Naima B. Robert – The {VIRTUAL} Salon Black Lives Matter Intersections of Race and Religion for Black Muslims Pt 3
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the social construct of racism and the negative consequences of it, including the need for educating children on racism and finding one's own strength. They stress the importance of standing firm for justice and finding one's own strength in order to achieve change. The speaker also discusses the struggles of black people bringing up their identities and their desire to be black, including their past struggles with their clothing and their desire to be black because they were wearing the wrong clothing.
AI: Summary ©
What you said about racism not being genetic? I think that's,
although it sounds obvious. I do think that there is some kind of
programming that we have that, you know, people have whoever are like
predisposed to look down on black people. And you know, this whole
thing that somebody else was mentioning, I think it was a you,
Habib, about, you know this, it's now like a construct that black is
always at the bottom. And in fact, you only mentioned a very, I found
a very, I have to say I really contracted when you said that, in
every single society around the whole world, black is the bottom
black is looked down on, et cetera.
I pray that that's not the case. I know, certainly back home where I
grew up in Zimbabwe, it's not the case, I'm hoping that it's the
case across Africa as well in sha Allah. But my point is that it is
genetic. As you said, it's not genetic. It's something learned.
It's a social construct, and those social constructs can be
deconstructed. We've deconstructed so many other things already,
literally in the past 100 years, as a society, as we know, on lots
of different spheres. So I pray that inshallah this is something
as well, that will no longer be socially acceptable. Because I
think that's that's the issue isn't said is that there's
prejudice always exists, but prejudice can cease to become
socially acceptable, if you know society is going towards that. And
if there is enough conversation, if there is enough awareness, and
if there is enough legislation, etc, etc, certain prejudices on
they cease to become socially acceptable. Okay, so we're gonna,
then we're gonna go for it, brother and Shawna, yes, I'm not
gonna get into all of the speakers, people who have spoken
before me. You know, opportunities like this, I think sometimes we
take for granted, but it was really refreshing for me to hear
so many different opinions, and so many strong voices that rejuvenate
my, you know, strive to help, you know, put myself in a position
where I can help affect change in my community in the world around
me. And I think, you know, the beginning of the conversation,
Sister asked a very important question, or the question was
posed, I asked, you know, do you think that the situation with
George Floyd and with the people that have recently killed, do you
think this will be a catalyst for some type of larger lasting
change? And to be honest, in the beginning of the conversation, I
didn't really know how to answer I thought, well, maybe I don't, I
don't really know. But one thing that's come around back to me,
just through the course of this conversation, is something that
I've always kind of thought anyways, but I think it's been
more reinforced, is that, especially as Black Muslims as
people that live in the western part of the world, you know,
whether it's Canada, US, UK, Europe, I think we have a genuine
opportunity to pioneer of a truly unique and diverse form of Islam.
I think having people that are grown up around diverse
communities, having opportunities of having real meaningful
relationships with people from different parts of the world. I
think truly, this is planting seeds in people who, when they get
older, literally cannot have these types of beliefs and prejudice, I
don't think that it's fair to say, you know, the older generations,
my parents generation, I don't think maybe they'll change
overnight. And this is not to say that, you know, they're they're
unfixable or those types of generations. There's nothing we
can do about them. But I genuinely think that the prejudice and bias
that existed in our parents generation,
it has to die. And I think it will die either when they die or when
we decide to kill it. When we decide to truly destroy that
evilness inside of people that makes them feel superior. And I
take this work very serious because I genuinely think I'm
doing this to save you. I'm doing this to help you as a processor
and taught us that the person you know, whoever has an Adam's weight
of arrogance in their heart, they will not intergender you're living
a life where you really think you're the ish like you really
think you're better than someone you really think that you have
some type of superiority when every single one of us is from
clean, it's from dirt. Right? How ironic is panela we all come from
dirt yet you think your dirt is better than mine? I just kind of
look. But what I think is powerful is the fact that yes, there are
many of our brothers and sisters you know, Muslim people who are of
color or you know, varying shades of colors and browns and whatever,
that definitely feel what we're going through. And I think there
are many people that are genuine. I think there are a lot of people
that I see that don't like this type of behavior and are willing
to stand up for it and I I cannot see them in the future, carrying
these types of prejudice along I don't see how you could live with
me, grew up with me have meaningful relationships to me, I
know your family, you know, my family, and then later on down the
line, you told me Oh, I don't want my son to marry your son. It's
like what like, you know what I mean? We were in the trenches
together.
So, just that I wanted to make that one point in this last point,
and the sisters, the coaching family, my shot of the whole
entourage, they wanted to just brought up a very good point,
which was about and I know you're going to talk about it next week,
but I wanted to just time chime in now on it is this idea of being
black in Islamic school are being black and Muslim spaces. My
children attend an Islamic school. And my daughter who's seven years
old, came to me maybe two years ago when she was in kindergarten,
and she told me that and there minute, one of the only black kids
in the school, and she told me that one of the little girls
didn't want to play with her because she was black. Right? And
this is coming from a child who South Asian or whatever. And I
know her father's Pamela, big beard, mustard board member
everything. And I'm thinking to myself, hon, Allah, you know,
where could your child possibly have learned this? That's another
case.
And I had a real thought in my mind with with, even with my wife,
you know, we thought I thought about this, I said, you know, is
it better for our children to be exposed to racism in a non Islamic
environment where we can pass it off, as a sister said, we can pass
it off as this is the behavior of people who don't know any better,
versus experiencing racism in an Islamic environment where we all
are saying Lila Hilah, where this child is doing a book presentation
on Bilal, and then the next moment later, their mom is saying
whatever a curse word in her language against black people,
right? Like, we have to make a conscious decision about where
it's kind of sad, but where do we want our children to experience
racism, these are the decisions that we need to make. And I
thought to myself, You know what,
I want to keep my children in that Islamic school. And I want her
peers, the kids that she's around to see me to see me every day to
see me that I'm active. I'm a part of the school environment, I go to
all the field trips, I'm the one bringing doughnuts, I do all that
fun stuff, right. And I want these children to have that experience
of being with black children, black Muslim children, so that
they, when they grow up, they cannot hold those prejudices, it
will be virtually impossible for them to dig deep inside themselves
and find that hate, because they have been surrounded by positive
examples. And I think that's what we are, as Muslims in the West we
are in in sha Allah, we will be a shining example of Islam and of,
of resistance and of, of holding on to this Deen as we've been
doing for generations, you know, and I think with that, hopefully,
Inshallah, it's a long bet. But hopefully we can change the minds
of the people that will come down the line your children and my
children, this this attitude of prejudice and bias of anti
blackness, it will cease to appear, and we will be it'll be
something we'll joke about maybe in gender, you know, I remember
when you guys used to be racist, that was funny, right? But
hopefully, Inshallah, that attitude will, will be gone.
And I hope that, you know, I pray that for my children and your
culture, your children and all the kids and the parents that are
watching that we can do this work now that I know it seems
frustrating. I know for myself, I get down a lot of the times and I
feel very,
I feel very discouraged, but I have hope Inshallah, that things
can change in the future. Inshallah.
Thank you so much for that. And definitely,
guys, if you've enjoyed this, then I hope that you signed up to come
next week, I really do pray I'm able to assemble another amazing
group of people, maybe some who were here to talk about raising
Black Muslim children and, and ideas about, for example, do we
because I saw in the chat, there were those who agreed with Brother
Bona that it's worth the sacrifice almost, to see the success in the
long term. So we got to go through the pain of this in order to teach
that to the next generation better. And then others who said,
Oh, it's not worth it. I'm not doing it. I'm out. So the
secessionists versus the integrationists. I guess we can
have that conversation and next week, but inshallah I'm going to
go to Mona and then obeyed. And then let me know panelists, if you
have anything that you want to say to wrap up, because we have been
on this for over two and a half hours, Mashallah. But I'm sure
I've seen somebody who said they could literally sit and listen to
this all day. And I co signed that because I'm still not tired. But I
realized that people need to go and pray and, and it's after half
past 12 midnight here. So my Shall I go ahead. Simona. Now you can
pretty much it's been amazing. Subhanallah like every single
person who has contributed with their thoughts, their experiences,
their knowledge, it's been incredible. I feel extremely
uplifted.
And just I have a certain sense of clarity that I didn't have before
we had this conversation. So I found a love for this. And thank
you so much for organizing it. And so I've kind of just summarized
the question for me is, how can we maximize this moment? Like how can
we make use of the social media runnings of the Black Lives Matter
movement
of everybody trying to jump on the bandwagon whether it's just a
matter of being a
Are we on trend? Or if they genuinely sincerely, really
wanting to actually engage in the conversations and the narratives
behind the Black Lives Matter movement? There's a lot of talk
right now about justice. You know, there's the verse that I'm sure
everybody has seen at some point within the show social media
handles, are you who believe be persistently standing firm and
justice and witnesses for Allah? I think that's an incredibly strong
verse that we need to start to internalize, and start to dissect
and understand what is standing firm injustice, how does that look
like in the 21st? Century? How does it look like in 2020, COVID
crisis? What does standing firm injustice actually look like? And
for me, at this moment, in time, as a documentary photographer, my
My impact is through visual media, and I always aspire to use visual
media, and words, in order to inspire social change, and
Hamdulillah, I've managed to do a certain amount with using
photography, and the power of words in order to move people into
action. And I think we don't realize perhaps how much we have
within us to actually move others and to positively impact the
people that we know, and the people who follow us and who are
associated with us.
I am calling upon everybody to see themselves at us as influencers to
a certain extent.
I do believe, actually, to a certain extent, we do have some
sort of responsibility, to at the very least uphold our Islamic
characteristics, and to educate ourselves, if not educating others
and standing up for others. But at the very least, we should find our
internal power and our strength
within Islam, within reading, within understanding within
engaging in conversations like this in order to truly find our
path in these difficult times. And so, really, and truly, you know,
there's a lot of conversations right now on Instagram, especially
about the involvement of influencers, and to what extent
should influencers be talking about the Black Lives Matter
movement? Whether they, you know, that should they really be
engaging in or should they be posting normal things, and I think
people kind of getting caught up with everything around that. And I
think it's important that we don't miss out the point, which is right
now we are literally admits of revolution, which can potentially
be extremely positive and can move us in the right direction of
change in sha Allah, all we have to do is kind of
maintain our positivity, as difficult as it is, as much as it
shakes up within us, all of the traumas, and all the experiences
that we've been through, growing up until now, and seeing
everything kind of unfolding before our eyes. And yes, we were
not prepared for this. But it is about kind of feeling that
strength in the trust that Allah does not burden us all more than
it can bear. And there's trust that every single hardship that we
go through Allah will reward it, and then finding our strength and
power and that in sha Allah so I kind of just wanted to leave you
guys with with that and you know, talk a lot a lot like have trust
in Allah have trust in the fact that He will guide us through it
and as much as we are at times losing hope and when losing light
inshallah we find the light within us and we find that strength
within us and we continue kind of doing our part to the best of our
ability in sha Allah. So thank you so much, sis, no mo, thanks for
allowing me to be here. I was so nervous.
I was very, very nervous of being here. But I chose to come here
because I feel like this is me do my part and shortline I hope that
Alexis from all of us, all the efforts that we put in in Sharma
does that.
Does that color fade in there? So thank you so much this special
law?
Yeah, the issue of influences is, is a very interesting one.
Definitely one I would like to discuss in future conversations. I
think it's really important in short, I love for I keep using
this term, get the memo. Get the memo, right? Because history
repeats itself until you get the memo. So everybody here in every
situation. COVID is no no, no exception. COVID taught us a lot
of things about ourselves, about our families about our homes. You
know what's really important? Who is really important, you know, for
a society to progress
As you know, who matters, et cetera? And similarly with this,
you know, to see who who will stand up for justice, who cares
more about, you know, aligning themselves with, you know, what is
on trend or who doesn't want to lose favor with certain people or
whatever, you know, who is full you, I guess who is for you. And
so I really hope that we don't forget the lessons of COVID. And
we don't forget the lessons of this particular time, and go back
to business as usual, even like, you know, once structural change,
you know, like laws and that kind of thing may happen. But people,
we need to get the memorized individuals in order to make
change, literally individual by individual household by household
regardless of what's happening out in the world, because every one of
us is an agent for change. So I'm going to go to insha, Allah, my
son of age, who has been patiently waiting to get a chance to chime
in, so obeyed. Take the mic, my dear.
Yeah, so personally, I believe that these riots and protests have
mostly been directed towards the institution, and directed towards
the government's effect on the black community, and how they have
disproportionately like, targeted the black community in their
oppression. So I feel like this, these, these riots, this outrage
is directed towards them, I don't think that this is necessarily
directed towards each individual as we'd hope, like, I don't think
this directly towards necessarily racism itself, because racism will
still linger on like throughout a long period of time. And it will
take us a lot of time to dismantle, to dismantle this, like
long, long history of racial biases, racial profiling, and bad
and bad viewpoints on black people. But this this outrage, and
the moment should be directed towards the system. And once if we
dismantled the racist system that has if we dismantle this racist
system that has the racial biases towards people of color, and black
people specifically, then you can go on to target the racism itself,
and just, you know, racial profiling and the way that people
view black people in that sense. So I feel like and so if we can
have these laws like, like actual, like, laws that will properly be
able to help black people in this time, then, of course, because I
view us as one of the biggest perpetrators of our rate of
institutional racism, other countries will follow suit, and
then inshallah we'll be able to target racism itself, and try
dismantle all of these bad preconceptions that people have
with black people and all these kinds of stuff. So you saw, that's
okay, I have a question for you. Before you go. If everybody will
indulge me, I think you might be might be the youngest person here.
How old? Are you?
17. All right, if anybody is all younger than obeyed, put it in the
chat, please. I want to see if you are the youngest person here. But
do you think that firstly, did you do you think that you've benefited
from this gathering? Oh, yeah, definitely. Because, you know,
when it becomes when it comes to Islamic when it comes to Islam,
and race in that, in that sense, I'm not that a very well versed,
because I haven't been that many. I've been to a few, but I haven't
been to that many, you know, like Islamic conferences and stuff like
that, where I can indulge that much with other Islamic people who
are not black, or like people who have not been around me. So I
haven't been able to, like really know, like, what it's like to
have, like, the prejudice, how like, experienced prejudice from
other Muslims. So like to hear people's experiences and stuff
like that. It's been really eye opening. Thank you. And do you
think that more young people should take part in conversations
like this? I feel like definitely, they should, because it's
definitely that future. Like, they will be the ones that will be
making the changes they need to learn from because if you don't
learn from the past, and you'll never really moved forward. So I
feel like they need to learn from the elders and the people who will
have experienced this racism before. And realize we need to
make a change on what we need to make a change on pacifically. So
that we can target it and like dismantle it, because if we don't
learn from the people who have experienced it, then we're just
going to experience it again. And then it will the cycle will just
continue. So yeah. And just lastly, before before you go, I
have a question to you like as your mother.
Obviously, you know, your dad was from Ghana, we're very close to
our Ghanaian family. And, you know, you've been to Ghana several
times. You know, you're enmeshed with that. You grew up in Egypt,
and then you kind of came back to England to West Yorkshire.
And that I think that was your first time experiencing kind of
overt racism, wasn't it? That
was like your first encounter with sort of racism. Is that right?
Yeah. Okay, so now for you as a young black male and a Muslim, and
obviously, you've been hearing all the conversations that are
happening, you've been very active on Tik Tok and lots of other
places kind of, you know, debating with people, how do you feel?
I feel like I wouldn't be able to properly speak for black people,
and especially African Americans, because they will have a
completely different experience to me, I wouldn't even be able to
grasp the kind of like, fear that they are feeling right now,
especially in this political climate. But in England, we still
have racism. And it's still very much that and this is, this is
like, this is what's different from Britain and America in my
life, from from my view, is that America is institution and people
is targeted towards black people.
Britons on the other hand, is kind of like under the rug. But people
still have that same racial profiling and preconceptions on
black people. That is why because widespread across the world,
definitely experiences with like, you know, like casual racism and
stuff like that. And it like inner cause, cause a lot. I'm like,
Carmen, one of the panelists mentioned how, like, across the
world, black people viewed as the bottom, and I feel like in
England, like people, people don't, I don't think they're
racist. But in hindsight, they actually are like, they generally
have bad preconceptions of black people. So compared to America,
where obviously, because the institution and the system is
extremely racist, which is a huge problem, that's what they're
dealing with. And then they can be able to deal with the people in
Britain is more, we need to we need to we need to have
we need to have like these discussions about black people and
about the the like what people truly think about black people.
And then we can dismantle it in that way. Rather than like in
America, how the institution is racist, because in England, we
have a lot of racial profiling, like a lot of people.
Black people are sometimes more likely to be stopped for a start
for stop and frisk. So it just shows how even though the system
may not have any de facto law against black people, it still has
quite a few visual laws that like disproportionately affect black
people. So yeah, definitely. I feel like it's widespread. Yeah,
yeah. So I just want to thank you for letting me put you on the
spotlight that is that kind of failure, thank you, everybody else
for being so patient with us as well, mashallah, as a family
because I feel like, for me, my concern for for my children, and
you guys know this, if you follow me on Instagram, and you've been
watching my videos and listening, for me, my main concern is my
children, and their mental and emotional well being and their
sense of self. And we'll get to talk about that next week in
Sharla. Because I think that, you know, these types of things can be
traumatic, it's like, when I mentioned it, Amanda mentioned
that a lot of people mentioned this kind of almost a generational
trauma that's passed down. If you or your parents and your
grandparents have experienced racism, or you have experienced
discrimination of experienced oppression, then you're carrying
that. And then of course, add to the fact that our children see
themselves reflected back through the media, in film, in music, in
the newspaper on social media, and obeyed for example, I know from
from my children, you know, the the outward and very, very
virulent racism on apps like Tiktok on YouTube, it's right in
their faces. So even, I'd love to have a conversation speaking to
that about how do we preserve their sense of self and their
sense of self worth and sense of, of confidence in who they are as
young black people in this world.
So thank you so much for that just like an offer of aid, okay, and
the last person to speak is going to be Miss Rama, then we're going
to wrap up in sha Allah does that color fade and goes this?
Does that go ahead for allowing me to speak? I'm very fortunate to
talk about after your son talked. For me, it's such a surreal moment
because I watch you and have this conversation with your son. And I
imagine myself one day watching my son talk about these things. I'm
very passionate about having these conversation with my children. I
feel that as a black Muslim woman, we don't have the luxury of not
having these conversations at home. I remember vividly when my
daughter was four years old, she experienced an act of racism right
in front of my face, and I've had to had that conversation with her
at that age. So it's important to know that they're never too young
to talk about racism and race and in the
differences in the struggles that we're going to have to go, they're
going to have to go through. And it's important to know that even
though like you might want to shelter them, but they are going
to experience it. And I've seen that myself where when I say that
she was four years old, she didn't have the language to express what
she was talking about, but she internally had feelings of being
excluded due to her skin color. So my work is, you know, I don't have
like I've expressed that I have difficulties with knowing that it
is an exhaustive type of, you know, work to do. But focusing on
the children, like you said, 90, but children need to, we need to
bolster their sense of self confidence. And the first place
that that starts is they need to be represented, they need to see
themselves, and they need to see themselves in a place of power,
they need to see themselves in a place of success. If they don't
see books, where there are the heroes, then they will never see
themselves as being the heroes. So for me, that's very important. I
think Brother Boehner has expressed the fact of the
struggles that we Black Muslim parents have to go through with
Islamic schools. It's a difficult decision that we've had to make,
it's funny that we have two type of people, we have people that
have decided to put their children in Islamic schools because they
don't want they growing up like myself, I was discriminated
because, you know, I was wearing the hijab, I wasn't my teachers
didn't understand about Ramadan about my need to pray, and it made
it very difficult. So having the opportunity now to send my
children into an Islamic school is there's two struggles of being
oppressed because I'm black, and also because I'm Muslim. So one of
them could have been addressed by sending her to a and Islamic
school. And that's some of us make that choice. Unfortunately, if
those schools are not diverse and inclusive, then then they
experience racism and prejudice due to the fact of their skin
color. It's and now it's more intimate, like we've mentioned,
because it's coming from our own community. And some of us are
making the tough the tough decision to put them in, in public
school because they say that it's a more of an inclusive and
diverse, you know, population. So I just it's as a black Muslim
parent, it is difficult because we have to, we have these two
struggles, both sides, we have struggles and we have these
difficult conversations that come about because of our both of these
identities. Someone asked me like, you know, are you are you muslim,
first or black first, I'm both at all time, God has chosen to put me
in this black body, he has chosen this religion for me. He has he
makes no mistakes. I accept the decree of this creation. And I
want my kids to be proud of that fact that they were in created
with intention to be black and to be Muslim. And I think it's
important for that so I look forward to next week's
conversation where we can discuss further where what we can do as
Black Muslim parents in making sure that our children are
equipped because literally I say that I have to equip my children
mentally, emotionally and and and you know with in their spirit as
well. They have to be equipped to know what they're going to
encounter.
MashAllah Sisters of color fade on 100% I think you just summed it
up. You know, are you black first and you must have first we're both
and and we're blessed. Okay, and I'm going to say that I don't care
if anybody feels a particular way about it. Y'all can video it y'all
can put it live on IG I don't care. I am I feel so grateful to
Allah subhanaw taala that he made me in black that he made my mother
black, my father's white, but we won't talk about him anyway.
Others like your original like white African, white pan
Africanist, actually, but to look to my point I was raised to see
myself as black.
And I thank Allah for that. Just like anyone else can thank Allah
for making them wherever they are. I thank Allah subhanaw taala, that
he made me the way that he did, that he gave me the parents that
he did, that he allowed me to grow up in Africa and have black
children. Because regardless of what the world says, we have
something, there is something in us. That is it's irreplaceable,
and it's, you know, you can try to bottle it up. You can try to brand
it, you can try to sell it and market it. But at the end of the
day, that essence is something that every black person I think
knows. And again, it could be the case in other races too, which is
great. But I want to remember and I want my children to to know
about themselves. People use the term black girl magic etc. But
there's something Allah created something special in us. I believe
that and I am grateful to him that he put us on this earth, just the
way we are to walk the walk that we're here to walk, to do the work
that we're supposed to do, because every people have challenges. And
every people have, you know, have have challenges. Just like
everyone has their own strengths has their own weaknesses. Every
people as well has their own challenges, whether it's
culturally, socially whatever it is. So I just want to thank every
single person who came here. I want to thank all my amazing
guests, brother Guna, Mohammed our the coaches now they called the
coaches
brother Nazim, his wives Nyla and Fatima brother, hubby, sister,
half sister, real key sister Rama, Brother Mohammed and then
mashallah the people that I hounded on IG and got a late yes
from Brother Abdul Wahid. MashAllah sister Imani sister Mona
and brother Michael and Obaidullah just want to thank every single
one of you for being here for honoring us with your presence,
masha Allah and everybody who was here you know, listening and
taking part in the chat. Guys, please follow all these good
people Masha Allah, amplify the voices that are so often silenced.
Okay, I'm not going to say black voices. I'm going to say what I
said, amplify amplify the voices of those who are often silenced or
marginalized because they have stories to tell to and they have
something to teach you, every one of us okay so amplify those voices
follow all these good people on social media and sha Allah and if
this is your jam, if you enjoyed this then please inshallah make
sure that you signed up to join us next week. I pray that even the
latter login will still flick to come together again on a weekly
basis in Sharla to talk about some of these things and yeah, you guys
have just been amazing I when I thought about this idea had an
idea of how it could be but Allah knows that he brings about the
results so we plan and then he brings it to fruition and it's
it's better than I even could have imagined so thank you so much,
guys. It's been amazing spending Friday night with you. Inshallah,
hopefully we get to spend Friday nights together you know in the
future. And for now please just make dua for everyone who's come
on this panel. I asked Allah Subhan Allah to forgive us if
anything was said that was incorrect. That was wrong. All
good is from hims pinata Allah anything wrong, anything bad any
mistakes are from ourselves and from the shaytaan and may Allah
bless you all with every hair Subhanak Alohomora no handshake a
shadow. Hola. Hola. Hola. And we're stuck with one or two we
like what salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah.
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