Agency Reduction Formation: The Origin and Development of a Practical Theory

Twenty First Century Necessity

The 21st century beckons the emergence of a theoretical construct, which advances the recognition and illumination of systems of thought that are antithetical to the well-being of people of African descent. Additionally, the circumstances facing Africana people (globally) calls for the development of a theoretical link to real-life problems on a relevant and practical level. Broadly speaking, there is an urgency to understand (from a theory building standpoint), the reality that systems of thought anchored in bad faith that work against the interests of Africana people are not always race specific. Scholar Daniel (1981) in the book, The African American Studies Reader in a chapter titled, Theory Building in Black Studies, speaks to the necessity for theory building, he writes, “The Black Studies Theorist must also be aware of the forces, black and non-black which impact on the black community” (p. 465). What this means is that anti-egalitarian/anti-Black thought is just as easily contracted and absorbed by some people of African descent as well as many individuals of European ancestry. The ideological structuring of anti-Black philosophies and their meanings have been extensively examined by Africana Studies, Philosopher Lewis Gordon in his book, Bad Faith and Anti-Black Racism (1995).

Daniel (1981) goes on to say, “A Black Studies analyst must check his research and his activities against the movement in the Black community, past, present, and future, and not against inanimate objects or abstract theoretical constructs which make up the substance of other disciplines” (p. 465). Daniel’s work speaks to the second half of the Africana Studies disciplinary credo, “Social Responsibility,” which places the discipline in a natural tension with some college and university administrators and so-called traditional disciplines. In its early stages of development, Black Studies was criticized for engaging in issues and concerns of the Black community. In the book, From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline, Rojas (2007) writes, “Administrators insisted that black studies programs mitigate their most nationalist tendencies and adopt the practices of other academic disciplines.” He goes on to posit, “Proposals framing black studies programs as a resource for the black community were met with stiff resistance. Anything that rang of cultural nationalism was quickly labeled ‘politicized black studies’, which was inconsistent with the academy’s need to produce objective knowledge” (p. 208).

This issue still pervades higher education concerning Africana Studies. In an academic and community context, a spirited polemic and experiential wisdom, while always a critical part of the redemptive Black experience, can’t stand alone and must be energized and attached to a coherent theoretical construct to move policy driven agentive possibilities forward for people of African descent in the 21st century.

It is because of this that the development of theory is of primary importance in the sense that it gives Africana Studies practitioners and human service workers a theoretical base and an intellectually agentive platform to operate from. Speaking to the importance of theory construction in Black Studies, Gordon and Gordon (2006) write, “Without a theoretical framework, the kind of hermeneutic that brings meaning to interpretations, most interpretations would function no better than simple hypotheses in long strings of ideas with lukewarm designation of ‘maybe’.” They continue, “Theoretical frameworks, however, also tend to be embedded in experiences germane to societies and their theorists whose creative work stimulated their birth.” Continuing they posit, “What this means is that the theories on which interpretations depend become that on which even our empirical work relies, and such dependency has political consequences.” Closing out their argument Gordon and Gordon (2006) write, “Should Black studies abrogate responsibility for the theoretical frameworks that inform its production of knowledge, then the very decolonization project sought would be undermined. We call this consequence epistemological colonization” (p. xi). Theory must be a vital part of the African-centered project that launches the investigation of anti-egalitarian systems of thought that influence and impact the lives of Africana people.

Norment (2007) argues, an emergent theory in Black Studies must contain, “The other component concerns how we transform our scholarship into a social ideology that redirects the lives of African American people” (p. x1). In agreement and in concert with Norment’s position, it is vitally important that the redirection and inspection of Africana lives also requires a theory that can aid this population in discerning and identifying systems of thought that place them in harm’s way and suppresses their potential for human agency.

Historically, Africana Studies has understood the importance of developing a theoretical foundation to its academic work. Daniel (1981) writes,

At a slightly lower longitude we discover scholars who advocate theories which are consistent with Robert Allen’s three conceptual categories in Black Studies: (1) those that emphasize the creation of a knowledge base, (2) those concerned with the establishment of a discipline and (3) those which purport to be rooted in the black community (p. 461).

The Emergence of Agency Reduction Formation as a Practical Theory

Robert Allen’s conceptual category analysis (point 3 above) will serve as the basis for understanding the development and ascendance of the theory, Agency Reduction Formation in Africana Studies. In the book, Invisible Jim Crow: Contemporary Ideological Threats to the Internal Security of African Americans, Tillotson (2011) developed and introduced the theoretical construct Agency Reduction Formation, operationalized as, “Any system of thought that distracts, neutralizes, or reduces the need and desire for assertive collective agency by African Americans” (p. 60).

In an interview in 2013 with the Editorial Board of the Journal of Pan African Studies, Tillotson was asked:

Can you explain the origin of this concept?

. . . I was equally convinced that the negative disparities in the quality-of-life indicators for people of African descent could not simply be the singular result of members of this population not living up to their human potential. The x and y axis, i.e. independent and dependent variable, explanations on Black life put forth by the expositors of the anti-egalitarian project was too binary and simplistic for my understanding. Consequently, I set out to investigate the confounds, or the z factors, existing in the larger explanatory horizons of restrictive ideologies that could possibly explain the contemporary challenges of African Americans. Agency Reduction Formation (ARF) is the theoretical construct that I developed as part of my response to the critical need for an African-Centered Diagnostic. (p. 192)

Tillotson continues,

ARF is a diagnostic tool of analysis to test a system of thought, a movement and anything in human existence that affects African descended people negatively. Its intended use is to expose ideas which are antithetical to the collective advancement of African people. The Agency Reduction Formation concept has wide ranging utility because it gives individuals concerned about equality, social justice, and human rights a definitive conceptual counter argument that exposes the dominative nature and hegemonic frameworks located in anti-egalitarian ideational structures. (p. 192)

As an emergent theory, Agency Reduction Formation is linked to the foundational precepts and concerted purpose of transformative scholarship, which form the corpus of the long-standing egalitarian tradition of esteemed African-Centered scholars, whose life’s work has been anchored in the pursuit of agency for people of African descent. Scholars such as: Linda James Myers (Optimal, Sub-Optimal Functioning), Marcia Sutherland (Individual Responses to the Struggle), Wade Nobles (Extended Self), Molefi Asante (Afrocentricity), Maulana Karenga (Kawaida), Marimba Ani (Yurugu), Kobi Kambon (Worldviews Schematic), Daudi Azibo (Azibo Nosology), and Lewis Gordon (Black Existentialism). Respectively, this list is representative, but not exhaustive of African-centered thinkers who are engaged in the practice of agentive scholarly work.

Examples of the Utility and Function of Agency Reduction Formation

As a theory, ARF is acutely attuned to ideas that dispossess Africana people of human agency and collective strength. Therefore, it is useful to examine how ARF is currently being used in Africana Studies from a variety of perspectives and scholarly platforms to illuminate ideological anti-egalitarianism.

In the book, Research Methods in Africana Studies (the only text solely devoted to research methods in Africana Studies) in chapter two titled, Methodology in Africana Studies Research, McDougal (2014) offers perspective on ARF, he writes, “Agency reduction formation is a framework of analysis designed to expose, situate, and explain ideological trends that are intended to compel African Americans to distance themselves from their collective identity” (p.57). The understanding of ARF and its placement in a research methods text connotes its ascendant position in the warehouse of theoretical constructions in Africana Studies, while also broadcasting its utility writ large.

In the fall-winter 2018 edition of the International Journal of Africana Studies, published by the National Council for Black Studies (2018), ARF was selected as the prompt for the call for papers. This issue was devoted to scholars who wanted to examine how agency (and lack thereof) influenced the Black experience from a variety of fronts. The scholar’s work’s that were peer reviewed and eventually selected represent the wide-ranging possibilities and applications of ARF.

Cherise Burden Stelly, an assistant professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, at Carlton College, chose to use ARF in the IJAS in 2018 (mentioned above) as the theoretical platform to launch her article, Black Cold War Liberalism as an Agency Reduction Formation during the Late 1940’s and Early 1950’s. In a section of the work titled, Theoretical Framework Stelly (2018) writes,

This article contends that Black Cold War liberalism was an egregious agency reduction formation that indelibly impeded the collective struggle of Africana people for liberation, for self-determination, and for autonomy by divorcing the fight to acquire liberal rights and recognition from the struggle for economic redistribution and fundamental social transformation. Furthermore, because Black liberals sought juridical and political equality that could facilitate claims of belonging to the liberal democratic state, they discounted Black left activism that exceeded the former. (p. 78)

In another section of the work Stelly, examines Black Cold War liberalism through the lens of ARF, she writes,

Considering these notions, Black Cold War liberalism was an especially pernicious agency reduction formation because it uncritically supported the anti-communist state’s use of desegregation to not only crush Black militant struggle but to negate the idea that racism remained embedded in American society. (p. 90)

Stelly’s work reflects the understandings of historical materialists such as, but not limited to, James Ford, E. Franklin Frazier, and Manning Marable, respectively. Consistently and with a sense of purpose throughout her article, Stelly deftly engages ARF to bring attention to a complex phenomenon that she makes clear with a steady magisterial analytic approach. She employs ARF to illuminate actions by Black liberals, whom in large measure were not resistant to the state’s movement against the agentive voices of Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois. Consequently, according to Stelly (2018), “. . .thereby obstructing a more expansive and broad-based vision of Africana flourishing” (p. 81).

Another scholar (in the same journal and volume) Justin Gammage, a terminal degree holder in African American Studies and Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Cal State Dominguez Hills, created categories to employ the foundational operationalization of ARF. In his article, Professional Athletes and Their Protests during the National Anthem: Dominant Narratives as a Form of Agency Reduction, Gammage uses ARF to illuminate and problematize two sets of pejorative frameworks that negate the agency of African Americans in the United States.

In the section of his article titled, Agency Reduction Formation and the Attack on Black Protest, Gammage (2018a,b) writes, “Understanding the close relationship between an ideological framework, reality, and human behavior is essential to comprehending agency reduction.” He continues, “The framework provides a guideline for one to locate and to assess one’s reality, whereas one’s reality informs one behavior. The interconnectedness of these items is akin to the relationship of brain and body.” Continuing, he posits, “Not unlike the brain, an ideological framework distributes signals that influence acts and actions” (p. 56).

In another section of the article, Gammage (2018a,b) offers his understanding of ARF and posits, “I describe agency reduction formation as any ideological framework that discourages people of African descent from using protest as a tool for resisting domination, essentially rendering this group vulnerable to a state of subjugation” (p. 57). Gammage (2018a,b) continues,

As indicated above, entire African communities can fall prey to agency reduction formations. These systems, together with the institutions that reinforce them (e.g., law enforcement, corporations, the media), seek to delegitimize African people’s concerns and produce dominant narratives to deflate resistance movements and to eliminate perceived societal threats (p. 57).

The clarity and illumination that are reflected in Gammages’(2018a,b) articulations on agency reduction formations and protest have a long shelf-life historically, emanating from the anti-colonial stances of African people from centuries ago to the concerted resistance movements (globally) of this contemporary moment.

As a conceptual counter argument ARF served useful for Gammage (2018a,b) as he articulates (below) four conclusions surrounding the dominant narratives (and their intent of reducing African agency and deflating resistance movements) of ultra-conservative media and their perspectives on Black protest.

Gammage demonstrates the utility of ARF by highlighting the enduring attempts by ultra conservative media to systematically suppress, re-design the motives, and change the narrative of legitimate Black Protest. This is an important step in clarifying the problematics associated with ultra conservative media as it consistently attempts to neutralize the collective agency of Black Americans and their allies.

Disciplinary Location and Usage

On Friday March 16, 2018, at the National Conference of Black Studies annual conference, a panel of four university professors presented their work using ARF as their theoretical platform. In her presentation titled, Cultural Appropriation as “Agency Reduction: A critical Analysis of the Adoption of Black Culture as a Means to Reduce Collective Agency of Africana People”; Professor Marquita Gammage from the Department of Africana Studies at California State University at Northridge, brought attention to the problematics associated with individuals and groups of European ancestry’s widespread appropriation of African cultural elements. She re-worked the presentation into an article titled: Cultural Appropriation as “Agency Reduction: A critical Analysis of the Commodification of Black Culture as a Means to Reduce the Collective Agency of Africana People” published in the IJAS volume previously mentioned. Gammage (2018) writes, “Returning misappropriated cultural expressions to African Americans as replacements for their original forms reduces the possibility of African Americans using these expressions to address oppressive conditions. This scheme reflects agency reduction formation” (p. 37). Additionally, in this work Gammage argues that cultural appropriation occurs in four distinct phases: Importation, Commodification, Exportation, and Adoption. Clearly, these descriptive categories reduce the collective agency of Black people and are informative as they are representative of the operationalization of ARF.

In earlier work, (2017) in an article titled, “Pop Culture without Culture: Examining the Public Backlash to Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance,” published in the Journal of Black Studies, Gammage once again expertly employs ARF as her theoretical platform. In this article Marquita Gammages’ central argument is that American society rejects Blackness, while at the same time it can’t deny how the essence of Black cultural norms have had a profound influence on American society. Gammage makes clear how this reality is packaged and sold back to the world without acknowledgment of authentic Black cultural ownership. This effort is determinative of how agency reduction formations thrive and at times dissolves the collective cultural agency of Black Americans, according to Gammage. The representations of ARF in the works of Marquita Gammage, are an important marker for the community of scholars, who are engaged in the important practice of examining Black cultural production and artistic agency inside of the universe of so-called mainstream popular culture.

Another scholar, Drew Brown (2018), assistant professor of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware, whose area of specialization includes contemporary sports analysis, utilizes ARF in his work to create and propagate discursive interventions surrounding the suppression of cultural agency of Black Americans in professional sports. In the book, Football, Culture and Power, in a section titled, Ballers without Blackness: The Suppression of Black Cultural Agency in the NFL, he writes (2018), “Africana Studies scholar, Michael Tillotson (2011) concurs that Black expressions of agency are often met with resistance from the dominant group.” Brown continues, “In what he calls ‘Agency Reduction Formations’ (ARF), Tillotson (2011) argues that laws, media, and social ridicule often diminish the cultural presence of authentic Black production” (p. 46).

Additionally, the emerging generation of scholars in Africology are finding ARF a useful tool in their academic work and scholarly futures. In the Department of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University in August of 2020, Ph.D. candidate Garrison Danielle Paige, utilized Agency Reduction Formation as part of the theoretical basis in the writing and defending of her dissertation titled, We Are What We Speak: An Afrocentric Analysis of the Manifestation and Impact of Agency Reducing Identities Found on Instagram.

DOI: https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.34944/dspace/264

The Indiana University Agency Reduction Formation Symposium

Taking the lead in bringing the utility of Agency Reduction Formation to the attention of the academic world, Indiana University at Bloomington hosted the first public symposium on ARF. The reach out and publicity campaign included the following from the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies:

Our Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) will enthusiastically celebrate the milestone of 50+1 years in higher education at Indiana University throughout the spring semester. This celebration will culminate in an all- day symposium titled: “51 years of Black/Africana Studies at IU: A Symposium Forging a Way Forward Through the Utilization of Africana Studies’ Agency Reduction Formation Theory.”

This symposium will be hosted by Valerie Grim, professor of African American and African diaspora studies at Indiana University, and Michael Tillotson, associate professor of Africana studies at SUNY Cortland. It will feature the history, culture, and achievements of African American and African Diaspora Studies (formerly Afro-American Studies) at Indiana University and ask one of the many essential questions, including: where do we go from here? Conversations relative to this and other inter-related questions will be discussed using the Africana studies theory, Agency Reduction Formation, which was developed by Africana studies scholar, Michael Tillotson. Agency Reduction Formation is operationalized as a way to examine “any system of thought that distracts, neutralizes, or reduces the need and desire for assertive collective agency by African Americans.” https://aaads.indiana.edu/news-events/50-anniversary/symposium.html

The all-day symposium was groundbreaking. The event broadcasts to the discipline and the American academy writ large that an organic theory developed and operationalized by a terminal degree holder in African American Studies could garner the resources and support from the administration of a major research one institution. The symposium attracted scholar participants from across the nation. In attendance on different panels were Dr. Lewis Gordon an internationally renowned intellectual in Africana Philosophy and current head of the department of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Stephen Finley, African American and Religious Studies scholar, and inaugural chair of the newly formed African American Studies department at Louisiana State University. Dr. Valerie Harrison special counsel to the president and head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Temple University. Dr. Charisse Burden Stelly is considered a peerless scholar of her generation on the subject of cold war liberalism and Black involvement. Dr. Stelly is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago.

The first morning panel of the day long symposium featured Finley, Harrison, and Stelly who offered three completely different perspectives on the ways in which they have employed ARF in their work. Stelly reflected on her ideas concerning Black Cold War Liberalism as an Agency Reduction Formation. Stelly contextualized (in great detail) how she employed ARF to bring attention to the anti-egalitarian machinations surrounding how Black Cold War Liberalism acted as an ARF. She makes clear how individualist and integrationist tendencies hindered the struggle of people of African descent in their quest for collective agency during that time in world history, astutely situating W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson in their proper agentive positions on the battlefield.

Harrison who holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies and is also an attorney reflected on her use of ARF in her dissertation and broader work to explore urban education funding and public policy. Finley offered a treatise on the enduring importance of theoretical constructions in Africana Studies and expanded on the concrete possibilities for ARF in the discipline and allied fields of study.

The Indiana University symposiums stated aim is to garner the attention of and bring together cells of specialists/experts to utilize ARF to investigate systems of thought that are antithetical to the well-being of the Black world. Moving beyond the scripted reactions to crises of the media moment to creating long range analysis that will advance human flourishing is the intended outcome of the Indiana University symposium.

The end game of these efforts is a national conversation with ARF as the operating theory to examine phenomena that is detrimental to the well-being of Africana people in general and Black Americans in particular. The overarching focus on ARF within the context of the Indiana Symposium is to re-energize, re-imagine, and re-purpose the lost power of the spirit of collective agency among Africana people and their allies. The production of solution sets that are doable not “dreamable” that include Africana people as invested stakeholders and honest brokers is the intended result. This correlates neatly with the development and planning of other colleges and universities that are in conversation about hosting ARF symposiums.

Influence-Broader Context and Agency Studies

ARF’s influence on an area of study termed, “Agency Studies,” by Tillotson (2013) as stated to the editors of the Journal of Pan African Studies, “This area of study is committed to the intentional development of ideas that create epistemic fluency surrounding collective agency that contribute singularly and unapologetically to the well-being and internal security of African Americans” (p. 193). Building on his initial development of Agency Studies, Tillotson operationalizes Agency Studies as, “A theoretical orientation committed to the advancement of the egalitarian ideal in Black communities.” Both Agency Studies and its definitive category Agency Reduction Formation theory, are reflective of agentive ideational frameworks that are intellectually warehoused in the Africana Studies school of thought, known as Applied Africana Studies.

The aim of Agency Studies is to create a scholarly community that is focused on as the late congressman/civil rights pioneer from Georgia, John Lewis used to say, “Good Trouble.” Agency Studies welcomes collaborations with any ally, and all disciplines that understand the basic premise of Agency Reduction Formation theory and its theoretical lens for investigating anti-egalitarian systems of thought that impact and influence the lived reality of Africana people.

The National Council of Black Studies has taken the lead in advancing Agency Studies as a sub-field of the discipline. On the back cover of the fall/winter 2018 issue of the International Journal of Africana (IJAS), the discipline broadcasted this reality to the academy and larger world when the editors placed the following:

Agency reduction formation scholarship, as represented by the symbol on the front cover, is a welcome development for Africana Studies. . .This special issue of the International Journal of Africana (IJAS) is a useful resource for anyone who seeks to expose the sometimes-hidden problematics of anti-egalitarian ideational frame-works that are deleterious to Africana people. The issue also expands the developing corpus of literature in the nascent but growing sub-field of Africana Studies called agency studies. As the discipline celebrates fifty years of illuminating the Africana experience, this issue of IJAS honors Africana scholars’ longstanding, galvanizing focuses on intellectual and on agentive possibilities emanating from the discipline-specific warehouse of Africana Studies.

The illuminations of disciplinary consensus on the utility of a theoretical construction, developed by a terminal degree holder in African American Studies, speaks to the realization that Africana Studies must be considered as a vanguard in the quest for intellectual tools that benefit the African diaspora in the 21st century. Clearly, ARF is utilitarian as it can be used to examine the totality of the Black experience. Going forward, the scholarly community in general and African-centered thinkers, as well as the broader lay public will continue to freely decide the categories that comprise the investigative trajectory of Agency Reduction Formations theory.

The aforementioned is of critical urgency in this era of strident racialized terror as witnessed by the public execution of George Floyd in May of 2020 and the pre-meditated, targeted domestic terrorism act and mass killing of Black residents in Buffalo New York in May 2022. Equal concern must be placed on the rampant gun violence in America’s major cities which goes unabated by civil authorities in a meaningful way. ARF is a useful tool for examining the totality of the ideologically prescribed negative outcomes in Black communities. Consequently, when all is said and done, this is thinking work in the landscape of academic problem solving and must be where Applied Africana Studies practitioners demonstrates its utilitarian majesty to the African diaspora and equally important to courageous egalitarians of all stripes.

Global Reality

In her presidential address titled, “Advancing the Social Sciences Through the Interdisciplinary Enterprise,” University of Colorado professor Marilyn Stember (1991) argued, “Hugh G. Petrie’s definition of cognitive maps includes basic concepts, modes of inquiry, what counts as a problem, representation techniques, standards of proof, types of explanation, and general ideas of what constitutes the discipline” (p. 9). With that understanding brought forth by Stember’s analysis, Africana Studies has an additional responsibility (unlike any other discipline) of drawing from its credo “Social Responsibility.” This responsibility must include an appreciable amount of intellectual energy dedicated to the development of practical agentive theories.

The scale upon which ARF is being extrapolated as a global theoretical construct is brought forth in the assessment of Afrocentrist Molefi Asante. In the book, Social Justice for the Oppressed: Critical Educators and Intellectuals Speak Out, by Pierre Wilbert Orelus (2017), which includes a forward by William Ayers and interviews with Noam Chomsky, Henry J. Giroux, and Stuart Hall respectively, in section (8) titled, Re-Defining Blackness in the Twenty-First Century: Molefi Asante Speaks; Asante is interviewed by Orelus (2017) and asks,—Indeed I would like to go back to the term social justice. What do you think needs to happen in order for the term social justice to become a reality for marginalized groups, such as African Americans, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians among other minorities?

Asante answers,

I’ve thought about this a lot. In order for that to happen we cannot crush the dreams of the oppressed people without consequences. The human spirit always looks to freedom, and I think that is a human story. So, whether we are in the Americas or on the continent of Africa, as Africans we are confronted with the challenges of white obstacles, or as Michael Tillotson calls them, agency reduction formations, which seek to prevent Africans from advancing a common narrative (p. 93).

Agency Reduction Formation Scholarship and Utility

Agency Reduction Formation scholarship has possible wide-ranging utility, it offers individuals concerned about equality, justice, human rights, and most important collective efficacy, a clearly understandable theoretical instrument that can expose the dominative nature and hegemonic frameworks located in anti-egalitarian psychologies, philosophies, and ideologies.

It is designed as a democratic (small d) theory because pejorative, negative systems of thought will look different to different people and different spaces which makes it an egalitarian heuristic theory. ARF does not impose or broadcast any way of being or thinking on anyone. It allows the individual to determine what systems of thought they believe are antithetical to the well-being of the Black world. ARF is a resource for anyone who seeks to investigate and examine the sometimes-hidden problematics of hegemonic ideas that are deleterious for Africana people.

ARF is an umbrella theory which can possibly help develop consensus on anti-egalitarian systems of thought and attract cells of specialists who can produce solution centered scholarship that can be translated to Africana people and their allies in a digestible form.

This is extremely important as the contemporary world continues to broadcast to Africana people that this population is on its own, as anti-egalitarians seek to set a social and political climate where race is no longer considered an appropriate discussion for policy analysis. As a result of this, it is high time that Africana Studies and more specifically Applied Africana Studies practitioners address and reilluminate the survival model of Linked Fate. Linked Fate being the ideational reality that the Black world’s fate is linked, and what happens to the group will also affect the individual members. The reality of linked fate must be reconstituted and socialized into the fabric of Black life, by not just the “now you see them . . . now you don’t,” black political class running for office every 2 years, nor must it be the sole responsibility and burden of the egalitarian Black Nationalists. Applied Africana Studies practitioners who live up to the credo of Africana Studies of Academic Excellence and Social Responsibility must bear the weight of this in scholarly terms. In addition, African-centered Africana Studies must re-discover its roots and insinuate itself back into the everyday lives of Africana people. African-centered Africana Studies must demonstrate in public view to Africana people that it cares for their welfare and is moving with intention to create ideas that serve their interests in a clear and understandable way.

Conclusion

As Africana Studies places 50 years of existence in its rear-view mirror, it’s time for the discipline to answer its ancestral assignment and take the lead to become the standard-bearer when it concerns the intellectual well-being of Africana People. In this contemporary moment, the discipline must be engaged in the innovative practice of producing practical, theoretical instruments. Moving forward, Africana Studies can no longer afford to be hidden in scholarly silos as dis-interested spectators and allow theory development to be the sole province of alien interests. The scale of practice must meet the enduring needs of Africana people on a continuing basis, not just in times of intense crisis. For humanity in general and African descended people in particular, a critical understanding of the question. . . How do you take a proud majestic race of people from the pyramids, to the plantation, to the projects, and to prison? . . . is of vital importance for the long-term sustainability of the race.

In the final analysis, the recorded history of the degradation of Africana people is not the consequence of physical violence alone, but the cascading effects of non-agentive, anti-egalitarian ideologies being infused into the operational personalities of the structures, institutions, and systems of America that influence the lived realities of the Black world. A consistent ethos of examinations of agentive and non-agentive ideational frameworks must be given the proper attention at all levels of learning from undergraduate, graduate, and community education.

The current scholarship in Africana Studies can’t be narrowly understood as abstract thought experiments in the ideas scape which have no meaning beyond the walls of the academy. Conceptual theories, such as Agency Reduction Formation, that emanate from the Applied School of Africana Studies must contain a pronounced intentionality in their ability to make clear the wide-ranging problematics that influence the quality of life and social indicators of Africana people. At its core, ARF animates and exposes widely held anti-egalitarian norms in American society and the larger world, that reduce the possibility for consensus on collective agency in communities of color in general and African Americans in particular. This is one of the platforms that the discipline must be laser focused on as it attempts to re-insinuate itself into the popular imagination and body politic of Africana people.

The operationalization of Agency Reduction Formation provides a theoretical compass for Africana people and their allies to locate, discern, and act against systems of thought and movements that are antithetical to the internal security of people of African descent. The open window in this work of how Agency Reduction Formation can be and is currently being utilized in the academy portends the zeitgeist necessity of Africana Studies (as an academic discipline) to re-visit the importance of theory. This level of African-centered disciplinary consensus on the utility of an African-centered theoretical construction, developed by a terminal degree holder in African American Studies, bodes well and speaks to the realization that in the 21st century Africana Studies is firmly located in the pantheon of the life of the mind in a useful and practical way.