How One Scholar Portrays Us In The West!

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• OGIDIGIDI 12 years ago

  Makes for lazy reading cant you be brief

  Makes for lazy reading cant you be brief

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• OYOKOBA 12 years ago

  Too long for who Ogidigidi? Probably you are the type that wakes up to Ede bii Keke and never stops to ask what that entails but go happy you chanting it.
  
  The article is very refreshing, educative, and revealing. What I tak ...
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  Too long for who Ogidigidi? Probably you are the type that wakes up to Ede bii Keke and never stops to ask what that entails but go happy you chanting it.
  
  The article is very refreshing, educative, and revealing. What I take from it is, in order to meet his need to be accepted by his white friends, Kwame Appiah wastes no time in taking the axe to cut down his African roots, but has up to date not found the nerve to do the same for his mother's house. He presents himself to whites as the proverbial Judas who knows the underbelly of Africans, because he is somewhat one, and therefore can authoritatively betray them. Kwame Appiah is the typical Afropean who comes across as ashamed of parts of his roots. He takes delight in disparaging parts of his roots that links him to Africa. To such, I say screw yourselves, Africa has no need of you. Kwame Appiah in his life, has lived much longer outside Ghana and Africa than he was ever in Africa. What gives him expertise in African affairs, his mother's Ananse stories? Nonsense!

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• francis kwarteng 12 years ago

  Thanks Oyokoba,
  
  You interpret my essay so brilliantly.
  
  Thanks

  Thanks Oyokoba,
  
  You interpret my essay so brilliantly.
  
  Thanks

  reply
• Nii Ashitey 12 years ago

  kwame Appiah is a product of both African and European ancestry.He could best be described as African first and European second having had most of his formative years in Ghana.The son Of Joe Appiah who was initially a sociali ...
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  kwame Appiah is a product of both African and European ancestry.He could best be described as African first and European second having had most of his formative years in Ghana.The son Of Joe Appiah who was initially a socialist but got muddled in his later politic.His grand Father was Sir Richard Stafford Cripps a socialist who who held major ministerial portfolios including Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Attlee's labour government.Having such chequered background might explain his divided loyalty and the perception of him.Definitely this background must have influenced his work as both African and European.
  
  I believe his comparison to Socrates is to identify his stature on the global platform and not just limit that stature to Africa or blackness. I don't see any thing wrong with that comparison if he is being measured on a global scale.After all the example of the past is what enlightens our future.I see where Francis Kwarteng is coming from though but the only way to measure one's global stature is through the international scale.
  
  Francis is posing some challenging philosophical questions in a loaded way.Perhaps he might do with some precis of his work to allow even those with limited time to appreciate the the challenges he is posing.

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• francis kwarteng 12 years ago

  Brother and Sisters,
  
  Good morning. You capture what I have been trying to say all along though I may not have been explicit in certain areas.
  
  Maybe I shall have to explore them with you in later articles.
  
  Thanks for ...
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  Brother and Sisters,
  
  Good morning. You capture what I have been trying to say all along though I may not have been explicit in certain areas.
  
  Maybe I shall have to explore them with you in later articles.
  
  Thanks for reading and for sharing.
  
  Please continue to read our work and continue to share your profound insights with us.
  
  Authors like us don't know everything.

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• Media Mogul 12 years ago

  How many of us here on this forum will read this fine essay and make informed contributions to it? It is not talking about our corrupt politicians or our ethnic politics but takes a critical look at the appraisal of an import ...
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  How many of us here on this forum will read this fine essay and make informed contributions to it? It is not talking about our corrupt politicians or our ethnic politics but takes a critical look at the appraisal of an important (and successful) Ghanaian scholar in the west. Not many here will touch it.
  
  I remember reading In My Father's House a long time ago and realising Appiah was in Legon around the same time as some of us were there when Wiredu was not yet a prof. Appiah may have been putting the finishing touches to his Cambridge PhD then or propably newly wearing his doctor's hat and trying his hands at teaching and researching, among other things, the book about his father's house in the Ashanti heartland which had many rooms... That was a long time ago and he has written many books since then and made an unsuccessful attempt at writing fiction. He is a far better philosopher.
  
  But, Kwarteng, didn't you go too much in castigating those who cast Appiah as a modern version of a long dead white European male? When we were all educated in the West, isn't it natural that our descriptions will fall in line with the western tradition? We are still in the process of building our own African scholarly tradition and bringing it at par with the western one. We are not yet there. But we will get there and when we do, the Appiahs will no longer be seen as extensions of a "western" tradition.
  
  As for Soyinka praising the Appiah book, there is a tendency of our African intellectuals praising each other rather than being overly critical. Your present piece shows you somewhat muted in your criticism of Appiah. Is it intellectual decency? And the other day, you were also full of praise for our slain writer, Kofi Awoonor.
  
  Thanks for this piece which is quite informative especially for those of us not familiar with the area. Incidentally, I read Appiah's Cosmopolitanism only earlier this year prompted by reference to it in Teju Cole's fine novel Open City.

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• francis kwarteng 12 years ago

  Media Mogul,
  
  I have read Cosmopolitanism (around 2008-9), good book. It's used in the CUNY (City University of New York) a lot.
  
  I reviewed it for a couple of students.
  
  Maybe we shall discuss it in this forum some ot ...
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  Media Mogul,
  
  I have read Cosmopolitanism (around 2008-9), good book. It's used in the CUNY (City University of New York) a lot.
  
  I reviewed it for a couple of students.
  
  Maybe we shall discuss it in this forum some other time.
  
  My email is franciskkwarteng@yahoo.com

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• captain canada 12 years ago

  You bet! Francis Kwarteng is transparent in his jealousy of Appiah. His attempt to use all sorts of devices(gay,bi-racial,no so african because he accepted in the white community etc) to destroy Appiah falls flat on its face. ...
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  You bet! Francis Kwarteng is transparent in his jealousy of Appiah. His attempt to use all sorts of devices(gay,bi-racial,no so african because he accepted in the white community etc) to destroy Appiah falls flat on its face. The irony is Kwarteng failure to realise that he's waxing philosphy in a white man's language and that by using that language he's already ceeded to the superiority of the European mind and language. It is the reason he's not using twi to describe these intricacies. Let him try and translate 'post modernist' into twi or any of the ghanaian languages and he'll see the futility in his whole project. He should stop pretending this is anything but crass jealousy which is endemic in the african communities. His is no different from the labeling of ghanaians who know more than the average ghanaian as 'too known' by his detractors.

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• KOLA IDIOT 12 years ago

  kwarteng you exhibit the tools and skills of an able philosopher, what stops you from doing your own research and drawing your conclusions to challenge Kwame's cosmopolitan views? In an attempt to red flag some of the prickly ...
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  kwarteng you exhibit the tools and skills of an able philosopher, what stops you from doing your own research and drawing your conclusions to challenge Kwame's cosmopolitan views? In an attempt to red flag some of the prickly edges of Prof Kwame's inanities on racism and afrocentric discus, doesn't your positing here make you sound a bit more hoarse and weary? Well in Ghana our schools a collapsing, our hospitals are abattoirs, our roads have all become death traps, the list of failures in our national socio-economic life go on ad infinitum. Please use you brilliant brains to help us out of the quake mire of shame, humiliation and failure, are e we masters of our own destination yet? This your critique, though, brilliant is way over and above the comprehension of people like Kola, terrible something and other idiots who roam these cyber terrain to exhibit their shallowness and fatuousness. Please don't kill yourself over a gay philosopher, Kwame is a excellent apostle for the cosmopolitan cultural drift of the post modernist western world, what would expect!!!!

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• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  See last installment for how some influential white scholars (policy makers) see his work and African/African American Studies in general.
  
  I admire Appiah's work that's why I profiled him.
  
  Finally, I am not a philosph ...
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  See last installment for how some influential white scholars (policy makers) see his work and African/African American Studies in general.
  
  I admire Appiah's work that's why I profiled him.
  
  Finally, I am not a philospher. I don't even come from the liberal arts/humanities. I write for pleasure.

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• Tekonline.org 12 years ago

  and not as written (perhaps a tiny typo):
  "...According to keynotes.org, “Appiah is currently at Principle University..."
  
  www.princeton.edu/admission/whatsdistinc
  tive/facultyprofiles/appiah/

  and not as written (perhaps a tiny typo):
  "...According to keynotes.org, “Appiah is currently at Principle University..."
  
  www.princeton.edu/admission/whatsdistinc
  tive/facultyprofiles/appiah/

  reply
• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Tekonline.org,
  
  How're you doing?
  
  I know he's still at Princeton. He came there after Cornel West's public impasse with Larry Summers.
  
  I follow their activities almost daily. He's not the only one though. I have a wh ...
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  Tekonline.org,
  
  How're you doing?
  
  I know he's still at Princeton. He came there after Cornel West's public impasse with Larry Summers.
  
  I follow their activities almost daily. He's not the only one though. I have a whole library full of their works.
  
  I communicate with other scholars whose work covers the editorial (review) of Appiah's and others' works.
  
  Thanks for sharing anyway.

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• Jake 12 years ago

  Thanks, I think Ahoofe should take a leaf from your essay. Mind you, he may plagerise your work. That ol' guy and Akadu are a disgrace to Ghana, spewing filth.
  Hope they read your piece.

  Thanks, I think Ahoofe should take a leaf from your essay. Mind you, he may plagerise your work. That ol' guy and Akadu are a disgrace to Ghana, spewing filth.
  Hope they read your piece.

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• ALIMI YAO 12 years ago

  I enjoyed reading this intellectually stimulating piece. I bet we won't find the boo boys and the insult traders commenting on it.
  
  More of it, please.

  I enjoyed reading this intellectually stimulating piece. I bet we won't find the boo boys and the insult traders commenting on it.
  
  More of it, please.

  reply
• PHILTY McNASTY 12 years ago

  You must be out of your mind, have you really sat down and read the works if Okoampa let alone insinuate plagiarism.

  You must be out of your mind, have you really sat down and read the works if Okoampa let alone insinuate plagiarism.

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• POET 12 years ago

  BRILIANT PIECE

  BRILIANT PIECE

  reply