Trey Lasane: Learning, Wisdom, and the African Experience

One of the more interesting topics (in my opinion) arose when Dr. Carr mentioned the quote: "the most serious threat to African dignity is the domain of intellectual ability." (Carruthers Mdw, Ntr p.1) I can very much relate to this because everyday I came to school I never wanted to limit myself as an African American student. Unfortunately, I see African American students limit themselves because they are surrounded by the stereotypes and the pressures of the outside world. In our recent history, African Americans had limited intellectual ability because they were forced to not receive an education. Slavery had limited their ability to learn and ultimately led us to slowly progressing as a society. Now, that the opportunity for advancement exists in Black America, few have taken advantage. This must change.



The Intellectual Genealogy of this world was something that I had not known about prior to Dr. Carr's lecture. It is absurd and absolutely ridiculous that not much African history has been integrated into the world history books for our public schools. As if roughly 10,500 years of African history has been erased. Coincidentally, slavery is talked about in many textbooks. Many stories are told of religious oppression and seem to show that Africans didn't become intellectuals until they were freed from slavery. I believe that chnaging our secondary school textbooks will influence young African American students to take pride in their rich history.

The most interesting topic in class is when we discussed the topic of the Genealogy of wisdom in the world and how it originated in Africa. Every language in the world has some origin to African languages. I believe that is truly amazing. Communication and expression through reading and writing is essential to the advancement of societies. This means that Africans are the first and most important intellectuals to ever exist. African learning and wisdom is the basis for all knowledge that we have in today's world. African history couldn't be more rich and beautiful.