The Bible is not my authoritative frame of reference for many things, Certainly not for Nuclear Physics, nor Information Technology. I’m sure the same is true for you. The very notion that that simple statement jars some is a sign of what Dr. David Kuk, former head of Apologetics at The United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI) called ‘bibliolotry’ – The idolization of the Bible. He stated, “Christians don’t believe in Jesus because of the Bible, (in spite of the universally popular Sunday School song we all grew up singing) they believe the Bible because it testifies of Jesus.” That certainly speaks for my version of Christianity.
How could I hold a people that believe the world is only 5779 years old as my authority on Black History and identity? There are structures still standing we built older than that. There are etchings and sketches we left behind evincing knowledge of language and mathematics older than that (in spite of academic convention still reluctant to acknowledge archaeological facts that throw their established opinions…. yet again, out of wack). In fact, according to the Bible, we taught the very first Hebrew author how to write. (Patriarchal nomads with literacy skills? – hardly likely before a boy named Moses, educated in Egypt, was fated to become their leader).
When it comes to my own experiences, I, not anyone else, am the authority. And speaking collectively, quite cognizant of the many nations and peoples who have sought to dominate us by teaching (and through other more forceful methods) us to deny ourselves, the same is true for Black people the world over who prefer truth to mindless conformity.
We have been here for a very long time.
Defining who we are, telling our story, (not someone else’s version of it) is the whole point of Black History Month. Some time ago, I gave a presentation on Black identity – an attempt to understand our forgotten past from our own sources. As an Afro-centrist, I was very proud of the commendation of a close relative of Molefi Kete Asante (Father of Afro-centrism whose two books –The Afrocentric Idea and Kemet Afrocentricity and knowledge profoundly reshaped my thinking as a man in my twenties) who attended the lecture who said it was one of the most brilliant expositions of Kemetian (ancient Egyptian) culture she had ever heard.
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YeKengalé 