Oga Okafor:
We are colonized subjects, and we are not free. Validation is from those who have conquered and dominated. That which comes from the West is seen as more valid. Even African Americans don't seek their validation from Africa. Determining who your best is in any fields is an imperialist project.
It is a problem, a big one.
TF
From: 'Victor Okafor' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, February 9, 2024 at 8:40 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - 'It reeks of neo-colonialism', Music stakeholders reject Africa Grammy bid - Daily Trust
All these worrisome signs continue to raise questions about the overall ideological orientation--that is, the worldview that the Nigerian educational system germinates in its products, speaking-generally. A social system reaps what it sows. If a system is substantially-grounded upon an extrinsic, externally-directed worldview which prompts its products to look outwards, not inwards, for solutions to their socioeconomic and political problems, to look outwards, not inwards, for affirmation, to look outwards, not inwards, for rewards and incentives, then you are bound to have results such as this inferiority-complex-driven quest for an "African Grammy." Isn't there an already-existing, Africa-oriented, and African culturally rooted national, regional, and continental framework for recognition of African musical stars?
As this "African Grammy" gimmick and similar dramatics emerge, one is given a sense that almost across the social industries, the African social plain is polluted by a class of miseducated, misoriented and psychically dislocated African middle-class individuals who appear to lack both historical awareness and historical consciousness. As the "African Grammy" gimmick would suggest, they even appear to embody child-like minds which are easily titillated and dazzled by the visual glitter and glamour of the atmospherics that accompany the Grammy Awards. For now, they may stand to reap financial rewards for this type of cultural harlotry, but do they care about its short-term and long-term consequences for the overall cultural wellbeing and moral health of the African landscape? Have they paused to ponder about what is beneath the atmospherics of Grammy Awards? Have they wondered about the underlying decadent cultural values that tend to constitute the bedrock of the Grammy Awards? Have they given a thought, or does their total consciousness even prompt them to wonder about the nature of the kinds of transmittable cultural baggage that could be and would be diffused from a land of deepening cultural decadence to their still relatively-culturally respectful land of Africa? While Africa may not be at the forefront of the science and technology of the contemporary era, it still is perceived even by the outside world, as a cultural mecca, as a source of cultural refreshment/affirmation and cultural restoration. Must Africa also give that up for the sake of the desire of a set of influential, powerfully-connected, but historically and culturally-dislocated set of fellow Africans who appear to be hell-bound towards becoming like the Joneses even at a time the Joneses themselves seem to have grown wary of what they have become when they look at themselves through their mirrors?
Indeed, our most prolific critic of the contemporary African socioeconomic and political landscape, Professor Patrick Lumumba is right on the mark in his very lucid, historically anchored, and realistic critiques of certain counter-African progress orientations and attributes of certain segments of the contemporary African socioeconomic and political class, generally-speaking.
On Fri, Feb 9, 2024 at 2:34 AM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
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Sincerely,
Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Africology and African American Studies
Eastern Michigan University
Email: vokafor@emich.edu
Tel: 734.487.9594
Food for Thought:
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Frederick Douglass
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