Eurocentrism, Skepticism, & the Alien Astronaut Theory

Back then I thought it was interesting. As interesting as the van Sertima theory that Columbus did not discover the Americas but indeed it was Africans. That van Sertima theory never sat well with me. Sure, a lot of history we are taught is eurocentric and I do believe that a lot of African history has been deconstructed but that doesn’t mean we should replace eurocentrism with afrocentrism in our attempt to reconstruct our history. That is just as rude.

So as I sat there and watched this particular show talk about how these aliens came to earth and showed “us” how to build these feats of engineering, it dawned on me that every single wonder of the world that was being ascribed to the aliens are in locations where the local population are not Caucasian. I grew angry because the essential message was that “there is no way that these coloured people could have been that smart to have built such amazing things on their own, especially since ‘we’ (read civilized Caucasians) have only recently developed comparative technology, and especially since coloured people in said locales were uncivilized/backwards/primitive when ‘we’ (read civilzed Caucasians) ‘discovered’ the lands they were living on.”

Needless to say, I could not complete the show. I was too insulted. Why is it so hard to imagine that ancient Egyptians really did build the pyramids or that the ancient Mayans also built their pyramids? We are supposed to accept that aliens built these things, but ancient Greek or Roman architecture was all the genius of those of Caucasian heritage? Right! Pure racism if nothing else. It’s almost as rude as the assumption that the medieval city of Great Zimbabwe (~12th century AD) could not have built by “primitive” Africans. Oh no, not at all. Impossible!

The other corollary is the assumption that humans of today are so much more smarter than our ancestors to the point that our stupid ancestors must have had help from those extra-terrestial beings from the heavens. All that engineering, science, architecture, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy must have been brought by extra-terrestial beings. Why must that be so? Couldn’t it be possible that we used to be smart, evolved into stupid beings, and are again evolving into smarter people? Why must evolution be linear with better things yet to happen. Just because humans of today cannot build those pyramids using the technology of that day, doesn’t mean the Egyptians (or any human from millenia back) couldn’t either. I’m convinced that with all our education and advancements we know very little about the world and our history. There’s an Egyptian mummy out there over 2600 years old that has a metal pin in one of its knee. Amazing that “modern day” orthopedics is nothing new. …and tomorrow, tomorrow we celebrate the “4oth anniversary” of man landing on the moon. Ok!