Homework Question #2

Of the three readings I definitely believe Asante has the most radical views about Blackness and what black’s need to do to reclaim it. In Asante’s opinion “Afrocentricity”, the relocation of African persons to the center of their culture, Africa, is the only way the remove “European anti-African racism from black minds.” Throughout the essay Asante keeps pushing this idea that since the slave trade blacks have been losing and essentially have completely lost their cultural footprint and the only way to regain it is to start all over and “return to the source of their minds.” I’m not sure I agree with Asante, I definitely believe there are ways we can fix this issue from home. From what I got from the essay, Asante pretty much blames Europeans for all the turmoil and pain regarded and lack of self-identity Blacks have and that they have stripped blacks of their culture and brainwashed them with thoughts of insignificance.

West, Hooks, and Hall all have more realistic views in Blackness, how we got to where we are and how to fix it. As many have already stated the readings were a little difficult to comprehend but I think that comes from an inclusion of insignificant details within the essays. They elaborate unnecessarily. For example West I felt went on for a while about the European timeline and how their up times and down times directly affected the status of Blacks. West felt the demise of the age of Europe resulted in the United States as a world power. The boosted moral led to ideas of decolonization that fueled many liberal movements, i.e. the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. Unlike Asante, West elaborates most on where we were than how we can change things to get to where we want to be.

I thought Postmodern Blackness was the easiest to comprehend but I agreed mostly with what Hall had to say. His theory that “the idea of Black is a political and culturally constructed category” really stood out to me. That theory is pretty much the main idea of the essay. I also really agree with Hall’s idea of the simplification of the black experience and how simply combating negative images with positives ones isn’t enough.

To sum it all up, I’d say the main difference between Asante and the other authors is that Asante offers the clearest solution but the fueling factors of that solution stem more from an emotional rather than a realistic or political standpoint.