Africology: Opposition

Africology as a discipline contended with several common oppositions during the last decade of the 20th century. In some ways it was to be expected that a new discipline would confront numerous challenges as other disciplines sought to assert their orthodoxy. However, the opponents of the discipline sought to discredit Africology in three strikes: (1) political association, (2) false attribution, and (3) intellectual dismissal. If they could get three strikes against Africology, then they could put Africologists out of the field. Strike one was to avoid a discussion of Africology or Afrocentricity, the theory that supports the discipline, by focusing instead on naive and extreme black nationalist spokespeople at the height of their popularity and calling them, as well as other blacks who articulated strictly antiwhite positions, Afrocentrists. The objective was to make those who challenged the dominance of white racial ideologies in the academy appear to be irrational.

Africology did not guarantee the racial characteristics, religious choices, or sexual leanings of its practitioners and adherents any more than sociology, literary criticism, or philosophy guaranteed theirs. The claim that any antiestablishment person who speaks against anti-Africanism is an Africologist or Afrocentrist was thought by Black Studies scholars to show intellectual ignorance at worst and intellectual dishonesty at best. An orator may be pro–African American, but being pro–African American does not make the orator an Afrocentrist. If it did, then all members of the NAACP's board would be Afrocentrists.

Since Africology is a discipline, it demands rigorous training and severe critiques. A person cannot assume that he or she is an Africologist by virtue of expressing a willingness to support Afrocentric approaches to phenomena. It is necessary to master the language, orientation, techniques, research methods, and concepts of the field of Africology in order to declare competence in the discipline.

A second strike against Africology was false attribution, that is, claiming something to be Africology that was not. For instance, claiming that melanin theory (which espouses the essentialist value of biology) and Africology are the same is false attribution. The melanists believe in some special or particular chemical or spiritual power that is inherited through the genes and glands and that affects African people differently than it affects others. The Africologist, who is a person looking at phenomena from an Afrocentric point of view, would admit that people have inherited different combinations of chemicals but would argue against attributing any special advantage to individuals because of biological essentialism. Africologists believe that the power equation in society relates to the aggregates of human political and economic relations over a period of time. [Page 62]Nevertheless, in addition to linking Africology to melanin theory, the opposition has made other false accusations against Africology whose principal purpose was to undermine the discipline.

The third strike against Africology was meant to be its intellectual dismissal. This was the tactic chosen by the English writer Stephen Howe, the American writer Mary Lefkowitz, and the half-English and half-Ghanaian writer Anthony Appiah. But those of the intellectual dismissal school have found it difficult to simply dismiss the Afrocentric study of African phenomena, because the theory finds its source and strength in the historical and cultural realities of African people. Africologists generally seek to create opportunities for solid scientific advances by basing ideas on sound social principles. Thus Africology, as a relatively new discipline, has retained the energy of its founders and has become an increasingly powerful tool for analysis.

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