Abstract
In the field of Africology, there have been two general theories dealing with the social, cultural, and economic condition of African Americans: Kawaida and Afrocentricity. The first has been advanced in the writings of Maulana Karenga and the latter is seen in the writings of Molefi Kete Asante and his associates. While there are other intellectual approaches to the African condition, they have often lacked integrity because they have not dealt with the previous works in the field. Daudi Azibo’s Metatheory, published as an e-book by Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies (AJPAS), is unfortunately a poorly asserted idea which lacks systematic integrity because it fails to build upon the work that has already been done and becomes a spiteful trope of indecency.
Kawaida, for example, emerged in the late 1960s as a system of reconstruction based upon the need to resurrect African culture after the destructive impact of the enslavement and segregation. Karenga saw Kawaida, customs and traditions, as a necessary cultural reconstruction project supported by Malcolm’s political thought and rhetoric when he called on African Americans to wake-up and transform themselves. Similarly, Asante’s Afrocentricity is a diagnosis and a prescription of the condition of African people. He holds that Africans have to be viewed as agents in their own historical experiences. Thus, both Karenga and Asante focused on culture suggesting that Africans have been wounded at the cultural level.
In this e-book, Azibo seeks to advance a holistic, evolutionary, African-centered, racial theory based on personality. This is a large undertaking and its failure is also very large because the author seeks to achieve his grand scheme without reference to other scholars who have attempted similar grand designs. Rather than build upon the work of Asa Hilliard, Wade Nobles, Na’im Akbar, Molefi Kete Asante, Joseph White, and Kobi Kambon, Azibo takes unorthodox and widely unfounded personal attacks on these scholars as a way to clear the field for himself. It is an unforgivable assault on the intelligence of his readers because he does not provide any concrete evidentiary information for his severe character assassinations which are neither ethical nor scholarly. Whatever one may have found useful in this work is sadly infected with an unfortunate personal meanness that demonstrates a lack of reason, Afrocentric rationality, and personal decency.
One can immediately see in the first pages that the writer’s motives are suspect and that the table of contents does not correspond to his personal insults included in the text. One is left to wonder whether his projections are meant to conceal his own theoretical inadequacy. He appears petulant and often angry with what he calls “iconic scholars.” One could easily say that his attacks on the personal character of others blur any serious attention to this badly peer-reviewed piece. Azibo chants about his publications and then his disagreements with, anger over, and personality squabbles with the Association of Black Psychologists. Clearly, he was annoyed by the Association because of its unwillingness to anoint him or his theories as significant to the field. A reader might wonder why he did not seek to teach the Association by modeling serious and scrupulous scholarly production? Instead, he pursues a strategy of sordid hyperbole and slander against scholars with whom he apparently holds grudges. One cannot teach any theory or philosophy without humility, a personality trait that endears so many intellectual leaders to readers and students. What one wishes in this text is clarity about purpose, openness to intellectual ideas, the review of what has happened before in scholarship on personality, and then the presentation of ideas. Sadly, in Azibo’s work, one sees in his writings special attacks on professors who were chairs of departments where he was terminated such as at Temple University and Florida A&M University.
In this text, Azibo repeats many things because his work is a compilation of various pieces, it seems, that he has published over the years in the same journal. However, starting with a failure to honor those earlier psychologists who wrote on personality or those earlier philosophers who wrote on culture, he descends into the hinterlands of character attacks on his elders, including the chair of his dissertation committee. He blames John Henrik Clarke for speaking about his teachers in a Philadelphia lecture without mentioning their “contradictions” (p. 52). He asserts, “However, this is not the case in the present chapter in which contradictions of seven iconic Africana scholars provide the basis for analysis.” To justify what he seeks to do with these “iconic Africana scholars,” he cites two European writers Duane Schultz and Sydney Ellen Schultz because they “make a point of looking into the lives of the theorists for insight into their theories” (p. 52). Yet, when one reads Schultz and Schultz, it is clear that they do not attack European theorists. For example, they include in their texts portraits of Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis, Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology, Alfred Adler and Individual Psychology, Karen Horney and Neurotic Needs and Trends, Erik Erikson and Identity Theory, Gordon Allport and Motivation and Personality, Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck as theorists of Traits, Abraham Maslow for Needs Hierarchy, Carl Rogers for Self-Actualization, George Kelly for Personal Construct, B. F. Skinner and Reinforcement Theory, and Albert Bandura for Modeling theory, and there are no character attacks. Instead of examining the intellectual contributions of Wade Nobles or Kobi Kambon, Azibo spills out gossipy comments about personal insults to him. In some cases, he fabricates stories about Molefi Kete Asante and Robert L. Williams without evidence, primary, secondary, or tertiary; only his own recitation of events that are not corroborated by anyone else. In fact, it is likely that evidence is not presented because the narratives are false.
Azibo acts quite deceitfully by burying his character attacks on other scholars in the middle of his text, thus concealing his intent by avoiding any outline of these assaults in the earlier parts of the text. Yet, he announces that in calling out/naming/identifying the contradictions of these individuals, most of it relies on my own testimony. It is mostly my own recollection of events that I personally experienced in interactions with them. I offer my recollections in the flow of the given interactions as I best recall. (p. 53)
This statement suggests the identifying marks of a hatchet job where the author will provide no evidence beyond his imagination and opinions with no authentication, verification or confirmation of facts, no written documents, no corresponding testimony from other witnesses, no personal records or legal papers to indicate the facts, and no interviews. This type of writing should never be allowed to gain feet in any legitimate academic or scholarly journal; the presentation of this work is not about scholarly research but about personal vendettas, and sadly, the publisher appears to have acquiesced in its propagation without adequate peer-review.
What is most tragic is that Azibo seems to cherish recognition by the same individuals he attacks. In one case, Azibo does not actually name the person attacked but calls him “un-named, but well known” and says he “admits to facing Mecca when he prays” (p. 54). “Un-named but well known” is attacked for an assortment of so-called contradictions. Asa Hilliard, now deceased, was attacked for his affiliations. Robert L. Williams’s character is attacked without context except that he was Azibo’s dissertation chair. Joseph White is derided for attacks on women without any proof other than Azibo’s recollection which he has admitted might not be the best. In the end, the comments on Williams may indicate a wish for recognition from his advisor. Similarly, he calls Wade Nobles “arrogant” and “egotist” because he did not thank him for an invitation to speak that he was supposed to have made to Nobles. Of course, Wade Nobles is a highly respected Stanford-trained psychologist and Azibo felt that Nobles saw himself above him with a “lordly hauteur” (p. 56). For Azibo, Molefi Kete Asante, who gave him his first job, has a special place in his angst. Asante’s “vainglory” comes out in his work, his students, and his career, as “he pushes not for his rightful place in line, but to be perceived as at the head of the line at any cost” (p. 61). Azibo repeats the false canard about a former student accusing Asante of plagiarism. As one who has seen all relevant documents since I am a faculty member at Temple University, Asante was never charged with any such thing, never proved to have committed plagiarism, never convicted for it, and never lost any position because of plagiarism. It is a vicious attack on the most published African American scholar to soil the reputation of Afrocentricity.
Azibo makes two unfounded charges about Asante that are not worthy of an academic journal. Azibo claims in his text that a female coming up for tenure at Temple told him that she feared for her tenure because Asante was a toucher. Three women came up for tenure during Asante’s leadership of the department in the 1990s, all three have tenure and not one of them accepts Azibo’s claims. Each of these women denies Azibo’s claims. Azibo even claims that he heard sexual activity going on while he was outside of Asante’s office. He said he called the police, but the police said that there was a woman in the office who said nothing happened. Why would Azibo put this in a so-called scholarly discussion of personality without proof? I can only believe that this is allowed in the journal because of deep animosity toward Asante. Azibo’s assault on Kobi Kambon appears to be because he felt that Kambon orchestrated “an isolation” of him beginning in 1998 (p. 64). The character attack on Kambon is especially vicious, comparable to the assault on Asante. Both of these individuals had hired Azibo as a professor and had to part company with him for various reasons.
Azibo’s book is a compilation of grievances against the individuals Azibo perceives as being “iconic” Black intellectuals. Perhaps this will be recorded as the nethermost example of scholarly publishing in African American scholarship because of the un-proofed and peer-reviewed nature of this piece. One more point, even the young scholar, Michael Tillotson, the popular author of Invisible Jim Crow comes in for mention in Azibo’s mean-spirited attack on intellectuals. I do not see how this book boosts Azibo’s stature; in fact, it appears that this is sure to irrevocably damage his reputation as an independent scholar. I do not recommend this book either for scholarship or for a substantive portrayal of the work of the “iconic scholars.” It is clearly an assault on scholarship that this manuscript was published by AJPAS.