9-th, 2004 - 27: 1   (Posted By: Webmaster)
Reply to a Critic    

CHAPTER XII
Reply to a Critic

I propose here to answer the critical review by Mr. Raymond Mauny, which appeared in the Bulletin de I'I FAN (Bulletin of the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa) in the July-October 1960 issue, relative to Nations negres et culture. . . . We apologize for returning to notions of race, cultural heritage, linguistic relationship, historical connections between peoples, and so on. I attach no more importance to these questions than they actually deserve in modern twentieth-century societies. Only my concern about scientific objectivity compels me to direct attention to these themes so long as certain of their aspects are-challenged.

As will be seen, our account is devoid of any passion and we ask nothing better than to yield to factual evidence. What we shall try to combat in the name of scientific truth, and what forces us to utilize a notion as delicate as that of race, is a group of arguments that have become so habitual as to pass for scientific truths, which they definitely are not. It is the whole body of hypotheses, distorted into factual experiences, that are likely to lead to error and are still more dangerous than outright dogmatism. ... * * *

Mr. Mauny's criticisms begin near the end of his introduction:
What was permissible for the student or the young lycee teacher is no longer allowed the Doctor of Letters, whose title could authorize him tomorrow to teach at the University. And so, despite all my sympathy for the author, whose acquaintance I have made, I consider it my duty, no matter how much it may pain me and him, to say aloud what others are keeping silent out of politeness or for some other motive.

Obviously, Mr. Mauny intends to pull no punches in his attempt to demolish the adverse thesis. If, in spite of that, his arguments should happen to reveal an unexpected fragility, it would be entirely involuntary on his part. As for me, I shall try to reply as objectively as possible, with equal serenity, to all the criticisms formulated here. The reader will be the judge.
According to C. A. Diop, the examination of the bone remains and mummies shows that we are dealing with Negroes: "I affirm that the skulls from the most ancient epochs and the mummies from the dynastic epoch differ in no respect from the anthropological characteristics of the two Negro races existing on earth: the straight-haired Dravidian and the woolly-haired Negro." And later: "When we scientifically cleanse the skin of the mummies, the epidermis appears pigmented exactly like that of all other African Blacks .

I add that at the present time there are infallible scientific procedures (ultraviolet rays, for example) to determine the amount of melanin in pigmentation. Now, the difference between a White and a Black in this respect is the fact that the white organism secretes enzymes which absorb the melanin. The Negro organism does not secrete any enzymes. The same is true of the ancient Egyptians. That is why invariably, from prehistory to the Ptolemaic epoch, the Egyptian mummy has remained Negro. In other words, throughout Egyptian history, the skin as well as the bone structure of all Egyptians of all social classes (from Pharaoh to Fellah) has remained that of authentic Negroes."
Let us separate the two ideas contained in the preceding passage quoted by Mauny: A. "According to C. A. Diop . . . African Blacks." This is exact; in August 1961 I brought back from Paris samples of mummies that I have indeed cleansed and kept in glass jars at the IFAN. They are at the disposal of all scholars who might be interested and Mr. Mauny, especially, may examine

Page:  [ 1 ]  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20