The Word Hotep Deserves Better Than This
The Egyptian word Hotep (ḥtp) translates to roughly “to be satisfied, at peace”. It is regularly found in the names of ancient Egyptian figures such as Hotepsekhemwy (ḥr ḥtp-sḫm.wj “the two powers are at peace”), the first ruler of Egypt’s Second Dynasty — From Wikipedia
The first time I heard the word “hotep” was when I was a middle school student at the alternative learning community Ideal Whole School in Washington, D.C. The people who ran the school taught the students Pan-African concepts, fed us two vegan meals per day and we held classes in unconventional spaces while being housed on the campus of Howard University.
I’d always remark at how sincere the greeting of hotep/hetep was among the staff of the school and the students. It was always said with love, and it became a ritual I looked forward to in my brief time there. This was the mid-Eighties, and the impending arrival of Afrocentric Hip-Hop would soon define a great portion of my youth.
There was another woman I befriended many years later when I was an adult who greeted others in a similar fashion. Her name was Karen and she kept a collection of African and African-American literature in her home. The walls of her small Takoma Park apartment were adorned with art from around the world, and it always smelled like some kind of warm stew at her place.
What struck me about Karen was that she didn’t reserve her greeting for Black people. Everyone was greeted like family. She welcomed strangers, Black, white and otherwise, into her place for meals. She made friends with people riding the Red Line Metro train home, which is how I met her. Karen lit up the room with her big smile, long dreadlocks, and flowing dresses.
Karen died a few years ago after I lost contact with her. I regretted knowing that I didn’t cultivate that relationship with her. I would have loved to know her thoughts on the current social media and blogosphere trend to use the word “hotep” in describing a certain segment of misguided so-called Afrocentric people. In the past few months, the usage of the term under offensive means seemingly has tripled. While some friends and associates of mine state that the term is meant to be ironic, the word deserves better than that.
I suppose if one of the people who find it necessary to use the term in the fashion they do would have met Karen, they would have possibly written her off as a so-called “Hotep.”
Karen would clasp her hands and say “hotep” firmly and bow then greet you with a hug. She always smelled of some exotic oil. She didn’t eat meat and there was the books and art situation I wrote about earlier. Yet, she never pushed her way of thought onto anyone. She would attend the church services of her friends, she supported events no matter if it jived with her sensibilities or not and she believed with all her heart that the code she lived by was one of spreading peace with each person at a time.
It appears that the rise of “hotep” as an attack began back in 2014 with the emergence of the term, “Hotep Twitter.” Now what I can concede to is that there are several individuals in the Twitterverse who tout so-called Afrocentric viewpoints while often spewing archaic notions of manhood and womanhood. The pervasive sexism that runs rampant in social media didn’t begin with this group, but they certainly caused a loud enough din to attract the ire of Black feminists and womanists who referred to them as the “Ashy” massive.
Men, by and large, are terrible on Twitter and I’m not absolving myself from at times being a part of the problem. Black men are especially narrow in their focus and veiled hatred of Black women. And yes, many of them profess to be pro-Black and upholding traditional standards of old. While the vitriol that extended from the group deserved to be met with an equal response, is calling them “hoteps” the way to go?
Popular blogs that I barely want to dignify with a hyperlink have crafted pieces around “hoteps” and it has become a popular, if overdone, trope for writers looking for a think piece with viral potential. It’s even gotten to the point where whites are using the term to call out sexist Afrocentric people and there’s even been some blurring of the lines of what it means to be hotep among the gatekeepers of snark.
Without doubt, I stand with my sisters and others who wish to shout down the divisive and blatant misogyny that occurs with painful frequency most especially in communities of color. There is also no doubt that the “ashy” brothers out there who hide behind the glare of the keyboards or smart phones throwing their hateful darts against Black and Brown Women are the enemy of their people.
I just fail to see how calling them “hoteps” continues to be funny to people. It’s created this environment that any man who says “Peace” and genuinely means it faces a clandestine prejudice from others. It makes it so that when the otherwise decent brother who would carry your bags to your doorstep without worry is defined as a “hotep” because he wears sandals, has a long beard and rides his bike everywhere.
The loose usage of “hotep” as a joking jab makes it so when we see a beautiful woman with locs and a nose ring, we immediately assume she’s with some brother, excuse me, “brotha,” that has her walking around barefoot and backwards while reciting passages from The Isis Papers. That woman could very well be the CEO and founder of her own company, but happens to do her best to identify with her cultural roots.
These words I’m writing won’t stop the use of the term, I know this. And I’m sure there will be some who will hit back and say I’m overthinking it or trying to hard to rob the Internets of a playful pastime of calling out “f*ck sh*t” as the kids sometimes say.
The social media space is filled with legitimate humorous individuals, some of whom use the term “hotep” as if they’ve forgotten how to be creative and instead follow the crowd with using the term. I happen to enjoy jabs like “Faux-Tep” and “No-Tep” — those are actually rather clever and doesn’t down an entire culture that didn’t ask to be made a mockery of.
The next time the word “hotep” comes out of your mouth or flies from your fingers onto your preferred social media network, you should ask yourself if it’s fair to those who did nothing to deserve such a demeaning designation. The cornballs who use their twisted interpretation of African and holistic culture as a mask to promote hate and sexist thoughts should be ridiculed from the highest mountaintops.
But hotep? Hotep deserves better than this.
Peace…excuse me, Hotep/Hetep,
D.L. Chandler
A.K.A.
Just a regular Black dude who loves his people and the entire human family.
