AFRIKAN CENTERED SOCIOLOGY DVDS
In this lecture, Baruti gives an overview of many of the basic sociological concepts that will be used throughout this six week class. The focus here is on reconceptualization - taking meanings that serve others (Europeans, Arabs and Asians) and giving them purpose to Afrikan people based on our cultural heritage and natural interpretation of reality. Reconceptualization is critical to this discussion because it is only through taking words, concepts, hypotheses, theories common in western sociology and general social science discussion, long known and understood by our Ancestors (but distorted by the needs of eurocentric social science to fit their limited and limiting, supremacist vision of society), and returning them to their original meanings for us in this time and place, that sociology, as a creative, problem-solving discipline, can be made functional for Afrikan people. Some of the concepts and theories which are disucssed and reconceptualized in Afrikan terms include culture, society, civilization, human, humanity, theory, deviance, race, ethnicity, morality, ethics, family, community, evolution, individualism and insanity.
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There is an undeniable connection between culture and society. But, for Afrikan centered sociologists, lay and academician alike, the connection is so much deeper than that assumed and propagated by those who have attempted to redefine reality in unnatural terms. In this lecture, Baruti gives us some of the fundamentals Afrikan thinkers need when interpreting the hows and whys of culture and society. Starting with the ancient/traditional Afrikan understanding that culture and society are merely an extension of universal order, inseparable in any meaningful way, and that individuals are no more or less than an expression of these, he explains and relates asili, culture, ethos, worldview, society, civilization, nation, state, institutions, morals, values, norms, roles, ethics, personal identity, socialization, tradition and custom. From there, Baruti turns the discussion to what should be the primary concerns of responsible Afrikan centered sociologists now -- ReAfrikanization and nationbuilding.
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VOL.III: SOCIAL CONTROL
European social science is the intellectual handmaiden of european people. And, european culture and society, being social phenomena designed and created by european people to custom fit and serve their personality and its imperatievs, are about control, controlling others, completely, effectively and permanently. This is especially the case for those perceived as being the greatest threat to their existence and validation as intelligent, progressive human beings. As evident from history, Afrikans pose the greatest threat to this validation. One of the most obvious indicators of this is the genocidal oppression of Afrikan people. And, no better evidence of this assault can be found than in the area of social control where deviance is racially defined and systematically employed against us. In this lecture, Baruti looks at the definition and punishment of deviance as a conscious, highly political form of social control. How acts and actors come to be defined as deviant and why the enforcement of laws, based on these definitions, are disproportionately and systematically directed against Afrikan people, historically and globally, are the focus of this discussion.
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VOL.IV: FAMILY
Afrikan society is familistic. It is family centered. The family takes priority over all else. that, proportionately, we still have more extended families than any other people is evidence enough of this fact. There are also clear differences in definitions between Afrikans and others as to who constitutes family, the responsibilities of individuals within the family based on age, sex and skill level and, specifically, what makes one a family member. In this lecture, Baruti contrasts the idea of family as ideally defined and practiced by Afrikans and Europeans. He looks into the areas of intra- and interfamilial relations, procreation, education and economic/productive cooperation and/or competitiveness. Extended and nuclear, lineage adn kinship, dependency and interdependene, love and romance, marriage and separation/divorce, adulthood, eldership, babysitting and foster care are also discussed in relative terms.
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VOL.V: RACE & ETHNIC RELATIONS
In this class lecture, the idea of race as a biological, cultural and, especially, political designation are explored. A major point discussed is how this debate is unfolding in a defensive supremacist cultural context by those who recognize the inevitability of their fall and others in mentacidal need of their love and validation. Concepts related to contact between racial and ethnic groups such as culture, heritage, pluralism, melting pot, assimilation, expulsion, slavery, enslavement, colonization, neocolonization, internal colonization, integration, segregation, hypersegregation, prejudice, racism, identity, the insider-outsider argument and the caste-class and class-race controversy have been brought out in Afrikan centered terms. Also, a number of defunct terms have been radically reconceptualized into "new" ones to more accurately reflect historical and contemporary conditions, subintegration, subassimilation and subamalgamation being pertinent examples. Baruti also expands on the concepts of race and ethnicity in order to help clear up the confusion over the idea of Afrikan people being of multiple cultures.
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In this lecture, the student is presented with the evolutionary theory society in order to describe a general social progression as well as to show the flaws of a eurocentric interpretation of it and how this intentional misinterpretation serves the interests of the idea of "progress" for the european mind. Simple, agrarian, industrial, post-industrial and service societies are outlined with respect to their levels and extent of stratification and inequality. Of course, stratification and inequality are defined along with various forms of mobility and the concepts of replaceability, socioeconomic status, roles and role conflict, income and wealth, exploitation, captalism, socialism and communalism. And, in that it has consumed the thinking of so many "radical" intellectuals on the Continent and Diaspora as a panacea for Afrikan people, Baruti critiques Karl Marx's theory of social inequality.
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