African culture survived enslavement and shaped American culture in both directions

Evidence

Northwestern anthropologist Melville Herskovits disputed this theory in The Myth of the Negro Past in 1941, bringing on the critical wrath of E. Franklin Frazier. African culture was no less resilient than European culture, and the cultural exchange went two ways, Herskovits maintained. African Americans created a strong and complex culture of European “outward” forms “while retaining inner [African] values,” he insightfully argued. Those who had consumed the myth of the Negro past were suffering from “race prejudice.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 888

Categorization

• XREF: Directly opposes the assimilationist framework Kendi defines as racist — Herskovits champions cultural retention over cultural stripping, placing him closer to the antiracist end of the three-way scheme.
• DEFINE: Illustrates the antiracist counter-position: cultural resilience and two-way exchange, against assimilationist claims of African cultural erasure.