Molefi Kete Asante

thumb|If a person's actions are not good, it does not matter how the person looks physically. Doing good is equivalent to being beautiful. Molefi Kete Asante (born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an African-American professor and philosopher. Quotes Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge (1990) A common expression among African Americans relates the good to the beautiful, "beauty is as beauty does" or "she's beautiful because she's good." The first statement places emphasis on what a person does, that is, how a person "walks" among others in the society. The second statement identifies the beautiful by action. If a person's actions are not good, it does not matter how the person looks physically. Doing good is equivalent to being beautiful. p. 11 The idea found embedded in European thought, particularly in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries that Africans were inferior socially and behaviorally has tainted most of what passes for social science in the West, definitionally and conceptually. Few have been able to escape Alexander Pope's dictum in the Essay on Man (1733) "some are, and must be, greater than the rest" and its implication for European contact and interpretation of that contact with the rest of the world. p. 21 Afrocentricity (1988; revised ed. 2003) "Afrocentricity is a frame of reference wherein phenomena are viewed from the perspective of the African person." Afrocentricity (Africa World Press, revised edition, 2003). "Afrocentricity". Molefi Kete Asante defining Afrocentricity as a framework for understanding African experience. "The Afrocentric approach seeks in every situation the appropriate centrality of the African person." Afrocentricity (Africa World Press, revised edition, 2003). "Afrocentricity". Molefi Kete Asante discussing the centrality and agency of African people in historical and cultural analysis. Interviews "Afrocentricity is simple. If you examine phenomena concerning African people, you must give them agency." Asante Speaks About Black History, The Harvard Crimson (1995). Molefi Kete Asante explaining the principle of agency in Afrocentric thought. "The Afrocentric idea is a transformative idea; it takes people from the margins." Asante Speaks About Black History, The Harvard Crimson (1995). Molefi Kete Asante discussing the transformative role of Afrocentricity. "Afrocentricity is a paradigm, an orientation toward data, a perspective, that says that African people are subjects, rather than objects." Molefi Kete Asante on Afrocentrism, Social Science Bites (2021). Molefi Kete Asante discussing Afrocentricity as an intellectual paradigm. External links Category:Academics from the United States Category:Philosophers from the United States Category:Educators from the United States Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Political activists Category:Activists from the United States Category:African Americans Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:People from Georgia (U.S. state)