The Creation Of The Negro
The Creation Of The Negro
Compiled by Ayinde
Extracts from: The name "negro" its origin and evil use by Richard B. Moore
The Creation Of The Negro
The name that you respond to determines the amount of your self worth. Similarly, the way a group of people collectively respond to a name can have devastating effects on their lives, particularly if they did not choose the name. Asians come from Asia and have pride in the Asian race' Europeans come from Europe and have pride in Europe accomplishments. Negroes, I am to assume, come from negroland-a mythical country with an uncertain past and an even more uncertain future. Since negroland is a myth, where did the myth of the negro originate? The key to understanding what a negro is, is to understand the definition of that word and its origin.
The word negro is Spanish for black. The Spanish language comes from Latin, which has its origins in Classical Greek. The word negro, in Greek, is derived from the root word necro, meaning dead. What was once referred to as a physical condition is now regarded as an appropriate state of mind for millions of Africans.
Historically when the Greeks first traveled to Africa 2,500 years ago, the Egyptian civilization was already ancient. The Great Pyramid was over 3,000 years old and the sphinx was even older. Writing, science, medicine and religion were already a part of the civilization and had reached their zenith. The Greeks came to Africa as students to sit at the feet of the masters, and to discover what Africans already knew. In any student / teacher relationship the teacher can only teach as much as the student is capable of understanding.
Egyptians, like other Africans, understood that life existed beyond the grave. Ancestral worship is a way of acknowledging the lives of the people who have come before you, and their ability to offer guidance and direction to the living. Temples were designed as places where the ancestors could be honored and holidays (Holy Days) where the ancestors could be honored, and holidays (Holy Days) were the days designated to do so.
The Egyptians had hundreds of temples and hundreds of Holy Days to worship their ancestors. The Greeks thought the Africans had a preoccupation with death. The act of ancestral worship became known as necromancy or communication with the dead. The root word necro means dead. Another word for necromancy is magic - that Old Black Magic which was practiced in Ancient Africa. When the Greeks returned to Europe, they took their distorted beliefs with them and the word negro evolved out of this great misunderstanding.
Less than 300 years after the first Greeks came to Egypt as students, their descendants returned as conquerors. They destroyed the cities, temples and libraries of the Egyptians and claimed African knowledge as their own.
Not only was the African legacy stolen, but also the wholesale theft of African people soon followed. With the birth of the slave trade, it became necessary to dehumanize Africans and devalue their historical worth as a people in order to ensure their value as slaves.
So there you have it, the negro - a race of dead people with a dead history and no hope for resurrection as long as they remained ignorant of their past. This was a triple death - the death of the mind, body, and spirit of the African people.
It was strictly forbidden for negro slaves to learn to read and write. Such knowledge was the key to liberation and was placed firmly out of reach. As negroes became educated, however, they sought to redefine themselves.
The evolution of the word negro from colored, to black, to African represents a progression of self-awareness. As a free people, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves and rediscover our Identities. Knowledge of self is the key to unlocking the door to the future.
From http://negroartist.com/negro%20artist/pres...
Compiled by Ayinde
Extracts from: The name "negro" its origin and evil use by Richard B. Moore
The Creation Of The Negro
The name that you respond to determines the amount of your self worth. Similarly, the way a group of people collectively respond to a name can have devastating effects on their lives, particularly if they did not choose the name. Asians come from Asia and have pride in the Asian race' Europeans come from Europe and have pride in Europe accomplishments. Negroes, I am to assume, come from negroland-a mythical country with an uncertain past and an even more uncertain future. Since negroland is a myth, where did the myth of the negro originate? The key to understanding what a negro is, is to understand the definition of that word and its origin.
The word negro is Spanish for black. The Spanish language comes from Latin, which has its origins in Classical Greek. The word negro, in Greek, is derived from the root word necro, meaning dead. What was once referred to as a physical condition is now regarded as an appropriate state of mind for millions of Africans.
Historically when the Greeks first traveled to Africa 2,500 years ago, the Egyptian civilization was already ancient. The Great Pyramid was over 3,000 years old and the sphinx was even older. Writing, science, medicine and religion were already a part of the civilization and had reached their zenith. The Greeks came to Africa as students to sit at the feet of the masters, and to discover what Africans already knew. In any student / teacher relationship the teacher can only teach as much as the student is capable of understanding.
Egyptians, like other Africans, understood that life existed beyond the grave. Ancestral worship is a way of acknowledging the lives of the people who have come before you, and their ability to offer guidance and direction to the living. Temples were designed as places where the ancestors could be honored and holidays (Holy Days) where the ancestors could be honored, and holidays (Holy Days) were the days designated to do so.
The Egyptians had hundreds of temples and hundreds of Holy Days to worship their ancestors. The Greeks thought the Africans had a preoccupation with death. The act of ancestral worship became known as necromancy or communication with the dead. The root word necro means dead. Another word for necromancy is magic - that Old Black Magic which was practiced in Ancient Africa. When the Greeks returned to Europe, they took their distorted beliefs with them and the word negro evolved out of this great misunderstanding.
Less than 300 years after the first Greeks came to Egypt as students, their descendants returned as conquerors. They destroyed the cities, temples and libraries of the Egyptians and claimed African knowledge as their own.
Not only was the African legacy stolen, but also the wholesale theft of African people soon followed. With the birth of the slave trade, it became necessary to dehumanize Africans and devalue their historical worth as a people in order to ensure their value as slaves.
So there you have it, the negro - a race of dead people with a dead history and no hope for resurrection as long as they remained ignorant of their past. This was a triple death - the death of the mind, body, and spirit of the African people.
It was strictly forbidden for negro slaves to learn to read and write. Such knowledge was the key to liberation and was placed firmly out of reach. As negroes became educated, however, they sought to redefine themselves.
The evolution of the word negro from colored, to black, to African represents a progression of self-awareness. As a free people, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves and rediscover our Identities. Knowledge of self is the key to unlocking the door to the future.
From http://negroartist.com/negro%20artist/pres...
1. Which is the Original Race, The Caucasian or The
African?
Many Euro-American psychologists, no doubt, would consider
this question a theological one at best and irrelevant at worse.
Such apparent unconcern with questions of origin is rather peculiar,
given the great current concern with the role of genetic factors
in human behavior. Clearly, if one is to be consistent with
any genetic thesis, one must surely give at least nominal attention
to the nature of the first human gene pool - for it is from
this original gene pool that all contemporary genes were derived.
If, then, we are to be concerned about the genetic transmission of
human intelligence, we must admit only one of two possibilities:
either the white race is evolutionary prior to the Black, in which
case whatever intelligence (or lack thereof) Blacks have has been
inherited from whites; or the Black race is evolutionary prior to
white, in which case the reverse would be true. (We should perhaps
note, again in deference to alternative paradigms, that either
position would effectively nullify the conclusions of some
modern-day genetic intelligence theorists).
We should perhaps note in this connection that many EuroAmerican
and Euro-American-trained psychologists tend to minimize
the significances of this issue of origins. So they adopt a
neo-Darwinian perspective and assert that there has been an evolutionary
improvement in the species such that the Caucasian race
represents the highest end of the evolutionary scale. This perspective
equates technological superiority with intellectual and moral
superiority
African Psychology, with full and grateful acknowledgment
to the Messenger of Allah, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad -
who was the first to raise and answer this question of origins -
works on the assumption that the African race is evolutionarily
prior to the Caucasian race and, therefore, is the original source
of whatever genetic factors account for contemporary white and
Black behavior in the world. African Psychology thus attributes
the decline of Black civilizations not to genetic weaknesses but
to a spiritual decay which left in its wake, however, a high testimonial
to its original intellectual supremacy in the form of stone
monuments spread across Africa - monuments which reflect a
mastery of mathematics, geometry, physics, and all other sciences
known to man. The construction of the African pyramids
has, to this day, baft1ed Western scientists to such an extent that
the most recent explanation is that they were built, not by the
Africans themselves, but by alien space creatures!
While African Psychology accepts as a "given" that the original
race was African and not European, it does attempt to validate
this on grounds other than assumption or authority. Why
these other sources of validation are necessary for African Psychology
and not Euro-American psychology says more about
the dynamics of racism in the Western world than it does about
anything else. So ingrained is this racism in America's educational
institutions that many geography books, even today, separate
Egypt from Africa -, to foster the idea that the Egyptian
civilization was built by non-Africans. Hollywood has played a
major role in insuring the perception of Africans as uncivilized.
Because of the way in which the mass media and educational
institutions have attempted to present the world as white, African
Psychology recognizes its need to validate some of its own
assumptions - at least to the extent that it is possible to validate
assumptions with empirical research. This validation is done not
so much to convince whites (a task which we have recognized as
virtually impossible) as to convince Blacks -particularly Blacks
who receive their education in white institutions. Indeed, this
particular educational constituency is very important in the eyes
of African Psychology, for it is precisely this group of people
who often come to be recognized by established white institutions
as "leaders" of other Black people. Such people become
"spokesmen" even though (or perhaps because) they lack the most
importance of this element of knowledge is discussed in later
paragraphs.
The point we wish to stress as important in this context is
that however much we might deplore it, it is still a fact that many
Black people in America will continue to be educated by whites
and, this being the case, it is only natural for such people to develop
a conception of self as inferior to whites. This negative
self-conception extends itself to other Blacks and, as a result,
such people are more likely to be influenced by what whites have
to say about them rather than by what their own people have to
say. Indeed, such a tendency is frequently associated with "success"
and "intelligence" in American society.
Because of this, African Psychology recognizes the necessity
of supporting its assumptions by referring to research published
within the Euro-American tradition. Thus, in support of
our assumption that the original race was African not European,
we call attention to the research of Professor Louis Leakey, a
British anthropologist. Shortly after Leakey's death a few years
ago, his son, Dr. Richard Leakey made an archeological finding
which completely revolutionized scientific thinking concerning
the origin of man. He found remnants of early man in East Africa
dating back some three million years.
While Black Muslim scholars know that this date is wrong
in an absolute sense (the origins of man date back much, much
farther than this), Leakey's finding is correct in a relative sense
- i.e., in the sense that it clearly establishes the biological precedent
of the African relative to the European.
Moreover, we know from the science of biology that it is
biologically impossible for whites to produce offspring of color,
whereas it is quite possible for Blacks to produce white offspring.
Thus, as far as African Psychology is concerned, there is no question
as to the fact that the original race was African.
Akbar Papers in African Psychology©.....