Metamorphoses of the African American Identity in Post-segregation Era and the Theory of Afrocentrism

The article deals with the issue of African American identity in the post-segregation period (after 1968). The problem of African Americans’ “double consciousness†, marked for the first time yet in the late 19th – early 20th century, still remains relevant. It is that descendants of slaves, who over the centuries have been relegated to the periphery of the American society, have been experiencing and in part are experiencing an internal conflict, caused by the presence of both American and African components in their identities. The authors focus on Afrocentrism (Afrocentricity) – a socio-cultural theory, proposed by Molefi Kete Asante in 1980 as a strategy to overcome this conflict and to construct a particular form of “African†collective identity of African Americans. This theory, based on the idea of Africa and all people of African descent’s centrality in world history and culture, was urged to completely decolonize and transform African Americans’ consciousness. The Afrocentrists proposed African Americans to re- Africanize their self-consciousness, turn to African cultural roots in order to get rid of a heritable inferiority complex formed by slavery and segregation. This article presents a brief outline of the history of Afrocentrism, its intellectual sources and essential structural elements, particularly Africology. The authors analyze the concepts of racial identity, “black consciousness†and “black unity†in the contexts of the Afrocentric theory and current social realities of the African American community. Special attention is paid to the methodology and practice of Afrocentric education. In Conclusion, the authors evaluate the role and prospects of Afrocentrism among African Americans in the context of general trends of their identities transformations.