Masilo Lepuru is an African philosopher who taught philosophy at the University of South Africa, Department of Philosophy and is currently teaching literature and media studies at the University of California, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. Lepuru also worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He has also worked as a Research and Teaching Associate and law lecturer at the Wits School of Law, South Africa. Lepuru is a Researcher and founding director of the Institute for Kemetic and Marcus Garvey Studies. His research interests are broad and include African philosophy, Jurisprudence, the Black Radical Tradition, African history, literature, South African history, and politics. He has a number of publications which appear in peer-reviewed journals both domestically and internationally. He has presented several conference papers and published numerous opinion pieces in South African newspapers such as Independent Online and Sowetan.
Positionality statement
I am inspired by the succinct words of Amilcar Cabral who with inimitable humility states that “l am a simple African man doing my duty, in my own country in the context of our time”. It is in this sense that I am an African and nothing African is alien to me. I owe my being to the revolutionary spirit of ancient African warriors who inaugurated the defense of African sovereignty against alien invaders. And their contemporary embodiment fighting against the ravages of racial slavery and racial capitalism. As a member of the living who is inextricably intertwined with the fate of the living-dead and the-yet-to-be-born in terms of triadic ontology in African spirituality, I am encouraged to be ready for revolution by believing in the ultimate victory of the African race. The race-first philosophy of Garveyism galvanizes by intellectual warriorship. Like Robert Sobukwe I find the question ‘how man can die better’? to be my guiding existential and political question. For I can only die better while fighting for the sovereignty and prosperity of every African across the world. Because as the philo-praxis of Ubuntu teaches me ‘I am because of them’. This is how I embrace Pan-Africanism with its antimonies.