Pt 1/15 Dr.Clarke vs. Mary Lefkowitz-The Black Athena Debate

All right, now I know you're here.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to this evening's proceedings.

I'm Utrice Leid, the executive producer
and host of Talk Back

-- and a cheap plug here --
(applause)

which airs from 3-5 p.m. --
I have to plug my program --

Monday through Thursday on your favourite

radio station, which is what?
(crowd shouts response)

I thought so. WBAI, 99.5 on your FM dial.

Just a few notes before we get to the
business at hand here tonight:

first I should warn you that my job is
to maintain order,

and there will be order!
(laughter)

I learned from your dear mayor.
(laughter)

A little humor.
And order we shall have, yes.

Your enthusiasm is strongly encouraged,

but please, y'know, don't attempt
to throw chairs.

We want every last word from our participants

to be heard, so I ask that you be quiet,

to allow them the opportunity to
present their views.

And so, we will move on.
If you must move around,

try to be as quiet as possible.

I know it's warm, it certainly is warm here.

(man speaks from audience)
It's gonna get hotter too, yes.

But they're trying to open up a window or
two so we can have some air.

Now just this afternoon I got
a call in the office,

and somebody wanted to know

what the discussion was to be here tonight.

I told him, y'know, generally,
what it was about.

He says, "Oh my god! You mean they're
still discussing this stuff?"

I said, "Yeah. Of course they're still

discussing this stuff, because this stuff

is the stuff that scholarship is made of,

and that academic inquiry is made of."

Tonight we enter the world of scholars

who have diametrically opposing views on

the subject of the origins and foundations

of what we know today as
Western Civilization.

One school of thought is that it is

distinctly African or Afro-Asian in origin,

the other that Western civilization
in large measure

is the bequest of ancient Greece.

Make no mistake, this is not a mere

difference of opinion in the ivory tower.

The battle itself has become an allegory

for something as important
as the debate itself.

Academic insurgents have breached the

ramparts of the academy's high priesthood,

and the battle is as much for
the authority to write history

as for how to write history.

Our task tonight is to ferret out the truth,

insofar as we can discern it,
but more importantly,

to question and challenge.

And we have four incredible
people with us tonight,

and I'd like to introduce them to you

and have them come to the stage as
they're introduced.

Already onstage is
Professor John Henrik Clarke.

(loud cheering and applause)

They were standing for you, Dr. Clarke.

Teacher, historian, writer, lecturer,

John Henrik Clarke is a unique resource

and a special institution
in the African world.

Beginning in his early years, Dr. Clarke

studied the world history of African people

and became a master teacher.

He has authored and/or edited
more than thirty books,

short stories and pamphlets on African

and African-American history, and is

Distinguished Professor Emeritus
of African World History

in the department of Africana
and Puerto Rican studies

at Hunter College.
Professor John Henrik Clarke.

I'd like to ask to the stage
Dr. Martin Bernal.

(applause)

Dr. Martin Bernal has been a professor

of government at Cornell University

since 1972, and an adjunct professor

of Near Eastern studies,
also at Cornell, since 1986.

Educated at King's College, Cambridge,

where he earned his doctorate in
Chinese studies in 1966,

and at Peking University, the University
of Calif -- [audio distorted]

and Harvard, Dr. Bernal's works

have been widely reviewed and criticized

in many instances as "controversial."

His chief publication is of a two-set volume,

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots
of Classical Civilization, and

Cadmean Letters: The Westward Diffusion
of the Semitic Alphabet Before 1400 BC.

Dr. Martin Bernal.
(applause)

I invite to the stage
Professor Mary Lefkowitz.

(applause)

Nice to meet you. You can sit right here.

Mary Lefkowitz is Andrew Mellon Professor

in the Humanities at Wellesley College.

She is the author of Not Out of Africa:

How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse
to Teach Myth as History,

and is co-editor of Women's Life
in Greece and Rome.

With fellow Wellesleyan Guy MacLean Rogers,

she co-edited Black Athena Revisited,

a collection of 20 essays by scholars
from a broad range of disciplines,

who take dead aim at Dr. Bernal's
Black Athena specifically,

but contend generally that the

Africa-centeredness of scholarship on the

roots of what is called Classical
civilization is blatant revisionism.

Dr. Mary Lefkowitz.

(subdued applause)

I invite to the stage
Professor Guy MacLean Rogers.

(applause)

Professor Rogers, as I said, is also
at Wellesley College,

where he is an associate professor
of Greek and history.

With Dr. Lefkowitz he co-edited

Black Athena Revisited, and is author of

The Sacred Identity of Ephesos:
Foundation Myths of a Roman City.

Professor Rogers.

(applause)

So here we have a rather
distinguished panel,

and I would like them first to begin
with their conclusions.

(laughter)

They will have about ...
no more than five minutes

to summarize their major thrust this evening.

Professor Clarke, we will start with you.

The one single point I wish to get across
before we start anything,

I am not here to debate with anyone.

I have devoted all of my adult life
to this subject.

I only debate with my equals.
All others I teach.

(cheering and applause)

(MC)
There will be order! ... Thank you.

Shall we continue, or what? I'm not clear.

(MC)
Go ahead, Dr. Clarke.

Prof. Clarke: Utrice!
MC: Go ahead, Dr. Clarke.

Broadly speaking, honestly speaking,

the book Not Out of Africa,
a good sophomore effort,

is not really about Not Out of Africa.

Last year it was the bell curve.

This year it's Not Out of Africa.

Next year it'll be something else.

This is part of a world war against the

role of African people
in the history of the world.

If we began history, began mankind,

how is it that the last branch of the

human race to enter that arena --