Ned Alper's quote from the Kenya News gives an answer Fikru Gebrekidan's
point about about wasting time debating regressive terminology.
Scholars can ignore others using such misleading language. We can use other
language among ourselves. But our discussions will be divorced from broader
discourse about Africa, incomprehensible to non-scholars.
Can we then try to use the common parlance? No, too much of that language is
imprecise, incoherent, or just false (sometimes viciously so); it's
analytically useless and caked with centuries-worth of layers of unexamined
ideology. To use it abandons commitment to seeking truth. To abandon wider
discourse to it means accepting policies and actions built on a foundation of
prejudice and myth.
The alternative would be to persuade non-scholars to change their language and
ideas. I emphasize persuasion. Telling people by fiat that ideas which seem
commonplace to them are wrong, offensive etc. will be rejected in the current
climate as political correctness. While that accusation is often used to make
the world safe for anti- intellectualism, as teachers we ought to be able to
explain our reasons for preferring one set of ideas over another. Fiats are
anti-intellectual too.
Thus examining the use of such language, understanding its consequences, and
discussing how to address it seems worth doing.
Chris Lowe