In reading through the state of the debate on Curtin's opinion piece
concerning the "ghettoization" of African History, I'm pleasantly
surprized by the range of responses. However, I feel once again
motivated to poke my hand into the fire of political correctness in
response to some of the points raised.
1. [Stephen] Isabyire and others imply that African Africanists
should expect to land Africanist jobs in the American market over
white American Africanists, and that the refusal of some universities
to hire Africans is driven by racial considerations. A more likely
explanation is that immigration laws limit access to the American
job market to foreigners, especially where equally qualified
Americans might be eligible. Also, the point of AA/EOE is to help
disadvantaged Americans, not women and non-Caucasians of any
nationality. Universities that hire foreign scholars not only might
be violating immigration laws, but certainly are missing the purpose
of AA/EOE.
2. Chris Loew has raised an important point that part of the problem
has to do with the number of Ph.D. graduates in the job market.
However, his responses raise other questions. His and others' (e.g.
Spear) claim that most Africanist jobs go to white scholars beg the
question of evidence. How typical, for example, are Spears' figures
for Ph.D. programs in African History? More to the point, though, is
the point raised by some that we seem to be focussing our discussion
on African-Americans to the exclusion of other minorities and women.
How many jobs targetted for minorities have gone to white women for
the same ostensible reasons -- i.e. to create a slot in which any AA
hire can be "dumped"?
Loew's point that we cannot be blind to "the significance for
African History of ideas and practices attributing meaning to
'color'" again is an important one, and one with which all would have
to agree. However, I disagree with (what I consider to be) his
extreme views that we must give a "central place" to issues of race
in all our work. Yes, we must be aware of assumptions which might
have been conditioned into us by a world in which racism persistently
and subtly reappears. But is a white, male scholar more likely to be
subject to racially--and gender--conditioned biasses than other
scholars? Personally, I strongly doubt it. As for "ontological"
racism, I'm not sure he means. "Existential" racism, perhaps? Be that
as it may, he misses the point I tried to make that one should
approach the historical study of Africans as people living on an
existential plane that, ideally, extends evenly to them as it does to
other members of the species. When, for example, I study the history
of a society or people, be they African or non-African, their race is
not an issue to me (though race probably has conditioned past
historiographies of these peoples); I'm not conscious of their race;
nor am I predisposed to make assumptions about them on racial
grounds. I assume their humanity to be on the same existential plane
I inhabit, and their histories to be a part of the greater human
story.
3. Finally, Tim Burke makes the case with which I most agree. The
'ghettoization' of African history has not so much been a problem of
the 'ghettoization' of minorities and women, as the continued
marginalization of African History within the broader profession.
This is where racism has really asserted itself, i.e. the continued
treatment of Africans and their history as something apart from the
rest of the human race and its history. Hence, it's treated as
something into which AA hires are "dumped," as referred to above.
AA/EOE has to be extended outside African and African-American
History for it to continue having meaning and validity.