Last week, the campus community was abuzz with healthy, civilized debate about, well, civilization. Last Monday, Professor Mary Lefkowitz from Wellesley College in Massachusetts discussed Afro-Egyptian influence on Greek civilization in her lecture “The Origins of Greek Civilization: The Afrocentric Theory.” She was followed by Khallid Adbul Muhammad who asserted that Greeks and Europeans stole Egyptian history in his lecture “Not out of Europe: Too Black. Too proud.”

Is history Eurocentric? Lefkowitz and her colleagues would say no. They point out that our American traditions owe much more to the influences of the Europeans and Greeks than they owe to Benin, Mali or Songhai. Also, they recognize that Europe is not a single culture just as Africa is not a single culture. The French and British would damn you for even suggesting they share the same culture: They most certainly do not. But they do share some things such as a monotheistic religion and a Roman-based alphabet..

But Afrocentric teachers conclude that European ideas came from Africa, and most importantly, black Africa, where whites corrupted these ideas of civilization and distorted history. These teachers also conclude that whites continue to cover up the achievements that black Africa had on today’s society. They say that white students have an immediate grounding with history in elementary schools because they learn mainly about white inventions, philosophers and other history makers. Black students are at a disadvantage because they do not have this connection. They believe that Afrocentric historical revisionism is key to developing a collective black self-esteem.

Poppycock.

I don’t feel any more connected to history or “proud to be white” because of Newton, Locke or Edison. And I’m quite embarrassed that my German ancestry includes people like Mengle and Hitler. Remember the Soviet Union? Their “historians” claimed that Soviets invented everything from the telephone to the baseball. It didn’t seem to do much good to their collective esteem.

Now let’s discuss black studies professor Leonard Jeffries from New York. Jeffries is a favorite of mine because his conclusions are so absurd. He and Francis Welsing divide people into two groups. The “Ice People” come from Europe and are greedy and war-like. From Africa come the “Sun People” who are generous and communal.

This man is a professor?

Why are Ice People greedy and war-like? Because they lack the skin pigment melanin, of course. Melanin is responsible for turning our skin dark. Neuromelanin exists in the brain (but scientists have proven that levels of neuromelanin are almost the same in all humans; see Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 1993). Does this theory suggest that skin color determines disposition? Some blacks are darker than others. Are the darker-skinned blacks more likely to donate money? Are the lighter-skinned black children less likely to share their toys?

Of course not. Jeffries’ intellectual segregation is a step backward in race on par with Murray & Hernstein’s Bell Curve and the theory of eugenics. This is simply a bunch of racist crap. Other Afrocentrists use Egypt and the concept of Egypt as a black-ruled, all-black society with all the good inventions coming from black Egyptians. Well …

Egypt was not black. Nor was it white. Nicholas Davidson, an archaeologist from New York, says that of the thousands of mummies found in Egypt, few are black. Ramses the Great, one of Egypt’s mightiest rulers, has straight hair and an aquiline nose.

Davidson further states that foreigners of many nationalities appear in Egyptian art. Hittites, Canaanites, Philistines, Greeks, Hottentots and others were “painstakingly depicted with their distinctive hairstyles, clothing, accoutrements and skin color. Blacks, on the relatively rare occasions when they appear, are depicted with coal black skin. Unmistakably Negroid hair and facial features are visible in many of these depictions…On the relatively rare occasions when blacks appear in Egyptian art, they are commonly depicted as defeated enemies, mercenary soldiers, or slaves.” (National Review, Feb. 25, 1991)

And here’s something interesting: Martin Bernal, a white, government professor at Cornell University, published a four-volume series titled “Black Athena.” In it he offers evidence that much of Greek civilization evolved out of Egyptian civilization, seemingly strengthening the arguments of Afrocentrists. But because Bernal insists that the Semites (who inhabited Syrio-Lebanon) had a rudimentary influence on Greek culture, his reception by the Afrocentrists has been lukewarm (Newsweek, Sep. 23, 1991).

In effect, the Afrocentrists are denying another cultures’ influence on what they claim to be theirs; basically doing what they accuse the Eurocentrists of.

The implications of the Egyptians conquering Greece. Greek legends say that Egyptian and Phoenician conquerors ruled all or parts of Greece until the late 15th or 14th century B.C. They then forced their technologies and ways on the Greeks. Doesn’t this sound like colonialism? All Afrocentrists will tell you that colonialism is evil. It’s hard to claim that the Greeks took the Egyptian idea of government and then somehow “corrupted” it when the Egyptians themselves had corrupt practices.

Here, we enter a great quandary in Afrocentrist thought: If the Western idea of civilization is so wrong, why do the Afrocentrists want so much credit for it?

The Oliver Stone Method of Proof. Many Afrocentric notions cannot be proved. When Dr. Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan delivered the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial lecture at Wellesley College in 1993, he said that Aristotle acquired his philosophy by stealing ideas from the lighthouse at Alexandria. This idea comes from George G.M. James’s 1954 work, The Stolen Legacy.

When Lefkowitz pointed out that the library had not been finished until years after Aristotle’s death, she was shouted down as a racist who had been brainwashed by white historians. Ben-Jochannan never offered proof of his assertion, but most scholars agree with Leftkowitz (The Lighthouse, designed by Greek architect Sostratos, was built in 270 B.C.; Aristotle died in 322 B.C.), other Afrocentrists claim that Socrates and Beethoven were black. You disagree and ask them for proof? You’ll get little. This is their logic: The absence of proof for a proposition is proof proof of a successful conspiracy to destroy all proof.

Classic Oliver Stone.

The facts are that nothing exists in a vacuum. Modern ideas of civilization probably culminated in Sumeria with the coming of agriculture. As trade intensified in this region, people moved to and fro, brought with them new ideas and related what they had seen in other lands to other people.

I’m confident that with Egypt’s proximity to Greece and the Middle East ideas of all sorts were exchanged. And, through time, these ideas were modified and built upon. The Romans, whom the Greeks considered barbarians, stole much of their ideas from the Greeks and far surpassed the Greeks’ achievements. The Arabs did the same.

Today, ideas travel the globe at a pace never before seen in the history of civilization. This often gives people little time to reflect on their validity and true motives. If Afrocentric teachings are to be considered a real discipline, then they are subject to the same academic scrutiny as every other subject.

Unfortunately for students, professors and the general public, many are afraid to speak out against ridiculous notions such as those from Jeffries or neo-Lamarkian ideas of whites pallid and crabbed from living in caves for too long.

It is true that racism exists in academia. But it has been generally agreed that reason can defeat racism which is nothing more than ignorance. It would be quite a shame if reason were cast out of the equation in the search for self-esteem. Elementary classrooms shou
ld focus on basic skills; that’s what builds pride.

Let the truth shine on the injustices of racists in history. But let it be known that society has a duty not to allow the supplanting of racist Eurocentrism with racist Afrocentrism.

Two separate versions of history will never lead to a common destiny.

H.A. Loudermilk, Opinion Editor of The Daily Aztec, will gladly supply all documentation used in this column to anyone who asks. His e-mail address is alouderm@mail.sdsu.edu.