{"id":40573,"date":"2015-03-23T01:41:01","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T01:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40573"},"modified":"2015-03-23T01:41:41","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T01:41:41","slug":"deconstructing-pseudo-scientific-anthropology-antenor-firmin-and-the-reconceptualization-of-african-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40573","title":{"rendered":"Deconstructing Pseudo-Scientific Anthropology: Ant\u00e9nor Firmin and the Reconceptualization of African Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deconstructing Pseudo-Scientific Anthropology: Ant\u00e9nor Firmin and the Reconceptualization of African Humanity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Journal of Pan African Studies<\/a>
\nVolume 7, Number 2, August 2014<\/a>
\npages 9-33<\/p>\n

Gershom Williams<\/strong>, Adjunct Professor of African-American History and African-American Studies
\nMesa Community College, Mesa, Arizona<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe science of inequality is emphatically a science of White people. It is they who have\u00a0invented it, and set it going, who have maintained, cherished and propagated it, thanks to their\u00a0observations and their deductions.\u201d \u2013Jean Finot<\/a>, Race Prejudice<\/em><\/a> (1907)<\/p>\n

\u201cA preponderance of (fossil) and genetic evidence has revealed, virtually beyond a doubt, that\u00a0the same Europeans who created the idea of race and White supremacy are the genetic progeny\u00a0of the very Africans they devalued.\u201d \u2013Salim Muwakkil<\/a>, Chicago Tribune<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n

Euro-American ideas and assumptions regarding African innate inferiority and racial inequality\u00a0are central to the pseudo-scientific \u2018race myth\u2019 of White supremacy. In their search to find an\u00a0expedient explanation, rationalization and justification for the horrific holocaust of enslavement,\u00a0Europeans and later White Americans developed the international thesis and concept of African\u00a0biological and intellectual inferiority.<\/p>\n

In this exploratory essay, I am endeavoring to present a critical review of the anti-racist,\u00a0vindicationist tradition of African American and Haitian intellectuals who challenged, rejected\u00a0and refuted the \u2018scientific racism\u2019 of Euro-American ethnologists, Egyptologists<\/a>,\u00a0anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and physicians.<\/p>\n

In another essay that we discuss in the contents of this manuscript, anti-racist theorists Stepan\u00a0and Gilman argue that those stigmatized and stereotyped by the ideology of \u2018scientific racism\u2019\u00a0published prolific counter narratives that remain obscured and unrecognized by the historians of\u00a0mainstream science.<\/p>\n

What did the men and women of African descent in the diaspora, categorized by the biological,\u00a0medical and anthropological sciences as racially inferior have to say about the matter? How did\u00a0they respond to the charges and claims made about them in the name of science? In seeking to\u00a0provide credible answers to the latter questions, we are re-visiting the powerful and illuminating\u00a0publications by Black American and Haitian writers of the pre-Ant\u00e8nor Firmin<\/a> era which are\u00a0viable proof of the vindicationist tradition inherent among diasporan Black intellectuals. This\u00a0school or community of literate intellectuals boldly offers a passionate and consistent rhetoric of\u00a0resistance to economic and psychological enslavement and the mis-education of their people.<\/p>\n

This essay remembers and pays homage to those public intellectuals of the early and late\u00a0nineteenth century who dared to disagree with popular opinion and proceeded to debate the\u00a0dangerous discourse of race and the fallacy of White supremacy. Central to our narrative are the\u00a0names and voices of David Walker<\/a>, Lydia Maria Child<\/a>, Frederick Douglass<\/a>, Martin R. Delaney<\/a>\u00a0and George Washington Williams<\/a>. All of the aforementioned writers preceded the publication of\u00a0Haitian scholar and statesmen Joseph Ant\u00e8nor Firmin\u2019s The Equality of the Human Races<\/em><\/a> in\u00a01885. Haitian anthropologist, Egyptologist, Pan-Africanist and politician J. Ant\u00e8nor Firmin did\u00a0not rise out of an intellectual vacuum to conduct study and research for his massive and\u00a0masterful manuscript.<\/p>\n

As I attempt to demonstrate in this paper, there is a long standing pre and post Firmin intellectual\u00a0tradition in the United States and Haiti during the early nineteenth and continuing throughout the\u00a0twentieth century. Like many of the intellectuals already mentioned, Ant\u00e8nor Firmin (a\u00a0descendant of the Haitian intellectual Maroons) obviously did not possess an inferiority complex.\u00a0He was not intellectually intimidated by the dominant thinking and behavior of the advocates of\u00a0racial ranking and hierarchy.<\/p>\n

A bold and brilliant thinker, he re-envisioned and re-conceptualized the image and pre-colonial\u00a0cultural heritage of African descended people. Lastly, my essential purpose in presenting this\u00a0paper is to convey to the reader(s) that prior to the invention and propagation of the \u2018race myth\u2019,\u00a0the concept and belief in Black inferiority was non-existent.<\/p>\n

As classicist historian Frank M. Snowden<\/a> Jr. writes in his iconic text, Before Color Prejudice:\u00a0<\/em>The Ancient View of Blacks<\/em><\/a>, \u201c\u2026Nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern\u00a0times existed in the ancient world. This is the view of most scholars who have examined the\u00a0evidence and who have come to conclusions such as these: The ancients did not fall into the\u00a0error of biological racism; Black skin color was not a sign of inferiority\u2026\u201d (Snowden 1983: 63)\u00a0By confronting and deconstructing the multitude of racial myths and stereotypes fashioned by\u00a0Euro-Americans centuries ago, Ant\u00e8nor Firmin and others who believed in liberty, equality and\u00a0fraternity could dismantle and destroy the foundational pillars of scientific racism. It is indeed\u00a0instructive to remember what anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits<\/a> stated a half century ago.\u00a0\u201c\u2026The myth of the Negro (African) past is one of the principal supports of race prejudice in this
\ncountry…\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deconstructing Pseudo-Scientific Anthropology: Ant\u00e9nor Firmin and the Reconceptualization of African Humanity The Journal of Pan African Studies Volume 7, Number 2, August 2014 pages 9-33 Gershom Williams, Adjunct Professor of African-American History and African-American Studies Mesa Community College, Mesa, Arizona \u201cThe science of inequality is emphatically a science of White people. It is they who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,459,8],"tags":[14260,19723,84,19724,19722,19726,19725,7991,77,9510,9509,5558],"class_list":["post-40573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","tag-antenor-firmin","tag-avid-walker","tag-frederick-douglass","tag-george-washington-williams","tag-gershom-williams","tag-j-antenor-firmin","tag-joseph-auguste-antenor-firmin","tag-journal-of-pan-african-studies","tag-lydia-maria-child","tag-martin-delaney","tag-martin-r-delaney","tag-the-journal-of-pan-african-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}