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Afrocentrism

Afrocentrism and the True Color of an Influential Civilization
There is a need experienced by people of all races and ethnicities to directly claim their origins, their tradition, and their past. This innate human desire sends people of all racial backgrounds barreling through history, grasping straws and shreds of the past to stand united with their racially similar brothers and sisters. America is a melting pot of so many different cultures and ethnicities that it becomes a breeding ground for multiracial families and produces many new races of its own. The United States is extremely racially diverse not only geographically, but within states, counties, and even cities. When a large group of people of the same racial background join together, they create a sect of the population that shares not only a common history, but a desire to learn more about that history and to become empowered in their separatism.
This bonding leads to racial movements such as one that is currently gaining popularity and momentum in the African American community, Afrocentrism. According to Stephen Howe, author of Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes, “Afrocentrism may, in its looser sense or more moderate forms, mean little more than an emphasis on shared African origins among all ‘black’ people, taking a pride in those origins and an interest in African history and culture and a belief that Eurocentric bias has blocked or distorted knowledge of Africans and their cultures” (Howe 1). While in its moderate forms this is true, when taken to an extreme Afrocentrism can cause an even greater gap in the racial divide, promoting hatred between races and sending the United States backwards in the fight for unity. There are many aspects of the Afrocentric argument that can be analyzed in depth, but I would like to focus on one particular aspect: the color of ancient Egypt and the lost identity of the mixed-race in African and specifically Egyptian history.
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