User talk:Kspence

Welcome!

I am an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University. I specialize in Black Politics, Race and Politics, Urban Politics, Public Opinion/Political Behavior, American Political Thought, and African American Studies. My entries reflect my expertise and my interests.

Afrocentrism

Hello! In resonse to your message:

1. Always remember to 'sign' your emssages (as explained in the Welcome message that I've added above); it makes it much easier to find and reply to you..
   1. Thanks! I will.
2. I'm not sure which edits you're referring to; were you the anon 68.34.46.62 (talk · contributions)? If so, then your comments about Mary Lefkowitz, for example, very clearly go against Wikipedia policy (see below).
   1. Lefkowitz' work doesn't contain a single reference to Afrocentricity that indicates that she read the work. When presenting critiques, we've got to work with critics that have grappled with the work itself. It would have been better to delete reference to her, and I think I did that in the next version.
3. I'm afraid that I have reverted your edits to the Afrocentrism article; as +sj points out, it's important to discuss potentially controversial issues before making edits, but you should also read documents such as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view before making substantial edits. Calling Toynbee a white supremacist is not only inaccurate but very definitely non-neutral, for example.
   1. But in the context of the sentence it was accurate. Toynbee noted that the black race had never contributed anything to civilization, and that African rhythm was exotic and uncivilized. His comments should not be viewed as authoritative related to Egypt specifically, or to Africa, should they? There are several non-racist scholars with strong critiques of Afrocentricity, and of the scholarly trend that the Afrocentrists consider themselves a part of. Toynbee isn't one of them. But again, what I should have done here was simply delete the reference.
4. Don't let this put you off contributing to Wikipedia, though. We all made mistakes (some bigger than yours) when we first started, and I doubt that there are many editors who haven't had their edits reverted. The key is to discuss the issues and to be prepared to learn Wikipedia policy and style. Happy editing! Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:42, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
   1. Thanks!!

My mistake

I started writing to your user page instead of your to Talk page; sorry. I've now switched them to the right places. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:06, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Afrocentrism rewrite

I agree with your edit that the central thrust of Afrocentrism "is the desire to re-center scholarship about black men and women." It is certainly more on target than defining who is and is not black.

I'd walked away from this article some time ago in the face of ongoing frustrating exchanges with other contributors who are wedded to the white supremacist, Eurocentric paradigm of world history.

An earlier, long-since reverted version I wrote some time ago read: "Afrocentrism is a worldview or perspective that is centered on Africa and Africans. Afrocentric scholarship attempts to shift the study and evaluation of world history and civilization from a traditionally Western, Eurocentric paradigm — that is, one that treats primarily white or European contributions and posits Greco-Roman beginnings of Western civilization — to one that treats primarily black Africa and black contributions and posits black Egyptian beginnings of Western civilization."

Not perfect by far (for my money, "black" and "African" are synonymous), but I believe you and I are on the same track. I've only just recently returned to this piece, and I'm not really heavily involved in it at the moment. If you'll visit some of the archived discussion, you will see what I'd been dealing with. Barlow took over the article from some of the more knee-jerk contributors (among them a particularly and openly racist individual) and, I think, tried to incorporate some of my comments about earlier Afrocentric scholarship -- but the treatment of that subject is still basically, IMO, fairly limited.

The only problem I see with your earlier revision is that it is part of a paragraph dealing specfically with Egypt. The statement you edited was meant as a lead-in to a discussion of black identity and ancient Egypt, and the blackness of Egypt in ancient times is, indeed, a central point of Afrocentric Egyptian scholarship. So, IMO, in fact, the statement you edited should have been reverted -- but tweaked to state that salient point more accurately. Your assertion, I think, as my earlier definition of "Afrocentrism" once did, should appear at the beginning of the article, as it speaks to the general nature of the paradigm/approach and not solely to Egyptian scholarship. (I haven't read much of this since Barlow's rewrite.)

With regard to the introductory definition of Afrocentrism as it now stands, I have a problem with defining Afrocentrism in the context of some kind of therapeutic, post Civil Rights Movement grinding axe. After all, Afrocentrism didn't start with Asante. Further, I think some of his pronouncements about Afrocentrism are valid, but ancillary -- neither central, nor relevant to true scholarship. That Afrocentrism adds a "justice" component of sorts to the search for truth, and that it can be a tool for empowerment -- these are simply important bonuses. Personally, I like Van Sertima's approach -- that he is a historian, first and foremost, and that facts are facts. The man doesn't even really consider himself an Afrocentrist per se.

Welcome to the article -- and to the Wikipedia project. Your expertise is much needed -- here and in other articles, as well. Because when it comes to matters related to black people, Wikipedia is one hell of an ignorant, white-bread, and often hostile, place. Peace 2 u. :) deeceevoice 02:17, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I just really read the current definition of Afrocentrism, and it seems at least a portion of my revision still stands. Before, the text said, "Afrocentric history is a view of history centered on the social and political concerns of various African peoples and their descendants." (What on earth does that mean?):p I suppose my primary objection now to the lead paragraph is the stuff about black education, etc., etc. That's Asante talking and, IMO, it's clap-trap in the sense of defining the approach. This information belongs elsewhere in discussing the history of the phenomenon because of the impression it conveys that Afrocentrism is some kind of intellectual/historiographical mumbo-jumbo dreamed up to heal the wounds of racism and white supremacy. deeceevoice 11:04, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think I understand why you deleted Lefkowitz, but on a website such as Wikipedia, such an approach is simply untenable. You may rewrite the passage, if you wish -- but you can't delete it completely. I think Lefkowitz is a lightweight, that she fails utterly to address the central issues of Afrocentrism; but she's who white folks think of when they think "Afrocentrism = militant, reverse-racist, myth-making, crackpot pseudo-history." She's the eurocentrists' great white hope -- and about as effective as that other one, too. :p deeceevoice 17:32, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I understand your point of view. Perhaps I should restart a section in talk about her. She talks about Afrocentrism but is not an expert on it by any means. There are people who are against the concept who at least have written reasonable critiques of it. She isn't one of them. --Lester Spence 22:52, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Almost forgot. What was your rationale for removing Martin Bernal from the list? deeceevoice 17:34, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The section should probably read "people associated with Afrocentrism" and then I could have kept Bernal on there. Technically Van Sertima doesn't refer to himself as an Afrocentrist. But rather than change the heading, I just took off the person that didn't fit the most. --Lester Spence 22:52, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Let me be clearer. Neither Bernal nor Van Sertima are Afrocentrists. They do not refer to themselves as Afrocentrists--and in fact Bernal emphatically emphasizes this, even though he is sympathetic to the Afrocentric project. The only people that should be listed on that list are those who actively refer to themselves as Afrocentrists and/or people thought to be Afrocentrist by those in the field. And while I understand what the norms are regarding deleting, I argue that deletions should be undertaken when they enhance the entry. In this case, Lefkowitz has published work on Greece, but she is not an expert on either Africa in general or on Egypt. Indeed, reading her work it is apparent that she hasn't read any of the Afrocentric corpus outside of STOLEN LEGACY. While including a section on criticisms is important, it is far more important that we include criticisms from people actually familiar with the literature. --Lester Spence 22

10, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Neoconservatism in the United States

Hi Lester, I believe your comment on my Talk: page is referring to the article Neoconservatism in the United States. Unfortunately, I know little about the topic itself; my only edit to the page was to revert some vandalism by an IP editor. I hope you have success in working out the issue you are having. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:42, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Afrocentricity and Molefi Asante

Hi Lester, I saw Asante's name come up on Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks, and worked up a bit on him based in part on the Afrocentricity article. If you get a chance, want to take a look at it? I've just put in the biographic outline and an expansion of his central ideas is much needed; this looks like something you'd be much better at than me.

As a consequence I removed a bit of detail about Asante's history from Afrocentricity (the parts not directly bearing on the theory). I also wikified the language a bit while I was there and put in some links.

Thanks for putting up this article! It's become obvious to me that the Wikiproject on Systemic Bias is badly needed and it's good to see somebody working to help it. I'm going to start seeing what I can do to pitch in myself. Best, Dvyost 20:25, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for informing me about this aspect of Wikipedia as I was unaware of it. I'll take a look! --Lester Spence 18:37, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

editing of redirect

I assume that you know more about this than me. I think they did the same thing with postmodernity and postmodernism.--Urthogie 22:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes it looks like they did. Makes a great deal of sense. Thanks! --Lester Spence 22:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

great edits, but one suggestion

You've been doing some great work on Wikipedia. One thing I've noticed though is you dont seem to have the wiki-syntax and style down sharp(I'm inferring this based on the fact that Afrocentricity lacks headings and whatnot). If you want to learn how to stylize articles, you can read the short version at Wikipedia:How to edit a page, or the long version at the Wikipedia:Manual of style. If you have any questions regarding this or anything else, please don't hesitate to ask. Peace, --Urthogie 14:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)