RUNOKO RASHIDI ON AFROCENTRICITY, AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY EUROPE AND ASIA, AND HISTORICALLY TOURING THE AFRICAN PLANET (MFG 052)
Even today, Hollywood’s Pink-Washing produces Whitesupremacist revisionism of African civilisations through work such as The Gods of Egypt, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and the HBO series Rome whose second season visits Greek-occupied Egypt.
Fortunately,
numerous scholars and activists have dedicated their lives to erasing such lies
and restoring the truth about the Africanity of world-shaping ancient
civilisations such as Ancient Egypt.
One
such scholar-activist is Runoko Rashidi, an historian and world traveler who
for decades has investigated the ancient migrations of Africans out of the
mother continent and across the world. His work highlights the civilisations
they founded and the titans they produced, especially in early Asia and Europe.
He’s lectured in over 50 countries, and his articles have appeared in more than
75 publications.
Rashidi
is the author of the books Introduction
to the Study of African Classical Civilizations, The Global African Community:
The African Presence in Asia, Australia and the South Pacific, and A Thousand Year History of the African
Presence in Asia. With Ivan Van Sertima he co-edited The African Presence in Early Asia. For years he hosted educational
tours of archeological sites.
In
today’s episode, Rashidi discusses:
- The influence on him of the great scholar Ivan Van Sertima, author of They Came Before Columbus
- The Dalit nation, or so-called “Untouchables” of India
- His appraisal of the how the weakest links in the Afrocentric academic movement are mirroring the mistakes of Eurocentric scholarship
- The contemporary scholars whose work he admires
- Continent-shaking Africans in European and Asian history, and
- The astonishing ancient Indian civilisations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro
This episode’s conversation is one of the last
interviews I recorded for my CJSR show Africentric
Radio. Until now, it’s been entombed in the archives of the Grand Lodge of
Imhotep—so I’m delighted to bring it forth by day for you. Runoko Rashidi spoke
with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on February 26, 2012.
To hear the patrons-only
extended edition of my conversation with Runoko Rashidi, click on the
Patreon link to become a sponsor
for a dollar or more per week.
By funding MF GALAXY, you get
access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected
interviews as they become available. This extended edition includes Runoko
Rashidi discussing:
- How to preserve the archeological remnants of ancient African civilisations in the face of cultural Arabisation and war, and
- The historical guided-tours he leads of West and North Africa, Europe, and Asia, and how some people learn or change as a result
If you enjoyed this episode of MF GALAXY, be sure to download the
previous two shows: Black Athena Author Martin Bernal on the African Origin of
Ancient Greece, and Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilise
Ancient Europe, with author Richard Poe
COMING IN DECEMBER, don’t miss
the serialized AUDIOBOOK VERSIONS of my cult-classic novels THE COYOTE KINGS and my award-winning SHRINKING THE HEROES, available
exclusively on PATREON!
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