ABSTRACT
Afrocentric thought elevates the African experience, on a global scale, to an equitable footing with scholarly examinations of the human experience. Beyond this, it applies correctives to the hegemonic and deformed aspects of Eurocentric discourse and imagery. The roots of a distorted Eurocentric epistemology reside in the social construction of White supremacy, that is, the ideological elevation of one race above another.1 European expansion and domination, which involved chattel slavery, colonialism, and the establishment of numerous settler colonies (these colonies resulted in the extermination and subjugation of millions of non-European peoples), accelerated extant ethnocentric and racialist thinking to produce a full-blown system of White supremacy.2 This system achieved normative status in Western thought and consciousness.3 Currently, as layers of social, cultural, economic, and political oppression are challenged and transformed, the normative dimensions of White supremacy must come under greater scrutiny and, in fact, constitute a major impetus for African American studies as an evolving body of knowledge.4 The challenge to transform normative White supremacy parallels the challenge to transform the gross structured inequality created by massive Western oppression and exploitation.
