Centering Afrikan Centeredness

Afrikan centeredness is a process we mature into

Yesterday I had the privilege and honor to make a presentation at the 2014 Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) Conference in Newark, New Jersey. Below is the abstract I presented.

My book Distorted Truths has done Afrikan centeredness a favor and disservice at the same time. The disservice has been to remove it from a racial foundation and realign it to a cultural one. But even more than that, I have located within that cultural framework, a very unique and organic way of perceiving reality—life as we experience it. So in the final analysis, it is consciousness that determines cultural development. To be Afrikan centered is a form of consciousness. It grows from the realization that the human being is a by-product of culture.

So you've surmised, it's all about the social construct. Yes, but that construction must be based on a solid foundation, i.e. truth or Maat. And this is the favor I have done—I have centered Afrikan thought in Maat. (Of course this is not new, but my approach is just different.) Maat embodied the way of the world, of nature. And the most salient thing the world has to teach us is that every thing is part of a system of order; ecosystems that relate to other smaller or larger ecosystems. These systems are amazing similar; it is like they are repeating the same reality on different levels. Who knows how many ecosystems are intertwined or interconnected? The number of systems can vary depending upon our application or query; for example sometimes we see/use the numbers 1,3,7, and 12. We do know that these systems of order vary in size; hence we can say there are big orders or macrocosms and small orders or microcosms. That means there are macrocosms and microcosms. Everything must therefore be part of a system consequently, the biggest of the big orders must include everything in existence--the Supreme Existence or Supreme Be-ing. The first principle of Afrikan thought is thus established: The Macrocosm-microcosm conception or microcosmicism. It is embodied in the adage: AS ABOVE SO BELOW, SO BELOW AS ABOVE.

How do people fit into these systems of order. The diagram on the left demonstrates just that. In this case it has made the Supreme Be-ing the macrocosm and the Human Being the microcosm. (In another example the Human Being might become a macrocosm and the human cell the microcosm. The inner workings of our bodies must be based on this same intertwining of ecosystems or systems of order.) It is the ability to recognize and formulate systems of order that make the human being unique. We are indeed unique in our degree of consciousness and our self-actualization, becoming artisans, mathematicians, engineers, etc. Clearly we are neither the strongest, fastest, largest, nor most versatile of beings in existence but consciousness and perception has established us as central players in the world. Thus, we placed ourselves at the center of this order, at the center of existence because of consciousness. By seeing ourselves as reflections of the world order or the Supreme Being allows us to arrive at the adage: MAN KNOW THYSELF FOR TO KNOW THYSELF IS TO KNOW THE UNIVERSE. This formed the second principle in Afrikan thought, Anthropocentrism, where all our inquiries and investigations into the unknown were based on using the human being as the instruments of investigation (Trance states) and extrapolating what we know of ourselves to ascertain a greater understanding of the universe and how it operates.

By placing ourselves at the center of existence, we next used what determines our continued existence, and one of the most powerful and magical experiences we can have as people, Sexual Reproduction, and that became our primary tool for understanding both the unseen and seen world and further constructing our worldview and concomitant cultural edifices. The last foundation of Afrikan thought is the Reproduction Metaphor, it is at the center of our thought.

So what Afrikan thought has done is employed a cardinal activity, sexual reproduction, as a means to answer and map-out a structure for a world that consists of a series of repeating orders, big and small, which we have placed ourselves at the center of. To continue on our path of Restoration then, our Afrikan centeredness we must reshape our world using Microcosmicism, Anthropocentrism, and the Reproductive Metaphor.

No one can do it the way we have done it and must do again!!!

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Examples of the Reproductive Metaphor in use in Kemet

Geb and Nut conceiving the world

The Lower Crown is penetrated by the Upper Crown

The upper part of the ankh, the female aspect, is joined by the lower part which symbolizes the male genitalia