At 06:04 PM 4/20/99 +0000, you wrote:
>
>On Fri, 2 Apr 1999 10:13:49 -0800 Louise Hitchcock
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Cze wrote:
>>
>> >I'm glad someone brought up Black Athena, because I am pretty bummed about
>> >the extremely simplistic way some of the ideas have been applied in
>> >teaching. Of course we are all way over the 19thC - Nazi idea that
Germans
>> >are good because Aryans are the ancient Greeks. But is it so much better
>> >to say that American black people are good *because* Africans are the
>> >ancient Greeks? Bernal's problems aside, that seems to shift the whole
>> >geographic resonance issue quite unjustifiably, and fades the "real"
>> >Africa(s) out while privileging Greece.
>>
>> I've been teaching an upper division cultural pluralism class on BA for
>> several years now. BA, Afrocentrism, and the issues surrounding it aren't
>> about saying African Americans (AA's) are good because the ancient Greeks
>> were African. This is an oversimplification.
>
><snip>
>> Louise
>>
Christine wrote:
>How can anyone say that by descent from the ancient Greeks
>they are "good". While the Greeks are acknowledged as great
>philosophers and mathematicians they reason that they had
>leisure for such pursuits was their slave-based economy.
>
Dear Christine
I'm not sure how Cze would respond (It's my citing of her you are
responding to, not me), but as I said this is an oversimplification.
African Americans are upset about being excluded from history. This
exclusion has resulted in the Afrocentric movement which has made some
problematic historical claims. We do tend to overfetishize Ancient Greece,
treating it as the birth place of democracy without realizing that the
right to vote in Athens was restricted to male, Athenian citizens and that
the monuments of Athens were financed through the exploitation of Athens'
allies (the Delian League).
Louise Hitchcock
Louise A. Hitchcock, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies
UCLA
(310)825-9639
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