Clarence Earl Walker is an American historian and Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of History at the University of California, Davis. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from San Francisco State University and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.[1]
Walker works on Black American studies. In 2001, his book We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism was selected as an International Book of the Year by The Times Literary Supplement.[2]
In 2015, he was awarded the US$45000 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement. He planned to retire in June 2015.[1]
His publications include:[3]
- Mongrel Nation: The America Begotten by Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, University of Virginia Press, 2009
- We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism, Oxford University Press, 2001
- Deromanticizing Black History: Critical Essays and Reappraisals, University of Tennessee Press, 1991[4]
Critique of Afrocentrism
[edit]Clarence E. Walker in 2001, referred to Afrocentrism as being “therapeutic mythology." Walker wrote that ancient Egyptian society was not black, and Afrocentrism substitutes a feel-good myth of the past. The problem he found is modern black American identity is the product of centuries of real history, but Afrocentrism replaces this complex history with a dubious claim to distant glory. From his view, Afrocentrism offers not an empowering understanding of black Americans’ past, but a pastiche of ‘alien traditions’ held together by simplistic fantasies. More to the point, this specious history denies to black Americans the dignity, and power, that springs from an honest understanding of their real history. He also specified that: "In 1976, a group of French scientists working with the permission of the Egyptian government examined the mummy of Ramses II and concluded that the dead king was a 'leucoderm,' that is, a fair-skinned man, like prehistoric or ancient Mediterraneans, or, perhaps, the Berbers of Africa. The only Egyptian dynasty that could be called black without qualification, in the modern sense of the word, is the 25th Dynasty, 747-656 BCE."[5]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Day, Jeffrey (2015-04-02). "History scholar wins teaching award". UC Davis. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
- ^ Lefkowitz, Mary (7 December 2001). "International Books of the Year". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
- ^ "Clarence Walker". UC Davis. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
- ^ "Deromanticizing Black History". University Tennessee of Press. Retrieved 24 August 2019.
- ^ Walker, Clarence E. (2001-06-14). We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-19-509571-5.