One of the ways the Afrocentrists have designed for situating problems in
education, with applications to other sectors of the society, is critical location. The
definition of critical location is the site where the researcher locates a researchable
problem within a matrix of political, social, and economic fields in order to determine
the extent to which the problem is being affected by internal and external forces. For
example, the problem of effectiveness of culture in schools can be adequately
located, that is, situated for a critical location project.

In education, centricity refers to a perspective that involves locating students
within the context of their own cultural references so that they can relate socially and
psychologically to other cultural perspectives. Centricity is a concept that can be
applied to any culture. The centrist paradigm is supported by research showing that
the most productive method of teaching any student is to place his or her group within
the center of the context of knowledge. For most white students in the Americas this
is easy because almost all the experiences discussed in classrooms are approached
from the standpoint of European perspectives and history. American and Brazilian

Asante, Molefi Kete. Facing South to Africa : Toward an Afrocentric Critical Orientation, Lexington Books, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/purdue/detail.action?docID=1776000.
Created from purdue on 2020-01-21 15:29:57.

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education, however, is not centric; it is Eurocentric. Consequently, black students in
both countries are also made to see themselves and their groups as the marginalized.
Only rarely do black children read or hear of African people as active participants in
history. This is as true for a discussion of the American Revolution as it is for a
discussion of Dante’s Inferno; for instance, most classroom discussions of the
European slave trade concentrate on the activities of Europeans rather than on the
resistance efforts of Africans. A person educated in a truly centric fashion comes to
view all groups’ contributions as significant and useful. Even a white person educated
in such a system does not assume superiority based upon racist notions.
Afrocentricity is a frame of reference where phenomena are viewed from the
perspective of the African person as an agent in his or her own narrative. The
Afrocentric approach seeks in every situation the appropriate centrality of the African
person.[3] In education this means that teachers provide students the opportunity to
study the world and its people, concepts, and history from an African worldview. In
most classrooms, whatever the subject, Whites are located in the subject perspective
position. How alien the African child must feel, how like an outsider! The little African
child who sits in a classroom and is taught to accept as heroes and heroines
individuals who defamed African people is being actively de-centered, dislocated, and
made into a nonperson, one whose aim in life might be to one day shed the “badge of
inferiority,” his or her blackness. In Afrocentric educational settings, however,
teachers do not marginalize Africans by causing them to question their own self-worth
because their people’s story is seldom told. By seeing themselves as the subjects
rather than the objects of education—be the discipline biology, medicine, literature, or
social studies—African students come to see themselves not merely as seekers of
knowledge but as integral participants in it. Because all content areas are adaptable
to an Afrocentric approach, African students can be made to see themselves as
centered in the reality of any discipline. It must be emphasized that Afrocentricity is
not a black version of Eurocentricity.[4] Eurocentricity is often based on white
supremacist notions whose purposes are to protect white privilege and advantage in
education, economics, politics, and so forth. Unlike Eurocentricity, Afrocentricity does
not condone ethnocentric valorization at the expense of degrading other groups’
perspectives. Moreover, Eurocentricity presents the particular historical reality of
Europeans as the sum total of the human experience. It imposes Eurocentric realities
as universal; i.e., that which is white is presented as applying to the human condition
in general, while that which is non-white is viewed as group-specific and therefore not
human. This explains why some scholars and artists of African descent rush to deny
their blackness; they believe that to exist as a black person is not to exist as a
universal human being. They are the individuals Woodson identified as preferring
European art, language, and culture over African art, language, and culture; they
believe that anything of European origin is inherently better than anything produced by
or issuing from their own people. Naturally, the person of African descent should be
centered in his or her historical experiences as an African, but Eurocentric curricula
produce such aberrations of perspective among persons of color.

Multiculturalism in education must include a nonhierarchical approach that
respects and celebrates a variety of cultural perspectives on world phenomena. The
multicultural approach holds that although European cultures are dominant in Brazil
and the United States, a dominant majority is not a sufficient reason for imposing it on
a diverse student population as universal. Multiculturalists assert that education, to
have integrity, must begin with the proposition that all humans have contributed to
world development and the flow of knowledge and information, and that most human
achievements are the result of mutually interactive, international efforts. Without a
multicultural education, students remain essentially ignorant of the contributions of a
major portion of the world’s people. A multicultural education is thus a fundamental
necessity for anyone who wishes to achieve competency in almost any subject. The
Afrocentric idea must be the stepping-stone from which the multicultural idea is
launched. A truly authentic multicultural education, therefore, must be based upon the
Afrocentric initiative. If this step is skipped, multicultural curricula, as they are
increasingly being defined by white “resisters” will evolve without any substantive
infusion of African American content, and the African American child will continue to
be lost in the Eurocentric framework of education. In other words, the African child
will neither be confirmed nor affirmed in his or her own cultural information. For the
mutual benefit of all Americans, this tragedy, which leads to the psychological and
cultural dislocation of African children, can and should be avoided.

The Afrocentric idea presents the most revolutionary challenge to the ideology of
white supremacy in education because it centers African students inside history,
culture, and science, rather than outside these subjects. No other theoretical position
stated by Africans has ever captured the imagination of such a wide range of
scholars and students of history, sociology, communications, anthropology, and
psychology.

The Afrocentric challenge has been posed in three critical ways: (1) It questions
the imposition of the white supremacist view as universal and/or classical. (2) It
demonstrates the indefensibility of racist theories that assault multiculturalism and
pluralism. (3) It projects a humanistic and pluralistic viewpoint by articulating Afro-
centricity as a valid, non-hegemonic perspective.

The forces of resistance to the Afrocentric, multicultural transformation of the
curriculum and teaching practices began to assemble their wagons almost as quickly
as it was mentioned that society needed equality in education. Some people in the
United States formed a group called the Committee for the Defense of History. This is
a paradoxical development because only lies, untruths, and inaccurate information
need defending. In their arguments against the Afrocentric perspective, these
proponents of Eurocentrism created artificial arguments in false categories and fake
terms (i.e., “pluralistic” and “particularistic” multiculturalism). As the late African
scholar Cheikh Anta Diop maintained: “African history and Africa need no defense.”[5]
Afrocentric education is not against history. It is for history that is correct, accurate
history, and if it is against anything, it is against the marginalization of Africans,
Asians, and Native Americans in North and South America. The Committee for the

Defense of History is nothing more than a futile attempt to buttress the crumbling
pillars of a white supremacist system that conceals its true motives behind the cloak
of American liberalism.

Naturally, different adherents to a theory will have different views on its meaning.
While two discourses presently are circulating about multiculturalism, only one is
relevant to the liberation of the minds of African and white people in the Americas and
that discourse is Afrocentricity: the acceptance of Africa as central to African people.
Yet, rather than getting on board with Afrocentrists to fight against white hegemonic
education, some whites (and some blacks as well) have opted to plead for a return to
the educational dinosaur age. Unfortunately for them, however, those days are gone,
and such misinformation can never be packaged as accurate, correct education
again. The resisters speak of two kinds of multiculturalism: pluralist multiculturalism
and particularist multiculturalism. They claim that Afrocentricity advances a
particularist multiculturalism. These imaginary divisions in multicultural perspectives
conceal the true identity of those who wish to advance white supremacy in education.

It was perhaps inevitable that the introduction of the Afrocentric idea would open
up the discussion of the school curriculum in a profound way. Why has Afrocentricity
created so much of a controversy in educational circles? The idea that an African
child is placed in a stronger position to learn if he or she is centered, that is, if the
child sees himself or herself within the content of the curriculum rather than at its
margins, is not novel. What is revolutionary is the movement from the idea
(conceptual stage) to its implementation in practice, when we begin to teach teachers
how to put African youth at the center of instruction. In effect, students are shown
how to see with new eyes and hear with new ears. African children learn to interpret
and center phenomena in the context of African heritage, while white students are
taught to see that their own centers are not threatened by the presence or
contributions of African Americans and others.

The character of the nation in which they are developed shapes institutions. Just
as crime and politics are different in different nations, so, too, is education. In the
United States a “whites-only” orientation has predominated in education. This has had
a profound impact on the quality of education for children of all races and ethnic
groups. The African American child has suffered disproportionately, but white children
are also the victims of mono-culturally diseased curricula. During the past five years,
many white students and parents have approached me after presentations with tears
in their eyes or expressing their anger about the absence of information about
Africans in schools. Few teachers can discuss with their students the significance of
the Middle Passage or describe what it meant or means to Africans. Little mention is
made in American classrooms of either the brutality of slavery or the ex-slaves’
celebration of freedom. American and Brazilian children have little or no understanding
of the nature of the capture, transport, and enslavement of Africans. Few have been
taught the true horrors of being taken, shipped naked across twenty-five days of
ocean, broken by abuse and indignities of all kinds, and dehumanized into a beast of
burden, a thing without a name. If our students only knew the truth, if they were

taught the Afrocentric perspective on the Great Enslavement, and if they knew the full
story about the events since slavery that have served to constantly dislocate Africans,
their behavior would perhaps be different.

Inequitable policies and practices veritably plagued the African people. No
wonder many persons of African descent attempt to shed their race and become
“raceless.” One’s basic identity is one’s self-identity, which is ultimately one’s cultural
identity; without a strong cultural identity, one is lost. Black children do not know their
people’s story and White children do not know the story, but remembrance is a vital
requisite for understanding and humility. This is why the Jews have campaigned (and
rightly so) to have the story of the European Holocaust taught in schools and
colleges. Teaching about such a monstrous human brutality should forever remind the
world of the women and children who were forced to pick cotton from “can’t see in
the morning ‘til can’t see at night,” until the blood ran from the tips of their fingers
where they were pricked by the hard boll; or if they were made to visualize their
ancestors in the burning sun, bent double with ways in which humans have often
violated each other. Teaching about the African Holocaust is just as important for
many of the same reasons. Certainly, if African children were taught to be fully aware
of the struggles of African ancestors they would find a renewed sense of purpose and
vision in their own lives. They would cease acting as if they have no past and no
future. For instance, if they were taught about the historical relationship of Africans to
the cotton, sugar, rice, and mining industries in both continents they would know how
men, constant stooping, and dragging rough, heavy sacks behind them-or picture
them bringing those sacks trembling to the scale, fearful of a sure flogging if they did
not pick enough cotton, perhaps our African youth would develop a stronger
entrepreneurial spirit. If white children were taught the same information rather than
that normally fed them about American slavery, they would probably view our society
differently and work to transform it into a better place.

Hegemonic education can exist only so long as true and accurate information is
withheld. Hegemonic Eurocentric education can exist only so long as whites maintain
that Africans and other non-whites have never contributed to world civilization. It is
largely upon such false ideas that invidious distinctions are made. The truth, however,
gives one insight into the real reasons behind human actions, whether one chooses to
follow the paths of others or not. For example, one cannot remain comfortable
teaching that art and philosophy originated in Greece if one learns that the Greeks
themselves taught that the study of these subjects originated in Africa, specifically
ancient Kemet.[6] The first philosophers were the Egyptians Kagemni, Khun-anup,
Ptahhotep, Kete, and Seti; but Eurocentric education is so disjointed that students
have no way of discovering this and other knowledge of the organic relationship of
Africa to the rest of human history. Not only did Africa contribute to human history,
African civilizations predate all other civilizations.[7] Indeed, the human species
originated on the continent of Africa, this is true whether one looks at either
archaeological or biological evidence. Two other notions must be refuted. There are
those who say that African American history should begin with the arrival of Africans

as slaves, but it has been shown that Africans visited and inhabited North and South
America long before European settlers “discovered” the “New World.” Secondly,
although America became something of a home for those Africans who survived the
horrors of the Middle Passage, their experiences on the slave ships and during
slavery resulted in their having an entirely different perspective about the Americas
from that of the Europeans who came, for the most part, of their own free will
seeking opportunities not available to them in their native lands. Afrocentricity
therefore seeks to recognize this divergence in perspective and create centeredness
for African students.

The reigning initiative for total curricular change is the Afrocentric movement that
has shaped discussions in education, art, fashion, and politics. Critics have claimed
incorrectly that Afrocentricity is anti-white; yet, if Afrocentricity as a theory is against
anything it is against racism, colorism, prejudice, ignorance, and mono-ethnic
hegemony in the curriculum. Afrocentricity is pro-human. Further, the aim of the
Afrocentric curriculum is not to divide Brazil or the United States, it is to make diverse
societies flourish, as they ought to flourish. Both nations have long been divided with
regard to the educational opportunities afforded to children. By virtue of the protection
provided by society and reinforced by the Eurocentric curriculum, the white child is
already ahead of the African child by first grade. Our efforts thus must concentrate on
giving the African child greater opportunities for learning at the kindergarten level.
However, the kind of assistance the African child needs is as much cultural as it is
academic. If the proper cultural information is provided, the academic performance
will surely follow suit. When it comes to educating African children, the Brazilian and
United States educational systems do not need tune-ups; they need an overhaul of
their educational engines. Educators must stop maligning Africans and Africa.

Afrocentricity may be the escape hatch Africans so desperately need to facilitate
academic success and break away from the cycle of mis-education and dislocation
that came with enslavement. By providing philosophical and theoretical guidelines and
criteria that are centered in an African perception of reality and by placing the African
child in his or her proper historical context and setting, the Afrocentric idea in
education revitalizes the curricula of schools in Brazil and the United States.

NOTES

1. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro. Washington: Associated
Publishers, l933. Hilliard would take up some of the issues later in his work, Asa G.
Hilliard, The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on African American Community
Socialization. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1995.
2. Woodson, l933, p. 7
3. Asante, An Afrocentric Manifesto. Cambridge: Polity Books, 2007.
4. See Molefi Kete Asante and Abu Abarry, eds., The African Intellectual Heritage.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996; also Molefi Kete Asante and Ama
Mazama, eds., The Encyclopedia of Black Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Publication.
5. In an interview with Molefi Kete Asante in December 20,1980, Diop told Asante
that Africa needed no defense; it only had to be advanced.
6. See Asante, Herodotus on Egypt. Philadelphia: Ramses, 2013.
7. See Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. New
York: Lawrence Hill, 1974.

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