Black Athena Reaction

Black Athena Reaction

Martin Bernal is a professor of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, and a scholar of modern Chinese political history.   He is also educated in Egyptology, archaeology, linguistics, and classics.   In 1985 he published Black Athena : The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization.   This three volume work regards the perception of ancient Greece in relation to its African and Asiatic neighbors by the West.   Bernal proposes that a change in this perception occurred in the 18th century and that this change has brought about a denial of African and Asiatic influence on ancient Greece.1   My first reaction to said proposal: why now?
While Bernal’s debate can seem convincing, the matter at hand isn’t whether he is right or wrong, but why he suddenly came up with this idea at all.   The classical view of ancient Greece has always been that the Greeks were usually a light skinned, dignified, philosophical people, and this view has been accepted for hundreds of years.   Why after all of this time should that change?   It won’t benefit anything and is cause for unnecessary bickering between those who choose to believe the classical view and those who would take Bernal’s side.
Asking the question of “why now?”, I then consider any other possible motives that Bernal could have for proposing such a   radical idea.   Is he just trying to make a name for himself?   Does he want to give his career a boost?   Is he trying to upset the academic community and cause disagreement?   Does he just desire to rebel against the popular theory?   These are all possibilities and I can’t bring myself to believe that he would come up with this idea so suddenly without some ulterior motive, especially an idea that differs so abruptly from the accepted logic.   If he had said, “ maybe the Greeks were not exactly as we picture them now,” I would want to hear more.   But his method of trying to almost completely disprove everything we think we know about...