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

historyplace.com ^ | 1996 | Mary Lefkowitz

[Bernard Marx]

Bump for bookmark.

[Godel]

My friend who went to community college had a teacher who spouted this propaganda. I really fear for the future when people are too intimidated of being called names by small minded jerks to speak the truth.

[Wordsmith]

or that Constantine was a Christian.

Hi Havoc. Try to keep this stuff on the Religion forum. This is too good an article to hijack by agitating for Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians to come in and defend St. Constantine.

[RLK]

"The entirety of Europe" was NOT always filled with such things.

------------------------------

My God, man, the entirity of no place on earth was always filled with such things. But in the areas I was ralking about was there anything such as Isaac Newton, Von Liebnitz, Alfred the Great, the Magna Carta, invention of the printing press, educational institutions, the Canterbury tales? You rell me you're a student of history. Maybe you should become a student of logic and reason.

[JoeSixPack1]

Good read!!

BTTT !!!!!!

[rdb3]

Maybe you should become a student of logic and reason.

Ha! I'm a software developer. Freelance (self-employed) at that. I wouldn't make a dollar if I didn't use "logic and reason."

This "logic and reason" just called attention to your misstatement. Don't be mad. It's okay.

Just remember, don't hate the player; hate the game!

Hate the game, my man.

[Havoc]

Scuse' wordsmith. If Catholics et al want to pretend it's just a swipe at them and knit pick the argument, they've been free to do so on the religion sub. It aint about religion. It's about how groups from all walks have abused history and rewritten it with preposterous notions to serve their own ends. That the Catholics happen to be religious has no real bearing on the issue at hand. If you want to make it a religious issue, you can take it to the religious threads. The History on Constantine speaks for itself when looking at the actual FACTS instead of the Popular notions.

This is what the author is speaking of and it is what I have attempted to expand upon in discussion. Knit pick that.

[RLK]

There was no misstatement. In evaluation of comparative history you can go back to the ice age in attempt to disprove there were significant differences 500 years or 1,000 years ago, but it won't get you anywhere with well ordered developed minds.

[Ciexyz]

I wonder if my alma mater Penn State is teaching these afrocentrist distortions.

When I was up there in Happy Valley, we had to take two courses in non-Western history, literature, religion or art history. I enjoyed the course in ancient Middle Eastern art. The civilizations of that period were magnificent, and there's no need to bolster their significance by suggesting that the Greeks stole their culture instead of developing their own.

[PatrickHenry]

This whole business of "stealing culture" is too weird for anyone to take seriously. If someone had stolen Aristotle's notes, so what? The thief would still be an idiot, and Aristotle would still be Aristotle. Similarly, if Greek culture had been stolen from others, the original culture would still be magnificent. But nothing comparable to the Greeks existed elsewhere. Feeding kids silly myths to pump up their self esteem just keeps them ignorant.

[Straight Vermonter]

In case you weren't aware, Spike Lee and others claim that Babe Ruth was black.

[denydenydeny]

Indexing.

[Skooz]

Excellent.

Bookmarked.

Thank you.

As someone who is obsessively passionate about history, this sort of shabby historiography is repulsive. I first became aware of this insanity as an undergrad history major in 1990. It sickened me then as it does now.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Greek philosophy was stolen from the Great Frisian Empire that was created later.

[general_re]

Looks like an accurate debunking to me.

It's a very good book - I'll loan you my copy ;)

In the interests of fair play, Martin Bernal's review of "Not Out Of Africa.

Mary Lefkowitz responds to Bernal.

[VadeRetro]

She would seem to be up against people who have the right to distort in a good cause. Where have I seen that before?

[hosepipe]

"This is too good an article to hijack by agitating for Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians to come in and defend "St. Constantine"."

Hijack! I see the the pot and the black kettle.....
You pushed a button(in me) there!.
You could do a whole thread or ten on whether Constantine was other than a Roman citizen.
I've been waiting for a thoughtful article de-bunking this sort of thing (Black history re-write). This one is very good I think. Scratching the surface no doubt. Course I've been gone from FR for awhile. Hmmm... will do some research here...

[general_re]

Where have I seen that before?

Hmmm. Lemme ponder that for a few microseconds ;)

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker. Bash the dems!!

[general_re]

Take back the Senate! Vote "R"!