President Obama is going on summer vacation and is planning to do some summer reading. He has reportedly selected six books to read of his own.
However, most of the time when the president speaks exclusively to African audiences, he tends to lecture Africans on how to behave as if they are the source of their collective problems as a race. Therefore, this list of books should help the president better understand the true source of the major sociopolitical and economic issues in the world.
The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality by Cheikh Anta Diop
Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese Egyptologist, makes the case that both mankind and civilization started with Black people. His book argues that ancient Egypt was largely Black African in race and culture during the first 2,000 years of its existence. Before Diop, the world believed that ancient Egyptians were not Black, and that the great Egyptian civilization that gave so much to the world, could not have come from dark brown-skinned Africans.
The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams
The Destruction of Black Civilization took Chancellor Williams 16 years of research and field study to compile. The book, which was to serve as a reinterpretation of the history of the African race, was intended to be “a general rebellion against the subtle message from even the most ‘liberal’ white authors (and their Negro disciples): ‘You belong to a race of nobodies. You have no worthwhile history to point to with pride.'” The book was written at a time when many Black students, educators and scholars were starting to piece together the connection between the way their history was taught and the way they were perceived by others and by themselves.
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an excellent introductory study for the student who wishes to better understand the dynamics of Africa’s contemporary relations with the West. Walter Rodney argues that a combination of power politics and economic exploitation of Africa by Europeans led to the poor state of African political and economic development evident in the late 20th century.
Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behaviour by Marimba Ani
Marimba Ani removes the mask from the facade and reveals the inner workings of global white supremacy—a system that functions to guarantee the control of Europe and her descendants (the few) over the majority of the world’s people (the many).
It is a devastating critique that uniquely focuses on the intellectual and cognitive rules by which the system of dominance operates: the assumption and ascendance.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Martinique-born Frantz Fanon presents a brilliant analysis of the psychology of colonized people and their path to liberation. With singular insight into the rage and frustration of the colonized and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics— the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other.
First published in 1961, The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anti-colonialism, and Black consciousness movements around the world, and a 2007 translation by author Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.
Fanon’s masterful work is a classic that stands with Edward Said’s Orientalism and Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
The Iceman Inheritance is the most glaring admission about the European’s attempt to dominate the world through racism. Michael Bradley, as a member of the Caucasian race, has bravely stepped forward with a valuable contribution to the analysis of Caucasian group behavior toward African people. No matter what your political affiliation or race, anyone who engages in a discussion of race relations is in reality examining why people who call themselves white have such a seemingly inherent animosity to people classified as non-white. Mr. Bradley also asks why Caucasian culture has an adversarial relationship to the planet Earth. It is rare for a Caucasian person to admit the existence of the global system of white supremacy, let alone acknowledge that the group mentality of his race is indeed the source of the racism, pollution, and resource depletion that plague the planet.
