The Reality of Racism – Black Muslim History with Sh. Abdullah Hakim Quick
Check out the final #BlackMuslimHistory discussion featuring Shaykh Abdullah Hakim Quick on the realities of Racism and how we can overcome this disgusting disease in our lives today.
smolov nano Rahim on hamdulillah hearable alameen wa salatu salam ala nabina Muhammad wa Allah, he was happy to mine as salaam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Welcome back to the final installment of our series. Here in Black History Month, I'm joined, of course with our esteemed scholar and guests check out balakian quick.
And we have our final session today, which is going to talk about a modern day phenomenon. Of course, we've gone through this history now we started off in ancient Egypt, then we looked at some of the illustrious companions, forgotten heroes of the Prophet. So I set them, then we looked at the transatlantic slave trade and the role in which Muslims played in the resistance against it. And now we're going to be talking more about the modern day manifestations of racism of discrimination, and anti blackness that still exists in the world today, because a lot of the problems that once existed in history, and were used to justify the, you know, horrendous treatment of black people are still
well in the life today. So I wanted to first of all share, talk to you about the concept of racism, you know, when you ever get into a debating match with people online, which I don't suggest you do, by the way, because it's extremely pointless. But people are very confused as to what actually racism is, you know, white people will tell you, yeah, you know, I, anytime I go into the local, you know, corner shop, the people there are racist towards me. And you're like, Really? Are they racist towards you? Like, what does racism in and of itself, as an actual manifestation actually look like? So maybe you can expand on that when we talk about racism, when we talk about the modern day
manifestations of discrimination against people based on race, and ethnicity? What does that actually look like? Maybe you can give us your thoughts. Okay. Bismillah Ar Rahman AR, he was also a solo. But
in order to understand racism, we need to look at the different parts of racism. Basically, the essence of racism starts with an ideology. And that is an ideology, or it is a belief, a set of beliefs, that makes one group superior, and another group inferior, right. So the one group feels that because of their physical makeup, or the history or whatever it is about them, when it's usually something physical, that they are superior to the other group. And that ideology is what drives everything.
And maybe we'll look at some of the different ideologies and how they came about. But that's the basis ideology. The next point of it on this triangle, in a sense, is the individual expressions of racism. And that is where, for instance, racist names, where people are calling names and racist behavior.
And sometimes it goes into abuse, and you know, other areas, you know, the worst form of that, of course, would be discrimination. And then, you know, genocide, right, we're can actually become physical.
The third part is institutionalized racism. And institutionalized racism, is we're TDD superiority, inferiority concept, is actually institutionalized in society. So the basis of your education, of your progress in life, of your ability to become a leader of whether you're beautiful or not beautiful.
The basic setup in society is, you know, predicated on race. So it's become institutionalized. So unless we understand the whole issue of racism, we don't really go to the essence. So maybe a person says, Well,
you know, I personally don't call anybody names. So I won't use the N word. Okay, but they feel inside that they're better than you. Right? So they still have the ideology? Or maybe a person says, Well, you know, I don't believe in any of those ideologies. However, you know, they have risen, you know, high in the ranks, you know, they're the head of the company. And there are people below them of other colors and nationalities who have twice the knowledge of them. But because they are, for instance, European, because they are European, that they get that position. And they say, Well, I didn't, I didn't call anybody names. I don't believe in ideology. You know, however, this is just
reality, I'm here. So in other words, that person is benefiting from racism. That's the institutionalized form of racism. So we need to understand all the different aspects of racism, to go into depth into these to fully understand, you know, how this manifests itself, and then look at the situation that we're living in today. So when we talk about the Islamic perspective towards racism, yeah, because racism is not a new phenomenon. It's something that existed many years before we did existed even during the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. There were perceptions amongst the people at that time that you
You know, people like Millau de la and who were looked down upon because of his race, right? He was, you know, people would insult him in such referencing his race. But what did Islam come to do with racism? And what did Islam say upon this, you know, particular way of thought or this ideology? What is this time stance on? Yeah, basically, racism, in the original sense, goes back to the time of the first man and Adam alayhis. Salaam, was created from, you know, the earth from clay. But before his time was the creation of the jinn. And the jinn were created from smokeless fire. Right? So that in that early anxious scenario, where a lot of what Allah has created Adam, and then takes him in front
of the company of the angels, and it is said that he believes the journey was so pious, he was allowed to stay with the angels, although the angels are created from light, and they only obey Allah, but the jinn they can disobey or obey. So then Allah said, Who's Julie Adam, bow down to Adam. And then the Quran says, For such ado, la please, they all bow down, but the police refused. And then Allah asked him, Why did you not bow down and he said, you know, collector, Neiman nodded war collector who maintain, You created me from fire. And you created him from clay. So a police was the first racist. Because he felt that because of his creation, right? He's made from fire, that's
means gaseous, he can move around, he's powerful, he doesn't get tired and hungry, like human beings have to take an iron pill or vitamins or whatever. jinns have amazing strength.
So because of by virtue of his creation, he felt that he's superior. And so that's the essence of it. So right from the beginning, this is condemned, and at least the shaitan was cursed, you know, until the day of judgment. And so literally, Islam came to, you know, bring unity amongst people, and to show that people are created in nations and tribes. to know one another answer to who God tells us this, you know, that that the color difference or the language difference is not to show what is superior or inferior. But it is to show that this is part of the variations of Allah subhanaw taala and get to know the variations and the province of Solomon, his final sermon, was
saying there's no difference between an Arab and non Arab or vice versa, or white or black or black or white, elaborate taqwa. It's only piety right action, you know, it's not these other false constructs that separates people. So Islam was very clear, in terms of, you know, theoretically, the position how people should deal with each other, and an Arab society itself.
Arab culture, you know, was very powerful. Again, Arabs are not a straight ethnic group. You have light skinned Arabs, you have dark skinned Arabs are not as straight as what how we look at race today. However, they tended to prefer
people with a lighter complexion because the Romans at the time, and the Persians, they were the most powerful societies in the world. And so the most sophisticated people materially came from these lighter skinned nations. And so there was a tendency for Arabs to like those lighter skin features and the hawkish nose and the high forehead and to look against somebody with, you know, a small nose, you know, always tight curly hair, and darker complexion, to look down on that. Okay, that tendency was there. Again, it's not the same as today with a color line, you know, has been so, you know, stratified, especially in the past 500 years. But it was there. And you know, it was dealt
with right from the beginning, and is considered to be a form of ignorance and Joe Hillier, and the process alum spoke out directly against this. The famous case of Bilbao, the companion who was you know, you know, cursed and said by a Buddha, you sort of a black woman, right? So use the concept of black woman, right? Right. And so this was taken to the Prophet so Salah was told him to Buddha, you have ignorance in you know, Buddha was embarrassed, and he said the bill, I'll put my stamp on my head, so they will deal with it right on the spot, and Bilbao forgave him. So the it was not tolerated. And there's a number of cases of people, one of the black companion Julie beep, wanted to
get married. And there are other cases like this, and because of his dark complexion, people did not want to marry him, but the province has intervened himself, and it was the man of the people, especially sometimes the younger
The doctor said, No, I'll marry him. Right? Because the prophet SAW Selim, he wants us to marry him. And so they overcame this because of the man and their faith. And so Islam, his position, you know, was clear, theoretically. But Muslims sometimes are different than Islam, in the sense that the way of life, the theory is there. But the culture of the people sometimes influences their ideology. It's funny, though, because when you mentioned the fact that it believes was the first racist, it's like anyone who follows in that particular way of thinking as following the sin of at least, that's right. So they become like a devil. In a sense, yes. It's a very devilish thing. Racism is a very
evil, devilish, you know, you know, concept it is, and it's from the highest points of arrogance, right to assume that, by no virtue of your own, you're better than someone, it's not even like you did anything to become white, or you did anything to achieve your race or your status, you just happen to come out of the womb that way. That's right. So it is a combination of ignorance and arrogance. And it's compounded by that fact. But why is the case that still to this day, I mean, we are people that, you know, we have the messages with the processor, and we have the core and we know the CRL, we know companions like below, why do you feel like still, in many Muslim societies, this
type of thinking prevails, even though the prophecies did such a fantastic job in his own time and his own community of educating of teaching his companions of teaching as people, why is it that still to this day, we still fall into that trap? Well, we have to recognize that we are influenced by our cultures. And so the person comes from Africa or India or China or Europe, it does have an influence on us. And Islam is like a filter. So you have a certain liquid that has sticks in it and impurities, and you pour it through the filter, right, and then it's it's cleaned out the impurities, but it's still the same liquid. So if it was milk, it's still milk. If it was juice,
it's still juice, but Islam purified the juice of the milk, right. So this is the struggle that people have, because sometimes they can't distinguish between Islam and their culture.
Unless they have a culture of learning, where they go back to the sources, and where they're relating to the early generations, and the example of the province of settlers, then they can easily fall into some of the problems. One good example of this and one of the beginning clearest examples of early racism is the caste system of India. Now, we go back a few 1000 years, we see that early Europeans, you know, coming out of either Russia or the Volga River like Germany,
in a drought,
a famine, they had to migrate.
And so they migrated, you know, and they're very hungry and very aggressive, they migrated into northern India. And so, they developed a system the caste system,
which literally is based on race, because the word in the early language Sanskrit is viola, viola, for caste, it actually means color.
So, they developed a system, the the the native people of India, were the dravidian people known as like Tamil today, this is African, dark skinned people, originally, we believe originally came from Africa. So, they were very dark complexion, people who lived there for a couple 1000 years. And the white Brahmins are now coming from the north. So, so, the white people then develop the system, which they connected to their religion, and they said that human beings are created in different groups and you have the gods and Gods for different purposes and reasons. And then you have the Brahmins and the Brahmins are the priests, they are the scholars. And of course, the the lighter
skinned people, the closest to white that you are generally is the Brahmins. So, you have the Brahmin caste, you know, which is on the top and gets all the benefits, and then you have the warriors and the kicks. So, that's the next cast. Then you have the merchants and business people and whatnot. Then you have the common people, and they get darker and darker by the way. And then you have Untouchables. And the untouchables is a group of people right on the bottom. For the most part, they are dark skinned Indian people, and they basically clean the streets and they clean the toilets. So, toilet cleaning and their racism was so bad that a Brahmin would believe if
untouchable person came in the room.
They would have to burn everything in the room
because the presence of that person you
made everything filthy like, we call it nudges like you know, ceremonially unclean. That's the level of racism. And they believed in a system
where people you know, are born and die and are reborn.
So life continues. And so when you die, if you are a good person, if you are an untouchable, then you rise up to a higher level. If you are, you know, a good person, then then you can go to a higher level to reach the point of a Brahman. And if you are a Brahman, and you lived with all of their rules, and in spirituality, then you can reach Nirvana, which is like paradise with the gods, but you can't get there
until you literally born and are reborn, die, you know, continue to go up the ladder to the top. If you're on one level, and you do bad you go and back down. And if you're an untouchable and you do wrong, you could turn into a monkey or a pig or a chicken or something like that, the only thing left as your you turn into an animal. So that system literally institutionalized the racism. So this is your institutionalized form. And this is the most dangerous form of all, of course, in this manifestation, and you literally can't change a caste in India. And so this is a reality the caste system is it has been outlawed now that the new governments are outlawing. But it's a struggle that
they're going through in terms of the culture, it's still there amongst people and influence Muslims, you know, as well, in terms of how, you know, Muslims function in society itself. So to this day, something like the caste system, do you feel like it would affect Muslim families, Muslim households, probably in relation to marriage, things like that? Do you feel like it still comes up? You know, it's not exactly caste, you can't call it caste, it's more like class, okay. But the color factor is definitely there. Right. So this is more of a tribal class kind of difference that Muslims have taken on, they have been affected by the caste concept. So a person who has darker skin
naturally, they would, you know, associate with being of a lower type of, you know, class, they don't associate DACA people as being upper class, and they would associate light skinned people as being of an upper class, you know, so so that, you know, has been a struggle, you know, for them within their societies. And it still influences people up until today. Have there ever been circumstances throughout history? I mean, you're a historian. So you might be able to better answer this question. Where, for example, the tables were turned, and it was looked upon badly to be someone lighter, and being darker was seen as something more beautiful or more attainable. And that
sense. Was there ever a time in history when that was the case? Well, you know, I mean, people do have forms of
racism or forms of tribalism.
I'll give you an example in China.
And this appeared in The New York Times they were talking about,
you know, the Chinese version of superiority.
And they have a myth, where they say, the human race, according to Chinese legend, was created by a divine Potter who left his clay figure of a man too long in the oven.
And when it came out, burnt and black, he threw it away as far as he could, and it landed in Africa.
The second one, he pulled out too soon.
And, but then he threw it away more gently, and it landed in Europe. Now, he knew the correct timing. The third man was a gorgeous yellow. And from him, the East Asian races descent, you see the concept. So what happens everything in between, so everything, you know, sort of like you know, cooked, not too burnt, or not too light just in between. So this is their concept. And just imagine now, I mean, amongst the Arabs, they have this thing called shoe moonroof. And that is the hawk nose, they considered to have a high bridge nose to be a sign of beauty. That was part of an Arabian culture. And, but when the Arabs went to China, the Chinese people don't have a hawk nose, right?
They're looking at the Arabs and say, like, what happened to your nose man? Like, you look like a pelican or some kind of, you know, so, again, right? It's a strange, you know, phenomenon. Right? So see, this is how racism it's illogical thing, right? Yeah. And you know, you don't appreciate the difference. You know, but you feel that your look is superior.
You know, and this influences the way you deal. Another example of this, that I experienced personally.
I lived in South Africa for 10 years, right? And in South Africa, it was the apartheid system. And apartheid is the separation. And so this was instituted by the Nationalist Party from 1948 to 1994. And so I witnessed this, you know, it wasn't the end of it, I came in the late 90s. But you were there during apartheid, no, just right after, right after, but the remnants are still there. Right. And so, um, you know, it was a horrible thing. So what they did was, they divided people into white, which would be mainly the Dutch and the British. And then you have colored, so the colored is a person of mixed, you know, white and African. Or it could be Indian. Or it could be
Malay. Right, this is generally the color Indians, Emily's were considered color, they're considered colors. Okay. And then the African is on the lowest caste. And this is the African nations. So to Zulu, cosa swatter, and the African the African nations, they had a problem, though, is that, you know, when Chinese person came in,
and Koreans, like they said, like what to do with them, because they couldn't, so they made them honorary White's Oh, really. And they put them in the worst section of the white area. And when Arabs came to, they had a little bit of a problem, okay. So they made them honorary whites. So they literally divided up the society. So if you're in the white area, your education is better.
Your housing is better, you have wide house good land, the infrastructure is better, the quality of your life is better. If you're in the colored section, you're in the middle zone. So it's not as good as the white. But it is not as bad as the African section. If you're in the African section, then you're in tin shacks, you're in the worst possible condition, and your life is a life of labor. And it's institutionalized. And I was shocked to find out, I was living in Cape Town, and one of my friends,
you know, he was colored from the melee background. And, you know, he used to, he was a builder. So he would have crews of people that would work for him to build houses. And he told me that literally during apartheid, that, you know, the only people who could do skilled labor, the whites, of course, didn't work with them at all. But the skill labor had to be colored. If they found an African person
who was reading and writing, or who was laying cement, or doing carpentry, you can go to jail,
for giving that person skills, the only thing that African could do was hard labor, carrying things digging the ditches. You could not learn skills. So this was literally institutionalized. Logically, I mean, how do they even justify that? Like, what, what makes them feel as though they intellectually are superior to others? I just don't understand the logic behind that type of racism. How do they justify that? Well, again, you see, if you look at the case of the Brahmins, they're motivated economically, because they're a settler community, right? settling in India, in this case, it was the Dutch, and it was the British, especially the Dutch now putting this, they settled in, in
South Africa. And they needed to conquer the land and take control of the land. And they were motivated by a distorted version of the Bible. And in that biblical understanding the story of him, you one of the sons of Noah, who saw his father in his nakedness drunk, and he was cursed, that he would serve the other brothers until the day of judgment. So they believe that African people should be the servants, and the slaves of European people. They felt that this is just how human beings are created. And this is your ideology again.
And they would use this word cafe, which which they actually got out of how from Arabic means a non believer, but they would say you cafe, meaning like, you know, you're black. And so so they would use that term. I mean, I don't know, I heard that in South Africa. I could understand what did he come from? Yeah, I mean, it came must have come from Arabic. Yeah. I don't know how they, they they got that because you obviously have black Muslims. But somehow, maybe they looked at light skinned Arabs, as you're looking down on Africa. I don't know how they got that because it has nothing to do with Islam. Yeah. But again, that's your ideology coming from the biblical sources. You have your
names and you know your treatment of people your behavior. And then you have your institution. So this is how it's instituted now and how it plays its role. And this influenced the minds of the people up until the late 90s. When I was there, there were people colored people who were afraid to go in the African section.
And they were also afraid to talk straight to European people. So
I came there to help with the Islamic movement. And you know, I being a person, because you know, I am light skinned, you know, black in America, you would consider me a colored in South Africa.
Right. But at the same time, but my wife from Jamaica has darker skin. So we're a strange, you know, combination. But for me, it doesn't matter because we have light skin, you know, Afro American, dark skinned Afro American. So I could go in the African section, I'm comfortable, I can go in the white section and look the white man in his eyes and talk to him. Whereas they couldn't do that. Right. So it was a strange thing for me to deal with people who have deep rooted psychological problems. And this also existed in the United States. In the Caribbean, it was instituted in the United States as what is called the Jim Crow laws, right.
And that is, of course, slavery itself. You know, you're literally slaves. So you can't read, you can't write, you can't get married, you can only do slave labor. But when slavery is now abolished, they instituted a system, you know, of division. And, and these Jim Crow laws, which especially are coming through, you know, in the latest centuries, it is literally where
institutionally, you have toilets, white, and toilet for black. You have restaurants, when you get on a bus, the African people have to sit in the back of the bus. So it's literally, you know, instituted all throughout the society. And it's not really until you know, 65. And after that we're still struggling against it now that
the buses and the schools were desegregated. So people were working against segregation, but they called it right. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. And in that area, they had what is called de facto segregation. It was not like the South. But in Boston, you had Roxbury was the black community. And then you have East Boston where the Italians were, and you have South Boston where the Irish were right. And if you were black and cotton, East Boston or South Boston that night, you know, you know, you could get hurt, maybe even killed. So they literally institutionally had a big impact on job skills on education on so many things in the society, until the Civil Rights Movements
came about, and start breaking a lot of this down.
You know, until you know, it could reach you know, a better level. But unfortunately, this is something that people are still facing today. And you know, it's it's racism, unfortunately, you know, is it's raising its head again. And it's coming back to the surface. And we see, very, unfortunately,
in the 21st century, where we should actually be far away from racism, we see that it actually has returned, and it's reared its ugly head. And we see right wing Nazi like movements, the alt right movement in America, we see like Nazi type groups in Scandinavia.
You know, we see in Amsterdam, we have this person, Andrus. brevik, who killed the people in in Norway, and literally shut them down. And when he comes into the, you know, the court, he does a Nazi salute. You have people on the alt right, who literally were, you know, saluting, you know, the election of Donald Trump and putting out Nazi signs. Nazi swastikas were written all over,
you know, buildings in America, in some places, it was in Queens, New York. This is before the inauguration. In Queens, New York, there was a case of, you know, white students getting in a bus, and the people of color, they said, Now, get in the back of the bus, you know, because Donald Trump is going to be elected.
And so they literally were bringing back this hatred.
You know, and it's very unfortunate thing, but the world is changing now. And the * of the European race, you know, which for the last five, 600 years, you know, in Europe, in many parts of the world, especially the last 300 years or so, the colonial period, you know, dominating the world this is coming to an end now. And and you know, that the people of color, and they say, the third world, but how can you be the third world when Egypt was the first organized country, right, but now they're calling the third world country. So the so called third world people are now rising up. And this is making a big impact. And, and somehow the European nations, you know, are feeling especially
white males. They feel as though they are endangered.
Like an endangered species. Because you know, when you look at racism is a lot
thing, right? But if you look at President Obama, for instance, right, his father is black and his mother is white. So what is he?
Well, they consider him more black. He's a black president. Yeah. But genealogically, if you look at his DNA,
he's 5050.
So why does he call it African? So what happens is, anytime there's a mixture, if Chinese marries European does a Chinese baby, if Indian marries, that's an Indian baby, if Black marries, that's a black baby. It's like, you know, you have coffee, and, you know, you put some milk and sugar in it, but it's still coffee.
Right? So this is the reality is that, you know, everything's turned into coffee. Right? And so and so the people of milk and sugar, you know, feel that their existence is in danger? Well, can that be a reason why we find, you know, far right groups, you know, pro Trump supporters are really kind of engaging this type of hate rhetoric is because they feel threatened is because they don't want to lose perhaps their positions of power, or because they don't want to be in a position where maybe they feel like all that oppression now is going to be reversed onto them. I mean, this, this is probably part of it. You know, some of it is economic, because America's going down anyway. And a
lot of the benefits that they were getting, you know, in the, in the 50s, and, you know, part of the 60s, here, the Saudis lose these benefits, but with the wave of immigrants coming in, and then their children being educated. Now, in America and European countries, you have a new generation of children, who are people of color, but they speak the European languages, they are totally new in the culture, and they are benefiting. And in the case of Muslims, because they probably less prone to take alcohol and drugs. They're probably bit the better students, they're doing really well in school. Now you have a wave of educated people coming from China and India and Africa, Middle East.
And so now you have it people, you know, who predominantly in some cases, people from, you know, Asia and other countries like that. Then you have people in, in NASA, as you know, in the space programs and universities from other colors. And so the European people who literally were the only ones who could be involved in higher education before, because it was prohibited for other people. Remember, you didn't have East Indians in, you know, Chinese were basically, you know, doing us slave like work. Black people, Africans are doing slave legwork, the native people, of course, on reservations. And so everything was in the hands of the Europeans, even sports baseball players, the
greatest hero of sports, basketball, which was started by a white Canadian man, you know, right Naismith. Now, it is basically, you know, black people slam dunking, you know, and then you have one of the worst insults, you know, you know, when Tiger Woods comes along, and then he and then he takes over golf. Yeah, which was one of the last bastions, you know, for white males. It seems like it's the day of judgment. And so, so literally, they see, instead of appreciating
other nationalities and what they have to do, recognizing that we're all from the human family, they feel that they're threatened, you know, and so that based on their economic loss, and their lack of education, a very narrow education, and of course, brainwashing coming from racist type movies, racist stereotypes, this has got a big influence. It's funny, though, because I feel like, it's so illogical, to the extent that people themselves don't even recognize, you know, why they feel like their history might be superior, because if you contextualize world history, when we spoke about in our first session, the fact that the ancient Egyptians, you know, and civilizations in Africa held
such esteem, in terms of the world and world history, it's like to think that your history is the only one that has a value without acknowledging the, you know, vast amount of history in Africa and such it's like, it's you can see how ignorance compounds and I guess that's probably why they tried to pretend that these people were actually European and not African themselves, right. And especially you know, this this last few decades.
The main source of education is slowly going away from books, and going into visual things YouTube, YouTube, and its movies, and the movies and the serial programs. So people are taking their knowledge from them. And unfortunately, racism in the form of stereotyping
came into the media. When I was young growing up in America, and American movies generally have a bad guy in it.
Good guy. So when I was growing up, the bad guy was usually Germans, Japanese, because coming from World War Two, right, then it became Russians Cold War. And then Southeast Asians enemies, you know, and then Chinese, you know, gangs, Jamaican policies, you know, it starts to, you know, Afro American gangs. And then the most dangerous terrorist comes in. And this is where the Arab, you know, Chechen Afghan terrorists, you know, comes in so it creates stereotyping. And you know, I used to go around two schools and do a psychological test. And I said to the students, and you can ask yourself, this is how stereotyping works. If you look at movies, have you ever seen in a television
program series, or in a movie as the hero of the program, because the American movie as the bad guy who does the evil, and then the good guy, who the camera focuses on most of the time, it has to keep going back on that person. Right, right. That's the focus. That's the one the hero, you know, the essence of the program.
Have you ever seen a Chinese person as a hero in a mainstream program? What comes in your mind? kung fu? Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan, Chet Lee, Bruce Lee. As if all Chinese people fight Kung Fu. That's a stereotype. Because the only people who fight kung fu are the ones who study it in China. Yeah. It's not in their DNA to fight Kung Fu. See how the stereotype compares? If you look, for instance, at the movies have you ever seen and this is interesting. Have you ever seen an Indian person who's the hero of a mainstream program? Think about Bollywood? Yeah, and we're not talking about Bollywood? You can. Have you ever seen a Malaysian person on a program? No, no. And there's millions of
Malaysian hundreds and millions of Malays in the world. Now, let's go to Africa.
Have you ever seen an African person as the hero of a mainstream program now? Let's take out no dancer, no Joker, no idiot. No oversexed person, no criminal as the hero now, recently, when I was growing up, a person named Sidney Poitier. He broke the color line. And now recently, what can you think of now? Well, Denzel gets a few good ones out. Wesley Snipes. Will Smith. Will Smith. You know, they have reached there. That's only recently Yeah, generally speaking. And up until now, if you have a movie, and the people are fighting aliens, yeah. And there's seven people in the space crew. And the alien is eating up one by one. The black guy is gonna die about 40 minutes into the
movie. He's always the appetizer, right? You know, Dick, the alien is killing people. I look at the Blackboard, I say Brother, you go and down.
finally going to get a head start and start reading. Because you will not make it to the end. See that stereotype right? Now, an Arab or Muslim
you will have ever seen as as the hero of a mainstream program, it is usually a terrorist, or somebody involved in violence. This creates stereotyping which also creates what is called prejudgment, which is prejudice. These are all manifestations of racism, it's more of a behavioral thing. So it causes prejudice, where a person will look at an individual and feel that they should do certain jobs, or they shouldn't do certain jobs. So this has impacted us, and it's still impacting us. Up until today, our young people are looking at, you know, Luke Skywalker, you know, and Princess Leia.
You know, and then Darth vadar in black. Right? So this is still being fed this not as much as before, but it's still being fed this ideology that creates a superior mind and an inferior one. Both are sick. Yeah, the superior person cannot judge things, right? Because they think that they're supposed to get all these benefits, the inferior person doesn't think that they should get things so nobody can think properly. So, you know, we need to come back, you know, to our census, as a human race. And I believe Muslims, you know, should be playing one of the leading roles in this too, because we have the ideology, the way of life that clearly shows us, you know, an example. So I want
to wrap up shift and before I do, I mean, we've had these four sessions. We spoke about ancient Egypt, we spoke about the lost and forgotten illustrious companions of the salon. We spoke about the transatlantic slave trade, we're talking about racism. Now. There is this common theme in a lot of these discussions and a lot of these topics which is this notion of discrimination is no
The notion of racism that black and African people have experienced, whether it be not acknowledging their achievements in ancient Egypt, or whether it be the discrimination perhaps of black people received, even during the time the process of them, it could be now the usage of the Bible and other propaganda tools to enslave African people. And today, you look at movements like Black Lives Matter. And you look at the constant need for social justice reform, prison reform, the fact that black American men, specifically African Americans in the prison system in the US are above par in terms of representation there, you know, way too many to begin with. But what are the solutions? You
know, because it seems like a racism it seems like discrimination has been a plague that has been, you know, affecting many add them for countless millennia. What is the solution to this, you know, disgusting, really way of thinking? I mean, how do we make sure that our future generations that kids coming up in the next generation don't fall into that trap in the same way that many of us have fallen into before them? Well, again, I think that, you know, the younger generation should look at the three paths of racism. For solutions. Number one, it's the ideology, to first recognize the fact that people of African descent and of course, there are other people in the West, who have suffered
the First Nations people, the Hispanic people, this is Black History Month, right? And we're looking at people of African descent, to recognize the fact that people of African descent, you know, came here, you know, not on the neither Pinta and the Santa Maria of Columbus, they did not come, they did not land at Plymouth Rock. Right, as Malcolm said, Plymouth Rock landed on them. In other words, we came here as slaves and political prisoners. So immediately, everything is restricted. Marriage is not allowed until 1865.
Laws are made against us, education is restricted. Our reaction comes with the Ku Klux Klan, and these right wing organizations, terrorizing people, destroying the psyche, the very family broken up, black women being raped systematically, you know, for a few 100 years. So the whole concept of family being broken down. So we have to recognize that, you know, the way the society is geared, and then even it came in, in music. You know, in the 60s, we had what we call conscious music, where there were people who were singing conscious songs, and then, you know, they had this movie called Superfly. You know, and then gangsta rap comes in. So the gangsters are now you know, the heroes. So
the gangster is the hero.
cocaine and other drugs flooded in the community. In the 60s, when there was rebellion, when people were standing for civil rights. crack cocaine was developed. Stop and Frisk. And then you know, the law that if you have three, you know, felonies, if you're charged three times, you have life in prison, three strikes, and you're out. So this is what we're calling now mass incarceration. It is a new Jim Crow.
And Michelle Alexander wrote an excellent, you know, book on this is the new Jim Crow that we are facing. So, people in general, and Muslims in particular, need to realize that what has happened to African people is not is lazy, why don't you get a job? It is institutionalized racism. So number one, we deal with the ideology. And we recognize we all created, you know, from the same source, we're all part of the same family, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said there's no preference of white over black or vice versa. It's only your piety and right action, right. Next is the words. There in some of our cultural languages, you have curse words for black people, many Arabic speaking
people, they say ABD, which means slave. And this is wrong. These words, in some forms of Somali, they say I don't, which also means slave. Right. So therefore, that has to come out the language. But third is the institution's. And we need to struggle along with movements, you have black lives matter. You have different liberation movements, we need to struggle against, you know, the common racist enemy of white supremacy, to struggle, we don't have to accept everything that they stand for. You know, we stand clear with our Islam, but we have to recognize there are common factors that are influencing all of our lives as human beings. And this is part of Islam. Because Prophet
Muhammad SAW seldom said, if you see evil, change it with your hands, and if you can't do that, then your tongue Say something. If you can't do that, feel it in your heart, but that's the weakest form of faith. So therefore, Muslims in particular people in general
Have to come together now, you know and form a movement of solidarity, which will develop a world where people can live out their life, to the best of their abilities and benefit from society, regardless of their color, regardless of their religion, we all have to work on this together and to destroy these racist ideologies and to change the way we address each other and the way we deal with each other and to break down racist institutions wherever we find them. Well, I think definitely a lot to digest and I'm hoping really really hoping and praying that the people watching inshallah will take this message and impart it upon themselves and pardoned upon others and really live by
this mantra because as Muslims as people of consciousness you know, we have an obligation to leave this world better than the way we found it. I'm hoping inshallah that generations forthcoming will take that upon themselves and use that as a form of responsibility to really you know, eliminate things like racism and discrimination from the face of the earth. So does that mean the headset for giving us your time these sessions have been extremely enlightening and May Allah bless you and preserve you and increase you in and many years of knowledge and for all of us watching inshallah, please do share these videos. These were made completely ccbt now we're just doing this because we
felt like this was a great opportunity to impart upon knowledge to the younger generations and everybody out there watching so I really do hope that you benefited if you have please make the offer us as well and the brothers in everyone working behind the scenes as well to make this happen. May Allah bless you all and thank you all for watching Zakouma hidden whatsit, Mr. decom. When I went to LA he will bar cancer