Audiophile Life

The Problem with Hotep Ankh Mathmatics

greenatlas:

atane:

In the wake of this Gazi Kodzo character, these are the main problems with the behaviors of these “conscious” ankh types in a listicle form. Let’s call their antics “Hotep Ankh Mathematics”.

If you encounter Hotep Ankh Mathematics, here are 10 points to keep in mind.

1. Ankhs think they are beyond…

The problem that I have with this is that it’s full of condescension and devoid of tolerance, love or an attempt to understand what fuels the likes of Gazi. I honestly don’t understand how this evolves the collective conversation positively. Though, reasonable points were made they were all overwhelmed by a dismissive attitude and invalidism.

No. Just no.

What you’re suggesting is that Africans should tolerate people who denigrate, insult and talk over us. No. I’m not tolerating someone saying insulting, ridiculous, outlandish and not to mention incorrect things all the time. Sorry, I have no love for that. 

It’s not even about this Gazi character, but rather the surge in characters like him. They get followers and those followers come to African spaces to lecture us. I recently posted here about a woman who came to a facebook page to insult Tuareg people. She called them “Arab invaders”. She got combative after I respectfully corrected her. 

That post got me an absolutely ridiculous response from another Afrakan imbecile who said that I’m a Christian and accused me of being anti-Black, to which I responded here. 

I’m not a Christian, but even if I was, so what? You don’t stop being an African if you are a Christian. This is the nonsense they spew. They want to police African identity and they have the gall to tell Africans what they should be doing, like they are authorities on being African, whatever that means. Do I even need to respond to being labeled anti-Black?

I kept seeing this Gazi character’s posts on my tumblr dash recently and the posts continued to get more absurd. I spoke with a few other people privately, wondering why his awful “conscious” posts were being shared and cosigned, but assumed it was just typical tumblr bullshit, most of which I ignore. I had no idea people actually took this clown of the earth seriously. His post about “Afrakan” spirituality with regards to Christianity and Islam was the last draw. 

I’ve been tolerant and patient for years, but enough is enough. We as Africans have to pushback against people inaccurately using our ancestral customs and traditions. We have to pushback against people who spread misinformation about us, our customs and our identities. If we don’t, then who will? Their garbage becomes the truth. One look around tumblr and social media, and it’s clear that this garbage is gaining traction.

In addition, these conscious Afrakan wankers keep centering themselves in conversations about Africa. How does that work? If African voices aren’t centered in conversations on Africa, African cultures and traditions, then what the kind of conversation are you actually having? No really, what are you bloody talking about if the people from the cultures you are adorning yourself with are dismissed and talked down to in a paternalistic manner? Their arrogance makes them think they know more about us than us. It is bizarre. It’s no different than Gaijin who watch anime, read manga and listen to J-pop who think they are now one with Japan. Except it’s not just a country like in the case of Japan, they are doing it with an entire continent.

These fools keep multiplying and they keep spreading their nonsense. These guys build a following because a lot of impressionable people who are not African think what they are saying is knowledgeable. When you’re coming with an empty slate, it probably does sound knowledgeable. Almost everyone who follows these “Afrakans” around are not Africans. Isn’t it interesting how that works? Do you think that’s a coincidence? Whenever there’s a symposium or get together of these “Afrakans”, the one constant is the dearth of continental Africans with them.

The reality is that these people get acquainted with all these pseudo-scientific “scholars” via old youtube videos and laughably bad websites + books. This is their initial scholarship. The scholarship graduates to the next level when they perhaps get acquainted with an actual African traditional system. These days, it’s usually Yoruba systems. Orishas are now the standard. Egyptology and Kemet is so last week. Talking about the Kingdom of Kush and being Nubian is old news too. Orisha is where it’s at. What happens is that a Babalawo fills their head with who knows what (something they probably misunderstood) and then they run with it. 

Now they are a dangerous mix of pseudo-scientific history and a little bit of tradition that is specific to one ethnic group, in this case Yoruba people. This system is not applicable to anyone else but Yoruba people, but they will use this “Afrakan” system as a foundation for everything, much like the old school Ankhs did with Kemet and Egyptology. A while ago I had to write this post about it, because many of these people kept coming up to me to talk about Orishas. They incorrectly use the faith system of one group of people (Yoruba) as something that encompasses “Afrakan” spirituality.

Maybe one day, next level “conscious” folks will get hip to Odinani (Igbo system) and will start talking about Dibias and getting Nsibidi tattoos. They’re definitely not there yet. On the bright side, at least they’ve left Kemet and landed in West Africa. Who knows, 10 years from now they might discover Southern Africa. Maybe we’ll get “conscious” Sangomas in due time…lol

These people are infinitely unaware and the scary part is that they don’t know that they are and they will never know it because of their wild arrogance and dismissal towards Africans who know more than them about African identity.

I’m not really concerned about these jokers in the grand scheme of things because they tend to fizzle out in time. You can only hold up tons of bullshit for so long before the weight makes your knees buckle. 

What is worrying is that they always get a large and loyal following of young people who imbibe their nonsense. A large and loyal following that will in turn challenge African people about their identities like they are the authorities on it and not the Africans themselves. This happens because some joker on the internet started talking about “Afrakans” and it sounded right to them because they have no foundation to begin with. No one teaches them about the vast and diverse continent of Africa and African people, so whatever they hear becomes the default truth. Why they always hear nonsense first is a mystery. Why they always want to hear about Africa from non-Africans is also another mystery. Figure that one out for yourself.

The formula to success is always the same for these silly, uber-afrocentic, ankh, hotep types. Come out initially swinging hard against white people, that’s always a hit and will get you attention. It helps to be witty about it, so say white people are cave dwellers or something along those lines. Talk about white people all the time. Make videos and posts “dragging” white folks. People will eat that shit up. 

After dragging white people for filth, the next step is to center Afrocentricity. Always sprinkle in African terminology. Here’s the kicker, it doesn’t matter where in Africa the terminolgy, words or phrases come from, and you don’t have to make a lick of sense. You can have Yoruba and Swahili in the same sentence. Why not? No one will question you. Only Africans that no one ever bothers to listen to will be able to tell that you’re full of shit. Why listen to them, when you can listen to someone who thinks spelling Africa with a K is revolutionary? Just say things like Uhuru, Ase, Obatala, Shango, Harambe, Ogun, and Zulu. 

If you’re advanced, you could add some Dogon astronomy into the mix. With that you can delve into astrology. You want “Afrakan” horoscopes and not horoscopes from the devilish, cave dwelling, white man, don’t you? You’re not a Leo anymore, you’re an Afrakan Lion. The Dogon people are the ticket to Afrakan intergalactic and constellation knowledge. Be warned though, this is only for advanced “conscious” people, so proceed with caution. 

Follow these steps and you’ll hotep your ass all the way to the top and people will think this is African, oh excuse me “Afrakan” identity. It’s literally just a grab bag and smorgasbord of Africanness. It’s absolute nonsense that has been homogenized. This would be completely hysterical if non-Africans didn’t believe it hook, line and sinker. I don’t know what it will take for people to start listening to us about our own damn cultures. Jesus Christ.

African people are tired of this crap. Leave us and our things the fuck alone. Stop turning our ancestral traditions into nonsensical crap.

When will this nightmare end?

With respect to this Gazi guy, he was making videos like this below a little over a year ago, before he became Gazi.

He went from that to an “Afrakan revolutionary” in what, a month or two? How did it happen so quickly? The guy just reinvented himself. With the way he’s acting now, you would think he was a longtime “Afrakan”. The image he’s peddling is all fairly new and it ain’t cute. This is all within the last year! I have no idea how old he is, so maybe he’s still young and this is all a phase. 

Whatever the case may be, he needs to go back to his regular self and stop playing “I’m an Afrakan revolutionary” on the internet. 

Perhaps he wanted to get interested in African cultures. That’s cool, and if genuine, I don’t know a single African who would not be receptive and happy about people showing genuine interest in them. Are you kidding? Africans are probably the most open and hospitable people on earth. 

The problem is that these Afrakans seem to want to perform their transition to consciousness and it’s so corny. You don’t have to start typing or saying Ase and Uhuru in random sentences. I know it might be hard to fathom, but are you ready for this? People, you can still wear your Hello Kitty glasses and Britney Spears t-shirts like in the video of Gazi above and still proudly represent as someone that is part of the African diaspora. You don’t have to perform your Africanness, don a dashiki (that was probably made in China), or start spelling Africa with a K, or start making daily videos ‘dragging’ white people, talking about how they are cave people. The only people still saying that are the guys wearing bowties, selling bean pies on the street, talking about Yakub. 

People like Gazi need to grow the fuck up and get a hold of themselves. This is a shit show and if he took his head outta his ass, he’d see how embarrassing all his antics are…lol