“LOOK ALL OVER THE GLOBE ... THE DARK RACES STAND STILL, THE FAIR PROGRESS”

Robert Knox in his book, The Races of Man noted, “Look all over the globe, it is always the same, the dark races stand still, the fair progress…There must be a physical and consequently a psychological inferiority in the dark races generally.”

He is not alone in this jaundiced view of Africans. Edward Long in his History of Jamaica, one of the most influential books of the age, asserted, Africans are “void of genius … and almost incapable of making any progress in civility or science” that these characteristics were to be found throughout the vast regions of Negro Africa and that Negroes (Africans) should be regarded as a separate species intermediate between Europeans and similar species and ‘orang-outangs’.

One of history’s most “renowned thinkers” David Hume, a philosopher, said, “I am apt to suspect the Negroes … to be naturally inferior to the white. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation, no ingenious manufacturers among them no arts or sciences.”

Thomas Jefferson, a former president of the United State of America is also on record to have said that “I advanced it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks whether originally a distinct race or made distinct by time or circumstance are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.”

The most disturbing aspect of this whole issue of the perceived inherent inferiority of the African is the fact that many Africans have imbibed these views. As indicated by Rev. Dr. Mensa Otabil in his book Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia,“Many black people have mentally accepted the logic of black is inferior. We may not verbalize it or even be aware of it but it is in our sub-conscious minds.”

One need not look far to see the truth in Otabil’s assertion. In our Ghanaian languages, we have the term “me broni” in Twi or “nblorfonyo” in Ga which literally translates to “my white person.” This is a term of endearment! In addition, we have Africans especially women using chemicals to bleach their skin or straighten (relax) their curly hair just to look like the Caucasian. Malcolm X who was a victim of such self-degradation recorded in his autobiography, “This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair.” He further admits, “I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are “inferior” — and white people “superior”.

But why is this so? Again as pointed out by Otabil, “when a people distort history they can easily isolate you in order to dominate you” and this is precisely the case. History as pointed out by Dr. John Henrik Clarke is a “clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography.” Where do we stand on the map of human geography?

It is an indisputable fact that civilization originated in Africa, precisely, Kemet (Egypt). Among the Nile Valley (Egyptian) civilization were the advancements in medicine and mathematics. This is evident in the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the oldest medical treatise in existence believed to be written as early as 4200 B.C. or as late as 3100 B.C. which describes 48 different injuries to the head, face, neck, thorax and spinal column and the appropriate surgical methods for treating them. There is also the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus written in c. 1900 B.C. which contains over 80 mathematical problems and their solutions such as surface of the sphere, the square root (Pythagorean Theorem), the quadrature of a circle, the volume of a sphere an the formula for finding out the surface of the circle, rectangle, triangle and trapezium.

Some may argue that this only buttresses Knox’s argument since the Egyptians belong to the fair race. But nothing is farther from the truth. The ancient Egyptians were Africans (“blacks”) and this supported by both classical authors of antiquity and modern scholarly works.

Herodotus, the “father of history”, is on record to have noted with regards to the origin of the Colchians (Colchidians or Colchoi) who lived on the shores of the Black Sea that: “It is in fact manifest that the Colchidians are Egyptians by race … several Egyptians told me that in their opinion the Colchidians were descended from soldiers of Sesostris. I had conjectured as much myself from two pointers, firstly because they have black skins and kinky hair and secondly and more reliable for the reason that alone among mankind the Egyptians and Ethiopians have practiced circumcision since time immemorial.”

The “melanin dosage test” presented by Prof. Chiekh Anta Diop at the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (U.N.E.S.C.O.) sponsored symposium held at Cairo between January 28 and February 3, 1974 which provided a means by which one could determine the phenotype of the Egyptian royal mummies, showed a melanin (the chemical substance responsible for skin pigmentation) level which is absent in the white-skinned race. This was based on samples taken off the mummies from the Marietta excavations in Egypt in the physical anthropology laboratory of the Musée de L’Homme in Paris. This laboratory procedure of assessing melanin level by microscopic observation also buttresses earlier assertions of ancient Egyptians as “blacks”.

Other modern inventions by Africans in the field of science and technology make nonsense of the assertion that Africans have not made any contribution in manufactures, sciences or arts. Elijah McCoy revolutionised the railway industry when in 1873, he developed a small, oil-filled container with an adjustable stop-cock that automatically oiled moving parts while machinery was still in motion thus doing away with ... trains stopping every few miles for a workman to oil parts. The superiority of his invention prompted buyers of his device to ask, "Is this the real McCoy?," a recognition of the inferior ones on the market. In 1916, Garett Morgan won a gold medal at the International Exposition of Sanitation and Safety and anothergold medal from the International Association of Fire Chiefs for his invention of a gas mask and a citation by the United States Government for his traffic signal.

Africans have also not been left out of the arts. The “Father of Russian Literature”, Alexander Pushkin and Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers were all Africans just like those earlier mentioned. Do not be misled by the names.

If the African race seems to be standing still it has nothing to do with his inherent inferiority. This has more to do with historical factors. Four hundred years of slave trade and enslavement, a century of colonialism and apartheid cannot be trivialised.

About ten million of able-bodied men and women were shipped across the Atlantic and the labour and revenue derived from this trade was very important in the industrialisation of Europe. About a century of colonialism following the abolition of the slave trade witnessed the continued exploitation of the material and human resources of the colonies. The colonial economy was one oriented towards the production of raw materials for the metropoles rather than developing the industrial base of the colonies. Apartheid and other forms of racial segregation also deprived Africans both at home and abroad of basic human rights.

These factors are largely responsible for the underdevelopment of Africa and Africans in constradistinction to the fairer races. The dark races’ natural inferiority to the fairer races is a myth and we need to empower ourselves with the true knowledge of our history and culture.

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