Until the Story of the hunt is told by the Lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter–African Proverb
Progressive African History maintains that African people should be agents of their own history and the dominant voice in African history. This history must conform to the African cultural paradigm while at the same time meeting the highest threshold of good scholarship. This however is separate from continuous viewing history through the political or racial lens. History must be looked at in connection to our modern day social dynamic but it must also be weighted within its time period. We must not superimpose modern thesis onto ancient history.
While there is a natural bias inherent in all interpretation of historical events so the primary objective must be:
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To seek truth
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To learn from the past
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To absorb the spirit of human possibility
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To honor the moral obligation to remember
Media has generally been very derogatory of African people. The African voice, culture and history is shown through European eyes. In order for equality to be served all people must begin to freely tell their stories and must own and control these stories. Self-determination demands that people be active agents in how their image and history is represented in a multicultural World. Culture and history are the property of a people, it is a birth right.
If every day an African from birth sees a casual asoociation in the forumula of:
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White = Success = Wealth = Intelligent
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Everything in media reinforces this, everything in the business environment backs this up. Even religious images confirm the supposed divine racial hierarchy of the European race. Now When Africa is conjured up we get the following equation
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Africa/Blackness = Poor = Backward = Dependent = No Power = No Value
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The final relationship between Blackness and Whiteness is therefore
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White > Black
This entire formula is encoding in the global images which are the key source of information and the root of an inferiority complex. The challenge therefore is in the images and knowledge of self.
The key to uplifting the African psyche and spirit starts in understanding and formulating an authentic discourse into both history and culture. The question of ownership and control becomes central as it is vulgar for the art, history, culture, memory of a people to be constantly repackaged and owned by Europeans. Its speaks to the gross continuing oppression of the African Holocaust.
