Afrocentrism and Homophobia

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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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May 10, 2021, 5:19:18 PM5/10/21
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Final grades submitted, phew!! What a semester--full of highs and lows. One ambitious and bold final paper stole the show, arguing that aspects of modern Afrocentrism thrive on homophobia.

The student supplied evidence from both colonial sources (colonial moralistic documents, bills passed in the British parliament, missionary sources, etc) and African narratives. One particularly striking source is a Nigerian psychologist arguing in the 1960s that homosexuality was alien to Africa and was a colonial influence.

It's clear that today's homophobia in Africa has a genealogy that runs deep.

It's also clear that, in some quarters, homophobic discourses and praxis are intertwined with discourses of anti-colonial reclamation, of decolonization, and even of decoloniality.

My student concluded that efforts to banish homosexuality, understood as an imported colonial practice, from Africa, and to restore an alleged precolonial African culture devoid of homosexuality and sexualities outside heteronormativity have at times been legitimized by narratives of Afrocentrism and decolonization.

Since, according to him, a heteronormative precolonial Africa never existed, purveyors of Afrocentric homophobia have wittingly or unwittingly appropriated and Africanized Victorian colonial moral panic about homosexuality in Africa in order to make their case against homosexuality.

Simply brilliant! Yes, he got an A on the paper.

Joseph Bangura

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May 10, 2021, 7:09:03 PM5/10/21
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Well, I will not be a spoiler here since the student’s grade has been submitted. But it should be noted that homosexuality existed in Africa before colonial rule. In fact, when the Portuguese visited many African societies in the 15th century, they were stunned to observe that some Africans practiced homosexuality, particularly among the chiefs and their pages. The Portuguese were astounded because they perceived the act as a sophisticated lifestyle that Africans were incapable practiced alongside heterosexuality, polygyny, etc. Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time. Consequently, many Africans grew up under colonial rule perceived homosexuality as an abomination, a perception that was absorbed and appropriated as a cultural norm. It is the same Europeans backed by the US that are now forcing Africans to be tolerant of a practice their ancestors demonized and criminalized.

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Joseph Bangura

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May 10, 2021, 7:09:24 PM5/10/21
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Edited:

Well, I will not be a spoiler here since the student’s grade has been submitted. But it should be noted that homosexuality existed in Africa before colonial rule. In fact, when the Portuguese visited many African societies in the 15th century, they were stunned to observe that some Africans practiced homosexuality, particularly among the chiefs and their pages. The Portuguese were astounded because they perceived the act as a sophisticated lifestyle that Africans were incapable of practicing alongside heterosexuality, polygyny, etc. Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time. Consequently, many Africans grew up under colonial rule perceived homosexuality as an abomination, a perception that was absorbed and appropriated as a cultural norm. It is the same Europeans backed by the US that are now forcing Africans to be tolerant of a practice their ancestors demonized and criminalized.


--------------------------------------------------------
Joseph J Bangura, PhD
Professor of History
Director of African Studies
Kalamazoo College
1200 Academy Street
Kalamazoo, MI 49006

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2021 3:48 PM
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
 
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 10, 2021, 7:09:44 PM5/10/21
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Mainstream Christians are homophobic
Some Afrocentrics are Christian
Therefore  some Afrocentrics are homophobic.

Nothing spectacular here but your student
may also be speaking about the fundamentalist Afrocentrics.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

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Joseph Bangura

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May 10, 2021, 7:16:07 PM5/10/21
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Edited:

Well, I will not be a spoiler here since the student’s grade has been submitted. But it should be noted that homosexuality existed in Africa before colonial rule. In fact, when the Portuguese visited many African societies in the 15th century, they were stunned to observe that some Africans practiced homosexuality, particularly among the chiefs and their pages. The Portuguese were astounded because they perceived the act as a sophisticated lifestyle that Africans were incapable of practicing alongside heterosexuality, polygyny, etc. Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time. Consequently, many Africans grew up under colonial rule perceived homosexuality as an abomination, a perception that was absorbed and appropriated as a cultural norm. It is the same Europeans backed by the US that are now forcing Africans to be tolerant of a practice their ancestors demonized and criminalized.


--------------------------------------------------------
Joseph J Bangura, PhD
Professor of History
Director of African Studies
Kalamazoo College
1200 Academy Street
Kalamazoo, MI 49006

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
 

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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May 10, 2021, 8:00:09 PM5/10/21
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Brother Joseph,

The paper does go into that precolonial history of distinct African forms of homosexuality and other kinds of sexuality (as opposed to the Western forms). Consistent with your point, it discusses how the Portuguese and, later, British missionaries and colonizers were surprised when they encountered evidence of non-heterosexual identities and activities, with the British doing all they could to fight and outlaw them. So, the student's argument aligns with your point that precolonial Africa was tolerant towards different kinds of sexualities, and that the current instrumental and discursive myth of a precolonial Africa free of homosexuality is just that, a myth. The myth has resonated with homophobic African Christians and Muslims as well as some learned Afrocentrics--fundamentalist Afrocentrics as Gloria calls them. The latter have used it to authorize and animate their "reclamation," decolonizing, and cultural nationalist agenda. The paper also discusses the role of colonial Christian missionaries and, later, American evangelicals, in reinforcing Africa's homophobic hysteria and reputation.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/1620688082441.45324%40kzoo.edu.

Salimonu Kadiri

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May 11, 2021, 4:40:24 PM5/11/21
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​Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time --- Dr Joseph J. Bangura

I assume that all African languages, especially the Yoruba tongue into which I was born and raised up, have biological/anatomical name for every component of human body as well as its natural use and function. In my Yoruba language, there is no equivalent word for homosexuality which means it has never been practised amongst the Yoruba at any time in history. Since Dr Joseph J. Bangura is aware that homosexuality existed in pre-colonial Africa, I would want him to tell readers the corresponding word for homosexuality in his own original African mother tongue or in any known indigenous African language. 
S. Kadiri

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 11, 2021, 5:12:21 PM5/11/21
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if we follow foucault's famous reading on deviant sexuality , before the 18th century banning of practices, there wasn't any vocabulary to describe it. i think we get names for things we banned; their existence, ironically, comes with the banning. like speeding in your car. you need speed limits before you can have the infraction of exceeding them.
i like foucault's description of it, prior to the church and then the state's involvement, as sort of stuff that happened on the edges of fields.

the same is true of drugs. way back before they were illegal, they were just painkillers or substances people took, not what we mean when we say drugs. so freud was in pain from cancer, and took what are now banned substances. some for coleridge.
my larger argument is that the banning of same sex practices didn't come in respect to norms that were somehow natural and superior, but because straightnecked religious authorities wanted to impose their limits on desires  that ran the spectrum.  who cared what people desired, as long as they didn't impose them on others. .well, we live in an age of imposition, now, on many practices that were undisciplined until the institutions developed and extended their holds on power.....

i can say it simpler: live and let live.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 11, 2021, 8:22:11 PM5/11/21
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We've been here before.  Africa was not a monolithic centralised culture.  Some African communities like the Yorùbá banned homosexuality through the institutiin of taboos.  Some communities in northern Nigeria tolerated it as  part of the inflitrations from Arab countries.
.

So the statement that it was the Europeans that banned the practice in Africa is untrue.  It was already banned in many African communities before European incursion.

Yes its the West through its totalising mien that now wants all of Africa to embrace homosexuality irrespective of their past variegated histories toward the practice.


OAA



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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia

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Edited:

Well, I will not be a spoiler here since the student’s grade has been submitted. But it should be noted that homosexuality existed in Africa before colonial rule. In fact, when the Portuguese visited many African societies in the 15th century, they were stunned to observe that some Africans practiced homosexuality, particularly among the chiefs and their pages. The Portuguese were astounded because they perceived the act as a sophisticated lifestyle that Africans were incapable of practicing alongside heterosexuality, polygyny, etc. Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time. Consequently, many Africans grew up under colonial rule perceived homosexuality as an abomination, a perception that was absorbed and appropriated as a cultural norm. It is the same Europeans backed by the US that are now forcing Africans to be tolerant of a practice their ancestors demonized and criminalized.


--------------------------------------------------------
Joseph J Bangura, PhD
Professor of History
Director of African Studies
Kalamazoo College
1200 Academy Street
Kalamazoo, MI 49006

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Sent: Monday, May 10, 2021 6:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 12, 2021, 9:17:39 AM5/12/21
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what is the evidence that arab peoples tolerated homosexuality, much less spread it?
is there any, or it is just a prejudice?
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
 

Dr BioDun J Ogundayo

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May 12, 2021, 11:38:02 AM5/12/21
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We have to be careful when we present our opinions an assertions as fact, or the only truth. Human sexuality (not gender) is very complex, partly because it involves behavior that people (across cultures) may indulge in privately, but would never publicly admit. What exactly is homosexuality? Is it specific behavior, a range of behaviors, choice, etc…?
J. Lorand Matory has done done interesting work on this topic in Oyo-Igboho, and beyond.

Just because I am Yoruba does not mean I know everything about my people. There is so much knowledge and wisdom out there that is beyond our ken. Yes, ken. 

We need to be reasonable, and not conflate our knowledge with the truth, nor present logic as the Truth.

 We need to remind ourselves that what we know today about any subject/topic can always be challenged, reassessed and reimagined.



--
BioDun J. Ogundayo , PhD. Arokesagun

Victor Okafor

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May 12, 2021, 2:31:31 PM5/12/21
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Hello All:

Right from the start, the way the noun "Africa" has been deployed in this ongoing exchange has been problematic on several fronts. One, we have read assertions about what “Europeans” observed or found to be present or absent in "Africa" in a very private area of human behavior as if we are referring to a specific fixed home address. Indeed, these "Africa" references are pointing to a vast continent, the second largest in the world with more than 800 ethnic groups and languages, one whose social systems have been profoundly modified, to varying degrees, by exogenous influences, including Islam, Christianity, and even Judaism. So, one has to be especially careful about making assertions about what existed or did not exist at various pre-colonial cultural locations of a vast continent. Apart from the vexed issue of sexual behavior, I have also encountered spurious claims and counter-claims about whether patriarchy or matriarchy predominated in pre-colonial Africa.  Second, there were different groups of European mercantilists (otherwise known as "explorers"), including the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Germans, the Italians--in fact, all of Western European maritime powers of that time period. There was also the second wave consisting of the missionaries. As both mercantilists and as missionaries, they tended to leave behind written records of their travels through Africa under their particular individual names, not as "Europeans." Third, some of the comments have included claims about what European mercantilists observed or did not observe while passing through locations of the continent. An important question is this: what did the Africans themselves, ancient and modern, say about the specific type of human behavior in question? What existing research can shed light on this question? When are we going to transcend our acquired predisposition to teaching the world about Africa through the eyes of the colonizers, or through the eyes of an epistemological paradigm which tends to interpret the human experience from its own particular hegemonic prism and passing that off as a universal paradigm? With regards to the sexual behavior that is the subject of this discussion, have you deemed it important to investigate the subject matter through the eyes of the Africans themselves, and not through the eyes of their visitors? Was there a public sexual party or where there public sexual parties where the visiting “Europeans” observed the behavior being attributed to them here? Is it important to investigate phenomena that apply to Africa through the eyes of Africans themselves as subjects of their own human experience, rather than as objects of an imperial project? Can we resist temptation to interpret/contort African affairs in a way that would suit and conform with the dominant and acceptable social code of the day, of our own particular place of abode? In other words, can we resist temptation to simply seek to be politically correct?

 


To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CACkhLWZrmcK4OpE_Kkw2M676O-hVjqT06Waa-63c%2BF3YRUfHuQ%40mail.gmail.com.


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Sincerely,

Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Africology and African American Studies
Eastern Michigan University
Tel: 734.487.9594 (office)/734.846.6825 (cell)


Harrow, Kenneth

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May 12, 2021, 2:31:31 PM5/12/21
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dear biodun
i appreciated a lot your open and welcoming tone and thoughtfulness.

as for postings on this listserv, i think we have a range of opinions: some are relatively expert and well-informed. some are pretty much just opinions, without much backing.
i view the exchanges as running that gamut from informative and valuable to mere chat. most of the chat is, in fact, the most enjoyable, and i don't mind that i'm not being given an informed lecture. i mostly dislike being lectured to, with the implication that my interlocutor has the only handle on the truth, leaving little room for exchange of different opinions.

but there is another flip side. mere chat/opinions that purvey biases that are hurtful or worse, harmful, are no fun, and i appreciate greatly when our dear moderator says, enough already, stop.

there are certain topics that lend themselves to this sensitive arena where harmful biases emerge, and homosexuality, gay rights, linked with african identity and notions of authenticity, are of that sort. we encounter racism much less on this list, but if it were a list in the u.s., racism would certainly emerge more. we have antisemitism that occasionally crops up, and more frequently anti-muslim rhetoric. all touchy issues, and more, with ethnic biases as well, which we all meet in life and need to confront. if we consider we are with colleagues and friends, and can discuss informally these issues, that would be ideal. we can disagree strongly, without rejecting the other. hopefully.

i love your conclusion that despite being yoruba, you are not the world's expert on everything yoruba. that should be carved in gold on the heading of all our postings. more than modesty, it is a recognition of the limits of how we bandy about identity claims, or knowledge claims.

not to eliminate claims; but to open them for discussion

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Toyin Falola

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May 12, 2021, 8:29:13 PM5/12/21
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And I must confess that I am not comfortable posting messages on identity issues. It is always difficult to do, balancing free speech with stereotypes.

Meanwhile, can we all stop talking about LGBT+, unless we want to support marginalized people. The mind controls what we say; what we say affects emotions.

TF

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 16, 2021, 1:41:17 PM5/16/21
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Oga TF:

( and Im now on full stretch idobale)

I dont think this type of censorship is acceptable.  Just because a particular country or countries in the West find some views not politically correct cannot legimitate censorship from around the world. The cyber space is transnational space guaranteed by the One- at- the- Crossroads to level such one-way communicational transactions.

It is either we outlaw such topics as sexuality but particular views on them cannot be censorsed because affected persons can be counted among the glossed over class of the marginalised.

Ken directed his post to me and I have a right of reply:

I would retort to Ken's query with the query is there an evidence of homosexuality in ancient Greece to which countries in the West are heirs?  If the answer is yes, then my answer to him is yes for Arab countries and that it filtered into Africa via trade and religion, just as it filtered into Europe via trade and religion during the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire from the perspective of us who double as world historians.

There are basically two attitudes to those hiding under insidious political correctness to equate ethnicity with sexuality.  The Agbetuyi approach to confront them squarely and call their bluff or the Ken approach which is to allow himself to be blackmailed by and pander to their disguised second order racism.

What is really at stake in this disguised racism is a carefully constructed double- bind:  people who have been guilty of racism  ( and are homosexuals or argumentational representatives of such in the past) have carefully constructed the specious syllogism that both are equally right and persecuted only because they are minorities.  

That argument can only have a free run in the West and not globally. Minorities in the West are not necessarily minorities in their homelands globally.  Homosexuality is not a physical minority aspect in their homelands as semitism and blackness are in the West.
.Ken can find the evidence he asks for  Arab homosexuality in the History of Sexuality Parts 1 & 2.

Male homosexuality spreads sexual vermin in the society as Ifá and other cultures around the world remind us. Of recent it is accountable for the scourge of AIDS because it defies complete regulation in view  of the toleration by the West and its insidious encroachment to other cultures encouraged by the West.  Is semitism or blackness a disease in such manner except in the depraved rminds of the racist West and the westernised?


OAA



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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia

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And I must confess that I am not comfortable posting messages on identity issues. It is always difficult to do, balancing free speech with stereotypes.

Meanwhile, can we all stop talking about LGBT+, unless we want to support marginalized people. The mind controls what we say; what we say affects emotions.

TF

 

 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 16, 2021, 6:32:15 PM5/16/21
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well...
how a community regulates its discussion amongst itself is an interesting problem. our poor moderator has had to handle many different strains of incivility.
i can only say that for me it crosses a line to use the word vermin in characterizing homosexuality or gay people.

it is fine to open the question of what societies and people had this or that practice. but when we go past that to condemn the people, in so many words, as vermin, as spreading vermin, that means to advocate elimination.
i really wish, oaa, you had not permitted yourself to publicly take that position.
i find it morally wrong, that is, for everyone. but personally, as i am jewish, and vermin was the word used by hitler in justifying his plan to eliminate us, i find it all the more unacceptable. in rwanda, to give just one recent instance of this, the hutu extremists called tutsis inyenzi, cockroaches, so as to stimulate hatred for them in the community, and to justify the "cleansing." ethnic cleansing is the same: they dehumanize another group so as to justify eliminating them.
gays are human beings; they share our humanity, completely. they're not inyenzi.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2021 1:27 PM

Gloria Emeagwali

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May 16, 2021, 8:11:52 PM5/16/21
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Ken,
It is interesting to note that your own “identity “runs through all your references and interesting narratives 
but somehow it is not appropriate for
others to discuss or talk about
Identity matters. Why is that?

But I agree with you that OA should
not use the V word.  In fact he has gone too far. I disagree with both the style and substance of what he has said on this matter of sexuality. 

Gloria Emeagwali 




On May 16, 2021, at 18:32, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:



Harrow, Kenneth

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May 17, 2021, 12:44:10 AM5/17/21
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gloria, i wasn't sure we were talking, but i'll put in my 2 cents. you misunderstand the critique of "identity" i might have suggested. i 'd borrow glissant's critique of originary thinking for this. it isn't a question of who people are, but their grounding of their sense of identity in some pure/absolute/original/true/real..what derrida calls the metaphysics of presence. this often tied not only to pride in self and one's people, but denigration of others.

for example, if it were to say, i am jewish, we are better than anyone else, we are the true original believers in the divine god, and no one else can say as much, i'd be espousing obnoxious beliefs in identity that depend upon denegrations of others. it is a form of racism, and marks criticism of israel today as an apartheid state. i see the way ultra-orthodox jews advance those views, and see them as my intellectual adversaries. you wish to place me directly in their world.

if i were to say, on the other hand, we are all both the same and different, both marked by different positions in society which are reflected in how others perceive us--be it by any identity marker--i'd not be advancing one over the other. if i were to celebrate difference, it would mean accepting how others see the world in their way, and that the difference enriches mine. if i were to say it with current jargon, it would be a celebration of diversity; rather than identity, in the narrow sense you attribute to me.

i also believe you want to lock my into a box that doesn't represent who i am or what i think. you have expressed really angry thoughts about my own questioning of the temple university asante school of afrocentrism, say; with there being no room for questioning; no room for questioning cheikh anta diop. when biko described afrocentrism recently as a perspective on the world grounded in african place, i agreed 100%. but i know if i were to evoke derrida, that likely that would elicit negative responses. for me there is much more to afrocentrism than molefi asante.

we don't share a set of intellectual perspectives; but i would hope that expressions of our views might transcend personal attacks and permit the disagreements to be viewed as within the community we share on this list.

more many of us, nigeria is a rich country because of its multiplicity of peoples and cultures; we wouldn't want to insist only one group matters, or another is inherently evil. we can't say "people" without meaning their identities. but we don't need authentity markers to celebrate who we are, and a world made up of a kaleidoscope of us.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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