Going Down the Rabbit Hole of White Supremacy

Hotep (An Ancient Afrikan Word for Peace)!!!

Take notes!!!!!!!

“Just think that the race of Black men, today our slaves and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, and even the use of speech.”

-Napoleon Bonaparte’s French Egyptologist Count C.F. Volney (Voyages on Syrie Et En Egypt on pages 74-77 1787)

I have taught history in public and private schools for 26 years. But before leaving undergraduate school at Seton Hall University, I knew I had to finish my mission of studying history on the graduate level in school. I enrolled at Columbia University in New York City. Unfortunately, life, and the expensive price of college, took its toll on me. I could not finish my graduate studies at Columbia University. However, during the years of being a classroom history teacher, I have made enough money to go back to school. In no kind of way am I saying that I am wealthy now. Because I am not. I am far from it. But being a public school teacher for many years has carved out a decent living for myself. But while securing a living as a teacher, I have collected a huge library of books and materials on history through the years. (History that covers world, American, Afrikan, Afrikan American, Native American, Asian, Latino American, economics, the Europeans Slave Trade, the Arab Slave Trade, the Holocaust, European colonialism, Arab, Jewish, Christian, and non-western religious history.) My thirst for the factual knowledge of history has not been quenched. But I know the need to take my interest in history to a graduate program. This is why I have decided to go back to school. Not sure which school I want to study at now. But in the meantime, I am constantly researching articles, documentaries, books, and materials to help me complete my graduate studies in history. I want to focus my studies on the creation of White supremacy ideology and its impact on Black life. White supremacy has been around for centuries, but it has been used to justify placing Whiteness at the top of every society and keeping blackness at the bottom of every level of society. One of many really “good books” I found in my research on White supremacy is a book called- General History Collections: Types of Mankind: or Ethnological Researches... Illustrated by Selections from the Inedited papers of S.G. Morton.... and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher... H.S Patterson co-authored by two White men named Dr. Josiah Clark Nott and Dr. George Robbins Gliddon. This book is a great book to analyze how deep the rabbit hole White supremacy will go to maintain White domination in the world and justify the systematic institutionalization of racism.

The book was first published in 1854 in London, England. The title alone is a mouthful. Drs. Josiah Nott and George Gliddon Types of Mankind is a 738 page book on White supremacy.

Nott was from Mobil, Alabama. He was an American surgeon, anthropologist, and slave-owner. Nott lived from March 31, 1804 to March 31, 1873. He received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1827 and completed his post-graduate training in Paris, France.

Gliddon lived from 1809 to November 16, 1857. He was a British born American Egyptologist. Gliddon spent large portions of his time in Cairo, Kemet (Egypt) researching and documenting the history of this Nile Valley civilization. (The name Kemet means the land of the Blacks. It is the original Afrikan name of Egypt.) Gliddon's was amazed at the genius of Kemet's (Egypt's) history. But his racism would not let him present the facts of Kemet's (Egypt's) Black origins. Therefore, he ignored the facts on the Kemet ( Egypt) being a Black civilization. He went on with his life successfully lying to the world that the ancient Egyptians were not Afrikans, but were instead Europeans.

Both Dr. Nott and Dr. Gliddon also believed in polygenism, which contends that humanity originates from different lineages especially Black and White people. They argued that White people are genetically different because they evolved from a superior human stream completely separate from Black people and the rest of the species of man. This research in and of itself is deeply rooted in White supremacy. Nott and Gliddon “justified” that Whites were born superior to Black people and all non-White people on the earth.

Consequently, Nott and Gliddon fabricated beliefs in racial myths that Whites were born “genetically superior” to Black people, would not allow them to accept the facts on Kemet (Egypt) being a Black civilization. They argued on page 461 the greatness of Kemet's (Egypt's) civilization, but that greatness was because of whiteness. They said, "the earliest civilization known to us is that of Egypt; and from this foundation, it is commonly said, all more modern civilizations derived.... From Egypt, the stream is supposed to have flowed steadily on, through Assyria, Palestine, Tyre, Persia, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Germany, Spain, Britain, until it crossed the Atlantic to our Federal Union." These two White supremacists scholars argued that the great Egypt (Kemet) of the ancient world was a White civilization, not a Black civilization.

But on the very next page of 462 of their book, Josiah Nott supports his racism by quoting another white racist historian named Theodore Parker in the text to justify Kemet’s (Egypt’s) whiteness and the racial supremacy of White people. He writes, "the Caucasian race differs from all other races: he is humane, he is civilized, and progresses. He conquers with his head, as well as with his hand. It is intellect after all that conquers-not the strength of a man's arm. The Caucasian has been often master of the other races-never their slave. He has carried his religion to other races, but never taken theirs. In history, all religions are of Caucasian origin. All the great limited forms of monarchies are Caucasian. Republics are Caucasian. All the great sciences are of Caucasian origin; all inventions are Caucasian; literature and romance come of the same stock; all the great poets are of Caucasian origin; Moses, Luther, Jesus Christ, Zoroaster, Buddha, Pythagoras, were Caucasian. No other race can bring up to memory such celebrated names as the Caucasian race...... To the Caucasian race belong the Arabian, Persian, Hebrew, Egyptian; and all the European nations are descendants of the Caucasian race."

Now before the whitening of Kemet (Egypt) by these scholars, they argued on page 77 that God was even on the side of whiteness. They argued, "the Caucasian races, which have always been the representatives of civilization, are those alone that have extended over and colonized all parts of the globe; and much of this is the work of the last three hundreds years. The Creator has implanted in this group of races an instinct that, in spite of themselves, drives them through all difficulties, to carry out their great mission of civilizing the earth. It is not reason, or philanthropy, which urges them on; but it is destiny."

This text was published to present to the world their racist findings about the so-called genetic differences of humanity. The book is very old. It is hard to find copies of it in a bookstores, but you can order it on line. Like with many typical scholars, they "documented" their belief in the “superiority of whiteness”and "documented" their beliefs in the “inferiority Blackness”. If you are a person of Afrikan descent that respects Black humanity, and humanity in general, It is a hard book to read. The 738 page text is filled with pseudoscience research that "Intellectually justifies" White supremacy. However, despite the racist nature of the book, it is extremely important piece of work to read to understand the creation of White supremacy ideology. For it is White supremacy that gave birth to the systematic institutionalization of racism in our world.

Both White supremacy and the systematic institutionalization of racism have been used to justify the inhumanity of Black people for nearly 300 centuries. Teaching the world that Black people have no history, no culture, and no spiritual traditions have been allowed to “legitimately” fester in all institutions in America and in the world. Taking Kemet (Egypt), one of the world greatest civilizations, completely out of Afrika is every attempt to discredit Black people’s contributions to the civilizations. (In fact, to this day, ancient Kemet is seen not as Black civilization, but as White or Arab civilization. However, factual history teaches us that the Whites and Arabs occupying Kemet now were invaders. The original creators of Kemetic civilization were Black people.) Unfortunately, many races and cultures on the planet earth believe in these “truths” about Black people, including some of my own Black people, of Black people not contributing to the world’s civilizations. These abhorrent racial systems have also been the justification for slavery, colonialism, segregation, the n-word, police violence, and community violence for the sole purpose to make Black people the permanent oppressed class in America and in the world. This is why the struggle continues to make Black lives matter in the minds and hearts of all human beings, especially people of Afrikan descent. But if Black lives are going to truly matter in the world, non racist intellectuals must hard work to rescue, reconstruct, and restore Afrikan history and culture from clutches of White supremacy. White supremacist scholarship has left our world wrecked with severe problems of racial inequality on the planet earth.

Hotep!!!

Asante sana (Kiswahili for thank you very much) for reading my commentary.

O Dabo (Yoruba for go with God until we meet again)!!!

-Bashir Muhammad Akinyele is a History Teacher, Black Studies Teacher, Community Activist, Chairperson of Weequahic High School's Black History Month Committee in Newark, NJ, commentary writer, and Co-Producer and Co-Host of the All Politics Are Local, the number #1 political Hip Hip radio show in America.
Note: Spelling Afrika with a k is not a typo. Using the k in Afrika is the Kiswahili way of writing Africa. Kiswahili is a Pan -Afrikan language. It is spoken in many countries in Afrika. Kiswahili is the language used in Kwanzaa. The holiday of Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January 1.
#Hotep
#afrocentricity
#nationofislam
#kemet
#blacktheology
#kwanzaa
#blackstudies