A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Temple University African American Studies chairman Dr. Molefi Asante figured he could both please his bosses and purge his department of leftist political thought by getting rid of W.E.B. Dubois scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro. Instead, Asante has made himself a pariah to students and educators, and an embarrassment to Temple administrators.
Molefi Asante Must Go, Say Students and Educators
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Asante has succeeded only in making himself a liability to Temple University.”
What began, last year, as a student and community battle to save African American Studies from a racist Dean of Liberal Arts at Temple University, in Philadelphia, is now compelled to also confront the bizarre and ugly specter of McCarthyism in Blackface. Molefi Asante, who became chairman of the African American Studies Department thanks to the student and community campaign, almost immediately betrayed them
Then, on May 8, Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Marc Lamont Hill
Asante has succeeded only in making himself a liability to Temple University. The scholars who drafted a letter demanding Monteiro’s reinstatement, with tenure – which was signed by 250 prominent educators – have issued a new statement, They deplored “Dr. Asante’s brazen demonization of student protesters and his deployment of racially divisive attacks,” saying this, “together with previous, well-publicized charges of plagiarism and abuse of authority…make him unfit to make decisions about faculty or lead an academic department.”
“Fear is the only card Dr. Asante has left to play.”
The students that Asante verbally abused also say he must be “held accountable.” They rejected
The students, who gathered 2,000 signatures of support from their peers at Temple, said Asante had “firmly attached” himself to the right-wing politics of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. “Having been thoroughly discredited for his betrayal of Dr. Monteiro and North Philadelphia,” the students wrote, “fear is the only card Dr. Asante has left to play.”
That, and his claim to be super-Black, the ultimate African when, in the real world, he and others like him are ready to betray the struggle at the first opportunity – as they have repeatedly, here and on the continent. Time after time, those who struggle for transformational change find that they must first fight their way through layers of Asantes before they can do righteous battle with the people who actually hold power.
In this case, ironically, it is likely that the people in power will decide that Molefi Asante and his madness are too big a burden for Temple University to bear. They, too, may conclude that Asante must go.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Liberation struggles are not fought only on the battlefield. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) left a legacy of educational decolonization.
