Race Revisited: Against a Cultural Construction bearing Significant Implications

Abstract

More often than not, academics of African descent--from the continent, the diaspora, or other parts of the world--have been trained in Western and Middle Eastern-oriented disciplines that espouse the race paradigm. Imbued with race theory, they seek spiritual, social, and political solutions to critical race issues, in some cases unwittingly maintaining the cultural structure of the dominant group from which the construct arises. This article highlights the creation of race and race identity by European, Indo-Aryan (white), and Middle Eastern (Semitic) men and women, sanctified by religious ideals that advanced their societies and stigmatised Africans, based on the melanin content of their skin. In these cultural orientations, the blackest-skinned women, men, and children are devalued, debased, and demonised. Race is used as a cultural strategy for fabricating human history and distinctions, shaping thinking, behaviours, and exploits that continue to have deleterious, far-reaching...