Detailed Notes on Africa's Place in History and 'The Bell Curve' Debate

Chapter 2: The Place of Africa in History and Scholarship

Introduction

Western portrayals grossly misrepresent Africa's history and contributions.
Hegel's view of Africa as a land of "unredeemable savagery" persists.
Cornel West: "The notion that Black people are human beings is a relatively recent discovery in the Western world."
Ivan Van Sertima counters Hegel's view, publishing "They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America" in 1977.
Van Sertima's thesis: Africans traveled to the Americas before Columbus in 1492.
He also wrote "Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern," examining ancient African technological and scientific legacies.
Critics claim Van Sertima romanticizes ancient Africa and is Afrocentric.
Van Sertima teaches at Rutgers and edits "The Journal of African Civilizations."

Interview: Ramsamy and Van Sertima

Developing an Interest

Van Sertima's interest developed by accident.
Invited to read poetry for British Guiana's independence celebration.
Read Leo Wiener's "Africans and the Discovery of the Americas." Dismissed its argument initially.
Attacked Wiener's thesis, arguing it was built on fragile philology.
Said he would believe it if shown one convincing image of an African in the Americas before Columbus.

Encounter with Alexander Von Wuthenau

Charles Harris from Random House told him about John Williams meeting a German in Mexico.
The German, Alexander Von Wuthenau, collected pre-Columbian sculpture and art.
Von Wuthenau was initially in charge of the German embassy in Argentina but fled due to Nazi's Aryan demands.
He studied pre-Columbian culture and wrote "The Art of Terra Cotta Pottery in Pre-Columbian South and Central America," arguing for African influence.
Van Sertima realized Von Wuthenau knew nothing of linguistic evidence, and he knew nothing about the art evidence.
Multi-disciplinary approach needed to investigate African presence in pre-Columbian America.
Discovered botanical mysteries, like African plants in the Americas that couldn't have come by themselves.

Mandingo King Abu Bakari II

First book attempt dealt with Africans' 14th and 15th-century journeys.
Commissioned by Mandingo King Abu Bakari II of Mali.
A captain returned from an expedition, and Abu Bakari abdicated to lead another expedition.
Europeans, including Columbus, reported seeing Blacks in America.
Columbus noted that Native Americans in Haiti (Hispaniola) said Black-skinned people came from the south and southeast in boats, trading gold-tipped spears.
Columbus sent spear samples to Spain for assay.
The alloy was 18 parts gold, 6 parts silver, and 8 parts copper, of 32 parts.
Proportion identical to African Guinea spears; words used by Caribbean people for spears similar to African words.

Additional Evidence

Numerous Europeans wrote about African presence in the Americas.
Ferdinand Columbus reported his father seeing Blacks north of Honduras.
Vasco Nunez de Balboa saw two Black men captured by Native Americans near Darien (Panama) in 1513.
These men were very Black, different in stature and hair texture from Native Americans.
Peter Martyr suggested they were shipwrecked and took refuge in the mountains.
Alphonse de Quatrefages spoke of distinct Black tribes among Native Americans.
He mentions the Jamassi of Florida, and the Charruas of Brazil and cited a map showing independent Black settlements along South American coasts.
Fray Gregoria Garcia reports a Black presence off Cartagena, Colombia.

Botanical Evidence

Portuguese found cotton growing in West Africa before 1450 and introduced it to Cape Verde in 1462.
20th century discovery: cotton wasn't African at all.
Gossypium hirsutum var punctatum grown in pre-Columbian Caribbean and South America, not African.
Evidence of people returning to Africa from the Americas before Columbus.
Arabs documented these travels by Africans.

Pre-Christian Voyages

Stone head found at Tres Zapotes had African features and seven braids.
Similar heads found at La Venta made of wood.
La Venta platform dated to 814 BC $(\pm 134)$ years.
Van Sertima clarifies he never said Africans founded American cultures, only that they influenced them.

Reluctance to Accept the Thesis

Self-Despisement

People were trained to despise themselves and Africa.
Africans perceived as primitive with no science or contributions.
Looking at a looted, shattered Africa.
Didn't realize there were two Africas: before and after the holocausts.
American, French, and German scientists discovered African steel smelting machines in the last 25 years.
Peter Schmidt and Donald Avery showed African machines producing steel in the 5th century in Tanzania and Uganda.
Africans manufactured steel at temperatures of $2600$ degrees Fahrenheit.
African machines achieved higher steel production temperatures than any other machines at the time.
Africans used a single-stage process versus the European two-stage process, using less fuel.

Misconceptions About Africa

Puzzled why Africans were driven to fuel-saving tech in "jungle Africa."
UN study found Africa has less jungle than any other continent relative to area.
Africa had been mismeasured, Peterson projections show Africa being much larger than older McCarter projections.
NASA maps show Europe having more forestation than Africa (proper, not "Eurasia").
Arabs described the vastness of Africa.
The empire of Mali was larger than all the states of Western Europe, bordered by desert, jungle, Atlantic, and Songhai.
Europeans constructed the myth of "jungle Africa."

Advances and Discoveries

Chinese records show Africans brought elephants in ships to China 200 years before Columbus.
Africans made advances in astronomy and had observatories.
Lynch and Robins uncovered an observatory from 300 BC in northwest Kenya, with an accurate prehistoric calendar.
Africans domesticated cattle earlier than any other people; Africans began domesticating cattle about 15,000 years ago.
Africans first domesticated fire in Kenya about 1.4 million years ago.
European fantasies and anthropology portrayed Africans as primitive and gave Europe all the credit for civilization.

Testimony Before Congress

Columbus' Quincentennial

Invited to testify before Congress on the Columbus Quincentennial controversy.
Lectures influenced views on the Quincentennial.
Addressed why Columbus' stumble into the Caribbean shouldn't be called a discovery.
Columbus himself suggested Africans were in the Americas before him.

Evidence from European Narratives

Evidence primarily comes from European narratives.
There were no Blacks trying to prove they came to America.
The idea of "discovery" is absurd. Native Americans shipwrecked in Europe, but no one claimed Americans "discovered" Europe!
Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean was accidental, intending to go to India.
He called the Caribbean Sea the "Gulf of the Ganges," Cuba a continent, and South America an island.
Columbus didn't know where he was going, when he got there, or where he had been when he returned.
The word "Carib" meant "foreigners" and was used by Native Americans to describe Europeans.

Impact of Testimony

Testimony led the Congressional Committee to advise against using the word "discovery" because it is insulting.
The Bahamas were included in the celebration.
Led to the awareness that there were no Native Americans and few Blacks on the Commission.
Emphasis shifted to celebrating the meeting and mixing of peoples, creation of a New World people, and the birth of "Latino" identity.
Idea that one person discovers another is absurd; various peoples have advanced at various times and places.

Characterizations and Responses

Nationalism and Afrocentrism

Addressed characterizations as a "nationalist" and "Afrocentric."
Believes races can take pride in achievements without losing a sense of shared humanity.
Not a "nationalist" in the sense of believing in racial superiority.
Race is a social construction, not a biological fact.
Revolution in thinking involves militancy; certain excesses are expected and understandable.
His thought is informed by living on four continents.
His scholarship is about recovering and reconstructing the best in African history to resist Eurocentric visions.
Extremism is present in any revolution.

Afrocentricity Defined

Afrocentricity understood in the context of Eurocentricity.
Eurocentricity is the belief that Europe is the be-all and end-all.
Afrocentricity, taken to extremes, would lead to the same sort of conceit and fantasy.
Has an Afrocentric perspective to correct the distortions of Eurocentricity.
Hopes for a new, balanced consciousness without Afrocentricity or Eurocentricity once Eurocentricity is corrected.
Emphasizes things African to bring about a balanced world view.
Aims to deflate Europeans' exaggerated pride without realizing how much credit they owe the rest of the world.

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution not purely a European development.
Without the Moors, Europe wouldn't have had cotton, rice, and various other agricultural products.
The Moors profoundly affected European classical music.
First major books in European universities were books of the Moors.
Numbers (0,1,2,3) are not European.

Blacks in Science Criticism

Responds to critics like Gross and Levitt who call his work a falsification of science.
Almost half the authors in his book are European.
Asks whether Lynch and Robbins or Schmidt and Avery are Afrocentric.
Schmidt and Avery tested iron smelting machines in Tanzania and verified higher temperatures than European machines.
John Pappademos, a Greek who studied Greek and Egyptian history, has shown the interaction between the two civilizations.
Critics haven't read his work properly.
Prejudices masquerading as scholarship freeze the intellect and capacity for vision.
His objective is to show that the African is no fool, not a superman.

Paradox Claim

Responds to the claim that there is a paradox in his school of thought.
Black Africa played a role in European development, yet he blames Europe for the ills of Africa.
This is considered a stupid argument.
Uses analogy of giving shoes to walk and catching a germ in one's toe.

Martin Bernal's Black Athena

Speaks on Martin Bernal's "Black Athena."
Bernal shows Greeks recognized African contributions to civilization.
Europeans created an "Aryan" model that assumed Greeks did it all.
Greeks paid homage to early Egyptians, who were African.
Egypt no longer African because of massive movements of people.
Syrians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Arabs interacted with and integrated with the African population.
Bernal criticized for assuming Egyptian civilization was a mulatto.
Mixing of races occurred later.

African Phenotypes

Africans have at least six phenotypes.
There is the elongated variant, the Nilotic variant, and the so-called "true Negro," which accounts for less than 50% of pure-blooded Africans.
Archaeologists assumed Egyptians were "Caucasoid" due to narrow noses, even with "Negroid" hair.
Dry, hot climates give rise to narrow noses, not just cold, icy climates.
Argued that African achievements were due to blending with "superior" races.

Smithsonian Address

Invited to deliver an address at the Smithsonian in 1991.
The Smithsonian produced a book with his essay selling for $42$ .
The book is not well-advertised.
Scientists at the forum were surprised at the amount of evidence on the African presence in the Americas.
He presented his controversial thesis for an hour and a half.
The Smithsonian had meetings to decide whether to invite him to speak.
An Englishman compared his thesis to "flying saucers and now, transatlantic Negroes."
It took about sixteen years before they invited me to speak.

Current Intellectual Pursuits

Has edited 18 issues of the Journal of African Civilizations.
Now wants to produce study guides for teachers and students.
Supports scholarship and the revolution of ideas.
Interested in the change of the human being, looking closely at centuries of myths and what people have done.
Not confined to a racial or racist attitude; involved in the change of the human being.
This change can only come about by looking closely over the centuries of myths, looking closely at what people have done, and not just concentrating on one race or group and its achievements.

Chapter 9: Scientific Racism and the Culture Wars

Introduction

Attention given to "The Bell Curve" by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray.
Revisits race, class, and intelligence disputes through biological determinism.
Socio-economic differences result from inherited, inborn distinctions.
Asserts a correlation between social problems and low intelligence.
Echoes "Social Darwinism": genetically inferior poor underclass.

The Bell Curve's Purpose

Reveals transformation creating a new class structure led by a "cognitive elite".
Perpetuation of a class deficient in abilities, doomed to labor outside the information economy.
James Reed is a historian on the American birth control movement.
Discusses how the debate over group intelligence reflects the attack on social programs and the welfare state.
Scientific racism has been used to justify the status quo.