Jaels blog: Learning, Wisdom, and The African World

The latest freshman seminar was very interesting and gave me an opportunity to articulate my views. The three points of the lecture "Learning,Wisdom, and the African World" were the significance of the mbongi, the African legacy, and an afro-centric take on learning.
A literal interpretaion of mbongi is "a house with no roof". The overall idea of the mbongi is a open but protected community where people work together to engage in problem solving and learning. A mbongi is a natural and universal phenomenom. A mbongi may take the form of a friendship between two people or a large church congregation. I loved when Dr. Carr noted that all human beings were concieved to a mbongi involving two people (our parents). I will do my best to open up and be apart of the communion of the Howard Mbongi.
The portion on the African legacy somewhat confused me and there were many things said that I did not think were necessarily true. One thing that confused me is that through history we know that the majority of Africans taken from their homeland to be slaves were taken from West Africa. If that is so, why is their such a large emphasis on Egyptian history? Africa is a big continent and natives to the continent look very different from one another and have different cultures depending on what corner of Africa they come from, and therefore African Americans may not be direct "heirs" to the Egyptian heritage. Also, the feats of the Egyptians that the black community claims credit for happened so long ago that, biologically speaking, people of different ethnic backgrounds could claim the same relations to the ancient pharoahs. Plus, I was confused on who and who is not "black". As I said before, Africa is a big continent and people look vastly different on different corners of the continent. Dr. Carr mentioned that Africans were the first people, but does that necessarily mean that the first people looked like what Americans see as black? I always imagine Adam and Eve placed in the Garden of Eden in Africa as two racially ambigious beauties. For example, one would have dark skin, straight hair, blue eyes, and be very lean, while the other was light skin, had almond eyes, kinky hair, and had freckles. Then it would not be later on until Noah's son dispersed all over the world and created families where people with similar features populate a region that race became noticeable.
The portion that focused on an afrocentric take on learning bared the same confusion. As human beings are we not all heirs to learning and thinking, and being black has nothing to do with it? I personally do not believe that my earthly ancestors have any bearings on my future. I prescribe to the belief that my heavenly father, who sees no difference between Jew and Gentile, holds my future in his hand.