At the risk of being called unscholarly, or unnecessarily pedantic, I would like to revive an old issue: the role of Africanists vis-à-vis Africa. In most intellectual circles, this issue is shunned. Generally, criticism of Africanists has been presented in terms of the relevance and/or nature of African/ non-African, Black/White involvement in Africa. The defense of the Africanist community, however, has been based on the impartiality of scientific investigation and the cumulative nature of all knowledge– without regard to cultural bias. My purpose here is to take a slightly different route and to interweave the two views in an effort to restate the case against Africanists.