Africans Are Not Black: The case for conceptual liberation

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Africans are not literally black, yet they are called black. Why? This book explores the genesis and evolution of the description of Africans as black, the consequences of this practice, and how it contributes to the denigration (blackening) and dehumanisation of Africans. It uses this analysis to advance a case for abandoning the use of the term ‘black’ to describe and categorise Africans. Mainstream discussions of the history of European racism have generally neglected the role of black and white colour symbolisms in sustaining the supposed superiority of those labelled white over those labelled black. This work redresses that neglect, by tracing the genesis of the conception of Africans as black in ancient Greece and its continued employment in early Christian writings, followed by an original, close analysis of how this use is replicated in three key representative texts: Shakespeare's Othello, the translation of the Bible into the African language Ewe, and a book by the influential Ghanaian religious leader, Mensa Otabil. It concludes by directly addressing the argument that ‘black’ can be turned into a positive concept, demonstrating the failure of this approach to deal with the real problems raised by imposing the term ‘black’ on its human referents. Africans Are Not Black- Front Cover Africans Are Not Black Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introduction Importance of this question in the context of equality Definition of concepts and terminology Theoretical considerations My positionality Scope and limitations Chapter content and structure Chapter 2: Ancient literature Introduction Greco-Roman representation of non-African barbarians Representation of Africans in Greco-Roman literature Differences in the Greco-Roman representation of African barbarians and non-African barbarians Controversies over the origins of anti-African racism Conclusion Chapter 3: Christianity Introduction Symbolic and categorical uses of black and white in the Bible Importance of early Christian exegesis Symbolic uses of black and white in early Christian exegetical literature Descriptive and categorical use of the term ‘black’ in pre-Christian exegesis Categorical use of black in early Christian exegetical literature Symbolic and categorical uses of the term ‘Ethiopian’ in early Christian exegetical literature Greco-Roman and Christian explanations of blackness Symbolic and categorical uses of black and white, and normative rules Conclusion Chapter 4: Othello Introduction Use of ‘black’ and its cognates Whiteness and its cognates Employment of ‘black’ versus ‘fair’/’white’ in a key conversation Othello and Desdemona as incompatible and unnatural partners Internalisation Conclusion Chapter 5: The Ewe Bible Introduction Ewe in Ghana Ewe renditions of passages in which ‘black’ is used symbolically in the English Bible Rendition of the symbolic use of ‘white’ and cognate terms into Ewe Rendition of the descriptive uses of ‘black’ into Ewe How descriptive uses of ‘white’ and ‘fair’ are rendered in Ewe Translation of ‘Ethiopia’, ‘Ethiopian’ and ‘Ethiopians’ into Ewe Reproduction of Christian colour convictions and terms in Ewe through translation Conclusion Chapter 6: Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia Introduction Use of the term ‘black’ in different contexts Use of cognate terms ‘dark’, ‘Niger’ and ‘Negro’ in diverse contexts Use of the terms ‘Cush’, ‘Cushi’, ‘Cushites’, ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘Ethiopian’ Use of the term ‘white’ and its cognates ‘light’, ‘pale’ and ‘Caucasian’ Implicit symbolic uses of black and white Christianity, ideology, hegemony and cultural imperialism Otabil, Christianity and the workings of cultural imperialism What Otabil ignores in the Bible and Christian literature about the terms ‘black’ and ‘Ethiopian’ Conclusion Chapter 7: Against the category Introduction Recap of the argument in the preceding chapters Social theorist and sociological perspectives on the black and white racial binary Two possible strategies of subversion: abandon/reverse the symbolic meanings or abandon the categorical meaning Social psychology interventions Case against the depiction of African peoples as black from the semantic perspective Conclusion Chapter 8: Against revaluation Introduction: movements for the revalorisation of black The Black Consciousness movement The Négritude movement The Black Power movement Decolonisation of blackness Inherent challenges of adopting and using blackness to define the identity of Africans Objections to the central argument of the book, and replies Agreement with the wider anti-racist objective of these movements Conclusion Chapter 9: Conclusion References Index