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In Search of the First Modern Hotep
From whence doth thou arise, pseudo-conscious man?
Hotep.
See? You’re laughing without a setup or a punchline.
You read that word and didn’t think “peace” (which is its actual meaning), nor did you think of the Egyptian polymath Imhotep. The first thing you thought of was a fake “woke” (damn, I hate that word) person — usually a man — pontificating and postulating on various philosophical fallacies. You may throw that title on anyone attempting to talk about anything of substance.
Whatever the case may be, where did hotep come from? The word has been kicked around as a pejorative for some time now, and think pieces defining it abound. But I come from an era when it was celebrated for one to learn about themselves — when sayings like “each one, teach one” were common. So, how did this new iteration of hotep come to be?
The first appearance I can think of pops up in the O’Jays’ 1973 song “Don’t Call Me Brother.” The track blasts folks throwing out the word “brother” when their intentions are anything but brotherly. Toward the end of the song, Eddie Levert tells a tale of stopping at the liquor store to get a taste and coming out to find the tires missing from his car, his glove compartment ajar. Then up strolls a gentleman “with a power sign — And talking about — talkin’ about — ‘My man! Solid on down! My brother!’” Levert suspects that this “brother” approaching is the actual thief masking his crime with consciousness.
At the core of the definition of the hotep lies a belief that what one is really witnessing is a hustler… but we’ll get to that in a bit.
The model of the modern hotep begins to emerge with Oswald Bates, one of Damon Wayans’ recurring characters on In Living Color. Mr. Bates made his first appearance back in 1990, around the time when I was a freshman at Clark Atlanta University. It’s important to understand that era: To HBCU students like us, people like Asa Hilliard, Jawanza Kunjufu, and Frances Cress…
