The Black Athena (Part5)

Examines the claims of Professor Martin Bernal who questions the assumption of the "Europeaness" of our civilisation placing inste Examines the claims of Professor Martin Bernal who questions the assumption of the "Europeaness" of our civilisation placing instead the "black" Egyptians and Phoenicians at the centre of the West's origins.

Black Athena examines Cornell Professor Martin Bernal's iconoclastic study of the African origins of Greek civilization and the explosive academic debate it provoked. This film offers a balanced, scholarly introduction to the disputes surrounding multiculturalism, "political correctness" and Afrocentric curricula sweeping college campuses today.

In his book Black Athena, Prof. Bernal convincingly indicts 19th-century scholars for constructing a racist "cult of Greece" based upon a purely Aryan origin for Western culture. He accuses these classicists of suppressing the numerous connections between African and Near Eastern cultures and early Greek myth and art.

Leading classical scholars, on the other hand, contend that Bernal, like the 19th-century classicists he attacks, uses evidence selectively, uncritically and ahistorically to support his own Afrocentric agenda. They argue that cultural diffusion alone can't account for the distinctive achievements of the Greeks during the Classical Period.

Black Athena can help students begin to distinguish between sound scholarship and cultural bias - whether inherited from the past or imposed by the present

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Greece
• Greeks
• Hellas
• Black
• Athena
• Athens
• Hellenic
• Republic

[orpheuscult75]

people back then can migrate more freely than today where the lands, europe & n. america in particular, are fenced with borders and xenophobic immigration laws. as for the greece who gave the west democracy -- propaganda bullshit. do you really wanna live in a society where only the small % of the male population had the say? modern democracy came from the french revolution.

[orpheuscult75]

@spekonaspek

way much more humane than those professors who formulated nazi race theories isnt he?

[spekonaspek]

Did he say "Whiteness limitates you."? What a fucking dope. He teaches at a college?

[youngoldbones]

Wow its amazing how desparately some people here wish to believe this one white man when all others are refuting his claims quite handily. The ability to delude oneself toward what one wants to believe is astounding.

[blueiguy1]

@Shawnnie1990 GREAT POINT whatever happen to the "one drop rule" they switch the rules u when they want .

[Shawnnie1990]

Its funny how although Egypt is no longer part of Africa. It is now "Mediterranean" as facts turn towards blacks being important, the more people alter what is black, and/or african.

[easmachine]

This thrall with Greek/West/White Civilization ignores the fact that they all depend greatly on classism slavery and exploitation of the "other". It is at its core a softening of a savage culture of death with no appreciable superiority to any other. They may have written down the ldea of democracy, but only because it was a foreign idea to them. To them it was a way of instituting mob rule without the bloodshed. The poor,women and slaves were excluded. Sound familiar?

[Revolutionary36]

I find it funny how objectivity is thrown out of the window when racists are confronted with the truth.

[iamsumware]

umm east Mediterranean or African? Wow!

[mykinfoknew]

@ImaginedWriter It's got nothing to do with whether I can or cant but rather the facts thats important. What it's got to do with is the fact you ask a ridiculous question for me to NAME the democracy of ancient Africa. You don't see how that makes you look stupid, and yet you want to debate me.

Now if you're asking me to discuss Kingdoms, the arts, education, creativity and influence, then you make a legitimate question for a basis of meaningful conversation.

Your last point shows...........