A History of Black Islam in America
Date:
Channel: Sherman Jackson
File Size: 88.67MB
Related
- Bilal Philips – Why God Created Man
- Abdur-Raheem McCarthy – Open session with Sheikh Abdur Raheem McCarthy
- Nouman Ali Khan – Is Adoption Allowed
- Tarek Kareem Harris – Toolkits for an exceptional Life Performance Psychiatry #2
- AbdelRahman Murphy – Stories of Dus from The Quran Night 29
- Omar Suleiman – #3 The Best Du’as for Them – For Those Left Behind
- Thug Or A Gangster
AI Generated Summary ©
The "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people, and the "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people. The "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people, and the "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people. The "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people, and the "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people. The "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people, and the "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people. The "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people, and the "monster" of black people is a "monster" of black people. The "monster" of black people is a "monster" ofAI Generated Transcript ©
So now I'm looking for
the right search for a room.
My name is a deal save and I started as a Muslim chaplain here at the Claremont Colleges, and
they want to welcome to the Claremont Colleges. Welcome to our community. Yes, welcome to our students, our faculty and our staff as well.
We hope to have more events open in the community. It's open to the community because we're all one community here in Southern California. Thank you to our sponsors, the Black Student Affairs, going to college and criminal mechanic College. Thank you to Macalester staff, the MSA the Claremont Colleges, our board, our new supply fellows on this from the school theology, and especially shout out to Farooq, the MSA Vice President for his tireless efforts. Thank you so much.
topic today of history of black Islam in America is approved for African Americans have worked and given their lives will be paid twice civil rights that we have today. As son of immigrants who benefit from that privilege, I feel compelled to apologize in many ways for the lack of acknowledgement towards the African American contributions, and specifically African American Muslim community, what they had done for us playing the seeds of Islam in America, and building that solid infrastructure and application of honor of Islam. And then when international Muslims came in America, they moved out of the city into suburbs, forgetting about all the good that was done, and
built their own loss organizations, it didn't act as honor.
We also speak out against injustice in our society, killing the innocent black men, the war on drugs that target people of color, mass incarcerations, subjugating women of color, and so forth. And perhaps harder to swallow, for many is the racism that we have inside the muscle community when it comes to marriage, or inviting African American speakers, for comedy or for fundraising, but not as keynote speakers. Something that I have written about Huffington Post, I encourage others began
on it as well.
Switching gears like to introduce our MSA presidents and de la misma, who will subsequently introduce our senior speaker for tonight, Dr. Jackson.
Dr. Sherman Jackson is the King Faisal, Chair of Islamic thought and culture and professor of religion in American Studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He was formerly the Arthur F Thurnau, Professor of Eastern Studies, and visiting professor of law and professor of Afro American Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dr. Jackson received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and was taught and taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, Wayne State University in the University of Michigan, from 1987 to 1989. He served as executive director of the Center of Arabic study abroad in Cairo, Egypt.
He's authored several books, including Islamic law in the state, the constitutional jurisprudence, and she handled geography on the boundaries of theological tolerance in Islam, a bohemian also the spatial Africa, Islam and the black American looking towards the third resurrection, as long as the problem of black suffering and most recently, Sufi ism for non Sufis have been
secondary scholars.
Additionally, Dr. Jackson be the co founder, of course scholar and a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Learning Institute for Muslims, which is an academic institution where scholars, professional activists, artists, writers and community leaders come together to develop strategies for the future of the phenomenon waterflow. He's also a former member of the fate Council of North America, former president of the Sharia scholars Association of North America and also past trustee of North American Islamic trust. He has contributed to several publications, including the Washington Post, Newsweek blog,
and the Huffington Post, Dr. Jackson is listed by their religion newsletters foundations, link as among the top 10 experts on Islam in the United States. However, as long as the college has co president of MSA I think I was obviously listed as number one.
Move on. She was also named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by their own Islamic strategy Study Center in Amman, Jordan and the Prince AlWaleed bin Talal Center for American Christian understanding. Thank you everyone, again for coming and please welcome Dr. Shin.
First of all, thank you very much for the overly gracious and generous introduction.
I almost began to feel so superfluous after the introduction that ideal made
my lecture
going to that, but let me say this too much, I think that I teach among the the courses that I teach on the undergraduate level, is introduction to the slab. And I've taught that course for several years,
beginning all the way back to the University of Texas back in the last century, and I've taught it ever since, up until the present. And oftentimes I tell my students that I teach this course, as sort of as a chapter in American civics. I think that the topic of Islam in the world today is one that we as those Americans who will inform and make up the future of America cannot be ignorant, we cannot afford to be getting rid of this topic. In order for us, therefore, to be sort of responsible Americans, we have to know something about Islam, and the Muslims that are in our midst. And I think that a key part of that is understanding the history of how this phenomenon comes into being in
American space.
My presentation, however, is going to be more historical, whether it be particular inflection, we will get to some of the controversies that exist within the Muslim community further upon, but I think it's important for us to be able to put all of this in some kind of some kind of context. So let me begin by saying the following.
When we talk about doing history,
history can be approached from a myriad of angles. And there are two basic criteria on the basis of which we can sort of judge how successfully a history has been written for narrative. The first is the degree to which a particular historian is successful at achieving what he or she sets out to achieve. In other words, a historian takes a specific issue within an historical context. And he or she seeks to speak to that specific issue. The other criterion is comprehensiveness. That is how comprehensive a historian is, that is to say, the extent to which he or she covers all the personalities, all the dates, all the places, all the movements, all the institutions, all the
events, that have something to do with a particular historical topic, as a general historical topic. Now, I think that probably owing something to our enlightenment heritage, especially as sort of products of the modern Western Academy, the tendency is probably to incline toward comprehensiveness as the basic criteria for how well history is done. And that has its advantages. But I think it also has some, some disadvantages. I personally, am just a little bit leery of comprehensiveness, as a criterion for assessing histories. Because when we've talked about being comprehensive, there is a liability, that the role and perspective of minority groups will be overshadowed by those of the
majority, the majority will just be emerged with bigger voices, bigger roles, bigger legacies, and the minority can sort of be washed out or, or marginalized.
In that context, my approach to the history of Islam in black America
is not, and has never, not, has never been one that seems to be comprehensive. I wrote a whole book entitled Islam with a black American. And by the way, some of you will see a critique of that book, based on the extent to which it is comprehensive or not. And let me say here that that critique from a certain perspective is a legitimate critique, from another perspective, that sort of superfluous, and then holds the book to a criterion that the book itself did not seek to satisfy. Right? So
my criterion is not
comprehensiveness, I am not primarily interested in names and dates and places and all those kinds of things. My basic point of departure is grounded in the fall
when we consider a number of uncontested facts about Islam in black America
We come up with a number of interesting facts.
Number one,
America is the only major Western democracy that can boast and major contingent of Muslims who emerged out of the soil of America as native born Americans, then this might not mean a lot to many of us. But if we look at virtually the entire rest of the world, if we go through Europe, for example, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in a place like England, come on the subcontinent. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in France come from north and Sub Saharan Africa, and Germany, they come from Turkey. This is not to say that they're not smatterings of native born indigenous Muslims. But they are a minority and something and something of an anomaly. But when we come to America,
America is the first major Western democracy that produces a large contingent, of native born indigenous Americans. And that contingent is the black American community. Now, traditionally, you know, this is the first time I'm from wherever straw as a speaker, this is going to be
now now, as a part of our general imagination, get into what we tend to know and or assume about the black American community, there's a there's a tendency to assume that this phenomenon that is, the transgenerational existence, of this land, among black Americans has something to do with the legacy of slavery.
And this is not an outrageous assumption, we know for a fact, we have material evidence, to the effect that a percentage of the slave population brought to America from Africa were Muslims. And this is not just, you know, sort of a statistical assumption. We have actual Arabic manuscripts written by African Muslims, by African Muslims enslaved in America, in North America, not South America, North America. All right, we have those as artifacts. So we know that they were here, and we can name any any number of them, all right.
But that assumption, runs into a particular problem. When we consider the fact that something on the order of 10 times the number of Africans
enslaved and brought to North America that which became the United States of America, went to Brazil, unknown
10th house.
And yet, we don't see anything that even approaches the phenomenon that we recognize, as Islam, in black America, in Brazil, or anyplace else in the new world.
Right. Therefore, if slavery or the legacy of slavery explains the emergence of Islam in the Latin American community, we would think that that phenomenon will be all the more present in places like Brazil and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, where Africans were brought as slaves. And yet we find no such thing.
And so this leads us to a leads me to a particular a particular interesting conclusion.
And that is that
there is something uniquely American, about the phenomenon of black Americans.
Something that cannot be simply explained, by looking at what goes on in Africa, or what goes in and goes on in any other part of the world. There's something uniquely American about this phenomenon of Islam in black America. All right. And that is a point of departure for me in terms of a history of Islam in black America. Now, this is not at all to deny other factors that may have contributed to that phenomenon. I'm not saying that it is exclusively American. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is that to successfully, and I think intelligently understand the phenomenon of this man in black America, the American element cannot be ruled out. Now, let me say this month,
this is my own and, you know, I'm sorry, I can do the straw thing.
I think especially, and I'm not trying to be political here, I'm purely being as sort of academic as I can.
Anyway,
in a particular moment in which we happen to live,
to talk about an American element in black Americans, that almost sounds like a computer relation, because the assumption is that blacks have never owned America. All right, I've ever had ownership in America, and therefore, any kind of American elements will be assumed to have been imposed by the dominant culture come about. Right. That is not what I'm talking about. In fact, I, I don't subscribe to the idea that blacks have always been sort of resident aliens in America in the sense that they have established a unique culture, a unique identity, and indestructible Americans to their identity that cannot be denied. All right, in fact, today,
it might be fair to say,
I hesitate when I say these kinds of things, because they're, they're over inclusive.
But, but we can't talk about anything without being to suddenly be over inclusive. So with that caveat, having made me say this, we may be on safe ground to say today, but they are primarily, only two groups of Americans who are not typically asked, Where are you from.
And those two are home.
white people and black people, right? In that context that the ownership in America, that's that's what I'm talking about, when I speak this, this, this, this place of belongingness, right, for me to say cannot be alienated. So when I talk about the American contribution, I'm not talking about something that is imposed entirely from what we without, but something that emerges out of the communal existence of blacks, blacks in America. Now, this sort of basic framework, places, two key concepts at the center of my analysis. And the first of these is the concept of black religion.
Black religion. Black religion is a concept that a number of scholars in the Academy have isolated as a specifically black American phenomenon. It is distinct from what we might call African American religion. Right? It is a perhaps a subset of that broader phenomenon. Black religion is
that phenomenon that emerges out of the slave experience. It's one that recognizes God as a divine power that exists outside our earthly realm. And yet, that divine power is appealed to primarily for the purpose of getting shot to intervene in the crucible of American race relations.
That is the core of black religion. In other words, God is recognized as existed, and he is appealed to, for his power, and his goodwill,
to intervene to straighten out this mess of anti black racism in America.
Now, the black Christian community as it exists today, we might assume that community to sort of sort of just naturally have existed from the beginning. But that's not quite the case. All right. blacks didn't really begin to come into Christianity, or that phenomenon didn't really reach full time, until until the 19th century.
Right until the 19th century. And when it did,
there is a case to be made for the idea that Christianity in its early beginnings in America, in the black community, and we know that there was such a thing as mobile at church. All right, as his as an entity are separate and apart from the white church. All right.
Black Christianity was, to a large extent infused by the spirit of black religion. And again, black religion as a holy protest against anti Black slavery.
culpably this appealed to God, to intervene in the crucible of anti black racism. Now, to give you a sense of,
of how not only pervasive,
but how much continuity there was to this spirit
in 1964.
A black American Christian south, from the University of Pennsylvania, as a matter of fact, wrote an article in which he claimed that the majority of blacks filled in America, who sit in the pews of Christian churches are theologically less Christian, and more adherence to black religion.
In other words, Christianity was a vehicle that carried the spirit of religion. And his complaint, as a matter of fact, was that the very detail Christology, you know, the divinity of Christ, and these kinds of things did not quite seep in to the majority of blacks in the white church. Now, this is not a political I'm not saying I agree with Washington. But this is, this is a reason analysis of what's going on in black Christianity as a continuity of that history that begins with black religion,
black courage, Christianity, in part as a means of being able to protest
this pervasive phenomenon of anti black racism in America. And in my view,
in contradistinction to those who argue that Christianity was always sort of an anesthetizing element, black religion.
At the core of Christianity was a very successful phenomenon, and tribal its ability to critique and challenge white supremacy and anti black racism. Right, so that has been a phenomenon as a part of the collective black communal legacy for a very long time, one that begins with a crucible of slavery. Now,
how does the slime factor into this phenomenon?
My thesis is that
we overlooked the overwhelming majority of blacks in America up until 1900, lived in the South.
Right? And in the south,
contrary to what's believed, blacks and whites actually shared more of a culture
far more than in the north. Does that sound strange? Right. I remember when I somebody said that I taught at the University of Texas, right? I remember going into the dean's office once. And overhearing the Secretary that this was a white woman was very chic.
And very first game, and I heard her say,
I can't go
in and you build the models like that you might get that doesn't. But it struck me as being somebody from the North. All right.
What I was shocked to find was that much of what I had assumed to be Black English, was not at all black English. It was southern English. All right, right. In fact, when I came to the University of Texas, I came to Texas from overseas, I had been living overseas, studying for a number of years. And when I came to the University of Texas, I still remember, they put me up in one of these hotels. And
by the way, I mean that that, I mean, I had been away for a number of years. And I come back. And this is the first time I saw one of those hotels, you know, with the fancy glass elevators right in the middle of the floor. Right?
Bad telephones in the bathroom and things like that. It was a really fancy hotel, because they were trying to sort of one guy me, you know, because they were trying to do he was a taxi. So anyway, I come down for breakfast on the wanting to go to the university to get my, my job talk. And we sit down at this very fancy hotel restaurant, and we open up the menu, and I sort of, I'm taken aback a little bit and
I sort of turned to one of my colleagues, they're all like, and I said,
What's this?
Right? And he sort of smiles at me and says, Listen, I know what you're thinking.
But No self respecting restaurant in the entire south would be caught dead. Without this one is menu. What do you think it was? Yes.
Grits
I'm Hawaii to the north, and in the Midwest, who didn't even know what bricks were?
All right. So what I'm saying is that what you have in the south is a shared cultural legacy. And this is not the whitewash
the problems of racism in the South. Okay. But again, one of one of one of the sharpest dividing lines between black and white culture in the north is actually language.
All right, okay, how you speak. Right. So when you have in the south, is black religion, Christianity, and the sort of shared culture.
On the eve of World War One, however, we're beginning to get this massive exodus out of the south, into the north, right. And this was fueled by a number of things, the end of slavery, the crucible of reconstruction, all right, and then World War One, which, which, which reduced all kinds of job opportunities, all right, for black from the south, coming to the north. Right. Now, once this happens, to make a very long story short, you end up getting the sudden dislocation, all right, and the relationship between blacks in the South, all right, and blacks will come in to this new urban center in the north with this, okay.
There is an attempt to sort of try to adjust to this new norlane phenomenon. And you get
black church leaders tried to re adjust so that they can find ways of maintaining the relevance of Christianity, as it had been practiced in the south in this new northern metropolis.
To make a long story short, some of this begins to break down. And black religion
is released, in a sense, from the monopoly of Christianity, and, to all intents and purposes is sort of out there floating around looking for a new home.
Right? This is the time period in which what I call the proto Islamic movements attach themselves to black religion, with a vocabulary and a set of institutions that are related to Islam. But they still do not have a basic Islamic theology. Right, or even an attachment to the fundamental institutions of Islam. But they have a language and a basic sensibility. All right, and most importantly, a sense of ownership over this new construct called Islam. And here, I think we have to look at a phenomenon that's also
quite important in the black American community. Part of what black religion provides the black American communities is the ability to, to state the powers of definition, all right, by the dominant culture, by which I mean that the dominant culture, right, which controls all the educational systems, which controls the media, which controls Hollywood, which controls all of the institutions that can produce and disseminate ideas and images. All right, under those circumstances, you can be defined according to the way that the dominant culture wants to define.
Right. And this will explain a phenomenon that I think we find uniquely in the black American community. This is a community that's gone to how many names
right.
Negro
black,
colored,
African American, Afro American, at one point on the East Coast been alien.
All right, black American Moorish, all right. I mean, in a sense, these are attempts to break the monopoly of the dominant culture over the definition of blacks.
All right. So if you come outside the realm of the country
of the dominant black community, you can end yourself you can you can find yourself in a position where you are able to self define,
to self define. When we look at the early proto Simon's movements, we find it licit attempt to self define. Alright, notice the name of the first, I shouldn't say first, but the first brilliant portrait phenomenon among the Protestant movements, it is called the Moorish Science Temple.
All right, this name is not accidental. Okay. On the one hand, it is called Moorish, what is that all about?
Not just Morocco. It is again, it is an escape from that.
All right. In other words, the dominant culture in America, if you call it black, they can still
be fine. If you call it Negro, they can still define if you call it
African, right? They can still define it. What image of Africa. All right, has interested in the dominant culture, often very recently, me Hegel called it what? But our continent has no history. All right, Moorish on the other hand goes outside that.
You don't own that. All right, so we can self define as more. All right, but it's been Moorish, what?
Science?
Okay, why science?
Why science? I remember.
We've really gotten tenure.
On I was being I was being looked at. For position, I wanted to look at a prestigious law school. And I went out to dinner with the dean and a number of other people. And the Dean was was a white guy. And And personally, I don't suspect this being I'm having, you know, a cell racism in his body. I mean, certainly not anything deliberate. All right. And we were we were sitting at dinner. And he said explicitly, you know, excuse me, part of the challenge that black people confront in America is that the stereotype of the Negro All right, is still intellectual inferiority.
Right? Intellectual inferiority, that, that, that, that to this day.
I mean, I wrote something recently, in which I basically said that, I mean, even in my own writings, all right, there are people who will quote what I wrote, and by the Simon Lavaca American, or quote, When I wrote in bislama, calm the blog site suffering, all right, but not what I learned about the allergy, but not what I learned about love, or not what I wrote about jurisprudence, if I'm an authority here, why?
Because I'm black. Right? Why am I not legal authority there?
You see that you see that? That stereotype? So when you say Moorish on the one hand, and then science,
all right, we're breaking that stereotype. And then all right, because this is a God centered and black religion is God centered. You don't have black religion without God. All right, God is the object of appeal. Okay, so this is what we begin to get in that early proto Islamic movement, the more science temple takes place around nine to 13. And here I should say that when we talk about the phenomenon of black America and Islam is forming a period, we need to know the following, but this is a largely 20th century phenomenon.
Lunch, it is largely a northern phenomenon,
an urban phenomenon, and a middle, lower middle to working class phenomenon. All right, as a sort of majority movement. Now, I know some of us young we say middle class, or working class phenomenon. For many of us, you know, there's a stigma that attaches to that. Right. Let me say this. I don't need that my daughter.
I'm allowed.
Let me say this.
For any, any movement, any social phenomenon
To be successful, it needs to be able to produce a transgenerational and reproducible culture.
And in America, that culture has to be a popular culture. America is not Europe. All right? We are the land of popular culture. How many of you can name an opera singer? I don't think I'm right, because it's in commercials.
How many of you can name an opera singer?
How many?
Three, four? All right, five, six. Some people can achieve that.
Right?
How about a rapper?
How about an r&b artist? How about Motown? How about Hollywood? You began to get the point that I'm making here. All right. Okay. And in those in those areas, especially music, especially are especially for national culture.
Those things are owned by working in lower class.
Right, and you will not get a real powerful popular cultural phenomenon. All right. I have academics
to my call my point there. So when I say it's a working in lower class phenomenon, that's not a slight. It's not a criticism. All right, that's just a fact. Okay, so now we have, we have black religion coming out of the south, coming to the north, and move into this proto Islamic movement. This brings into into focus, the second fundamental category, that's important from my analysis. And that is the phenomenon of communal conversion,
communal conversion. And I want to stop and say a word about that.
Because it's very easy to be misunderstood.
By communal conversion. I do not mean, mass conversion to Islam. I do not mean that. What I mean, however, is the possibility of mass conversion. Okay, now, what's the difference between the two?
I know,
a white woman
who's a Muslim,
and wears a hijab. You know what I'm
right.
This woman has recalled how she can go to the mall. All right, me approached by
a salesperson
and asked the following.
Where are you from?
What's going on there? The assumption is that this means she can't be American.
All right. And we want to know if she even speaks English. So let us enunciate. All right. So that she understands what we're talking about. Okay. All right. What I mean here is that there is a a sort of culture identity barrier between Islam and the majority white community.
All right now, please, everybody, when I say that, I'm talking about the is not be hot.
When someone I mean by that,
I'm talking about what is not what ought to be. Okay. All right.
If you don't
then there's several manifestations of this. All right. White Americans who convert to Islam, all right, often looked upon by their own white communities as something of racial and identity of plastics.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive. Am I am I am I right? Yeah. Right. It's like, What the hell are you doing? Going and joining them?
All right, okay.
This, this, this identity barrier, all right, can be a major barrier to conversion to any religion.
All right. No one wants to be alienated from their own group. Okay. What I mean by communal conversion, therefore, is the phenomenon where that cultural identity barrier is broken. It's crushed, it's smashed,
such that one
can embrace Islam, while at the same time remaining ones maintaining one's identity as an authentic, whatever one game from
the bystander phenomenon. Right? In other words, I can be authentically black and Muslim.
All right. Okay. Now,
again, once you have communal conversion. Now what do I mean by communal conversion? I don't mean the actual conversion. All right, but the possibility of that through the shattering of the cultural identity barrier. All right. Communal conversion is established, in my view, first and foremost, by that movement known as the Nation of Islam.
It was a proto Islamic movement, not fully, theologically in line with Islam. And yet it it played a major role in immigration, black Americans in general. All right, to an identity that was aligned with Islam. All right. And, and this was done through a major, major feat of appropriation. All right. Ideas talked about, you know, the coming of the talk called the International Muslims.
Yeah, maybe I can use that image immigrant, international Muslims and some of the dislocations that came about as a result, as a result of that.
What the Nation of Islam was able to do, all right, and, and everybody had, we're all kinds of stereotypes about the Nation of Islam, but just
read from the admin a little bit.
All right. No, I'm very serious, because again, the power of definition, okay, affects what we think about those movements as well.
As is very important, and this is why I placed them at the center of my history, because it is they who are more than anyone else responsible for the phenomenon of communal conversion.
All right, communal conversion takes place when in fact,
I'm able to arrange things I don't know, if arranged is the right word, produce a situation whereby conversion to the slab and in this case, all right, is not only consistent with being black. All right, but it's perceived as being white as something that makes me a more authentic black person.
Does anybody follow that phenomena? All right, the nation of this lab more than anyone else, get this? All right. International Muslims did not understand this phenomenon know the importance of this phenomenon. They understood theology only, and was judged based on theology only. And by the way, not just the international community, Sunni Muslims who are black as well, myself included. I mean, just for truth in advertising, whatever. All right. All right. Well, this is a major, major phenomenon. And I don't think that the history of Simon black America, all right, as the phenomenon that it is, let me try and give you a sense of what I'm talking about here.
Herbie Hancock is a Buddhist.
Right.
Tiger Woods.
All right.
Tina Turner.
Did my follow me by that? Just Buddhism and joy, communal conversion in the black community?
If you see the point that I'm trying to make, all right,
isolated here isolated. That's fine. All right. Islam enjoys such I mean, in the niche, because one, as soon as I'm blue, I'll get
it.
This communal conversion, affected not only people who became a part of that movement, alright, but the black community as a whole. All right.
And I'll give you just one indication of that, by the way. I mean, I was I was I was there on the East Coast when these things went through. I mean, the Nation of Islam, they put platforms us out of business. They put Applehead us out of business, right? And they develop a new persona, and new persona, which I will call the boss,
the boss. All right. What do you think that's a ripoff?
Last, all right, the Nation of Islam
produce an alternative modality of being black in America
a black, Afro Saxon Protestant with a small team
no not very satisfied with a small p All right.
Just imagine this
this is when you think about it, how is it that a movement
can produce a situation?
The daily attire
of Harvard law professors and Wall Street bankers All right, which is what
bow tie
how is it that this can be transformed into a market of a movement?
That by far one Numata All right, you have a situation where these black men are walking down the street speaking proper English, all right, shoe spit shot, right, as confidence the day is long, and what can you say? That was one of those black Muslims
and Muslim identity that borrows nothing from the Muslim
and Muslim identity that is carved entirely
out of American artifacts.
Right, but Afro Saxon Protestant.
Okay. And that is that is what goes a long way and promoted us to middle commercial. Why? Because that phenomenon includes a very palpable degree of appropriation. All right.
You know, there is a there is a there is a slur that you can hurl at black people.
That's worse than the N word.
You know, I guess
what
I'm saying?
Um, Uncle Tom, those are cinnamons. Basically,
Uncle Tom.
What's an Uncle Tom
with a young and ongoing work
collaborative, not just a collaborator.
A sell out a race traitor? How do we measure that?
Someone who recognizes the dominant way as the way
by following me by
someone who recognizes the dominant cultures way as the win? Okay. And yet, what do we get out of this? We get black people. All right. appropriating not only middle class, but upper middle class and genteel waves as their own.
Whereas they can walk down the street with a three piece suit and bow ties on and nobody sees them as what,
Uncle Tom,
right, and want you to walk into a place and find another black with the same attire, not quite carrying that black Muslim ethos. You see him as what? You see the point that I'm trying to make massive appropriation. I don't know of any other feat of appropriation in American history like this.
All right. And that goes a long way, and ingratiating Islam with a broader black community. All right, I have a guy I know. He's a very wealthy, I would say very wealthy, but he's a wealthy
person, white guy, Catholic. He's the editor of a major, major, major Catholic magazine. And he said to me once, he said, I want to thank you for helping me understand something. I said, Wait, what are you talking about? He said, You book Islam in the black American helped me understand something. All right about what I'm not telling you about. Although
I said what he said, I remember going downtown in Baltimore, and encountering these black Muslim guys. All right. And beings get hopeless.
Right, you know what he said?
And being scared portlets. And then he said, but I want to tell you, I was not physically scared. All right, because these guys parent themselves like to me, they were gentleman. You follow what I'm saying? All right. I was not physically scared of them. What scares me about them? Is that they said with every genuflect you're up there by all right. You see this to be peaceful. This is
Mind, I'm not trying to be that you.
And the loss of ownership over that cultural sort of identity scared him to death.
So, what I mean by that scared him to death. All right. Okay. Now, this is part of the phenomenon that goes into the funeral conversions that I'm talking about. All right. And this is why I placed the Nation of Islam in in the middle like that. Okay? Not because they're the most likable or the most orthodox or the most anything, we're trying to explain how smart rent among the black community will adopt communal conversion, you don't get that. But if I what I mean by that, going all the way back to the 1930s, you had small black Sunni communities in America, in New York, in Pittsburgh, in Cleveland, all right, in various parts of the country, going all the way back to the 1930s. But they
are not responsible for communal conversion.
Right. Okay. This is where you get the phenomenon of Islam being looked to as a sort of more authentic expression of blackness than even Christianity. All right. And think about this, even in a non Muslim community.
There's, there's a phenomenon now in the black community, you can almost you can almost
ah, some somebody you can get him to guess their age, by this name. There's an ER pattern.
Lucky, sharp
Shamika. You know, that pattern? All right. These are all imagined imitations of Arabic patterns of names.
Right, that come into the black community. Right, and that represent a more authentic modality of being blind. Right? This happened.
All right. And the problem was the international community, it did not recognize it when it came to America. All right now, cumulative conversion, which is in the millions in the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad takes over in 1930, or 1934. He does this all the way up until 1975, as you can tell from skipping a lot of detail, you know, you want the details. Okay. All right.
You said yes, yes, I know, I know.
We'll be here all night. But
the point that I'm trying to make is this phenomenon is growing. And not only launching Mohammed, Elijah Muhammad went to prison for a while. All right. For draft evasion, he refused to go into the armed services. All right. It is said that it was his wife, Cara Muhammad, who held things together during his absence. All right, there are lots of personalities, okay, whose names we can't get into who are behind the scenes. But we're talking about the general phenomenon. All right, of how this how this,
this thing unfolds. So Elijah Muhammad
is, is running the Nation of Islam from 1934, all the way up to 1975. Now, during that time, you get a number of sort of spin off movements. For example, The Five Percenter movement is a spin off from the Nation of Islam. All right, the Onsala movement is a spin off from the Nation of Islam, but the Nation of Islam is sort of that central piece. Now.
The Sunni community is still there. As I said, small, pretty much storefront, um, communities, they don't really have that kind of national presence as a nation of Islam as because the Nation of Islam has national leadership. It's a centralized sort of national movement. All right. The next big phenomenon occurs in 1965. Right 1965 is important for a couple of reasons. One,
the major popularizer of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X is assassinated. Right. Malcolm X is phenomenal in terms of his importance. All right, um, perhaps primarily as a popularizer of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm crisscross the country, establishing temples all over the place, and we don't have to talk about how Malcolm's articulations Alright, appeal to the broader black American community. All right, such that the broader black American community almost assume a sense of cultural ownership in Islam. All right. And these things don't sound like very much. All right, but if you're trying to build a movement, all right, they're absolutely essential. I
absolutely essential. All right. So what happens in 1965? Malcolm X is assassinated. That's one thing. That same year, something even more momentous happens.
The national origins act is parole.
Now, the national origins Act goes back to 1924.
In 1924, to make a very long story short,
the Congress passed along a mile away. You know, we think that immigration is starting What's all this stuff about immigration? It's always been an issue.
There's always been an issue 1924 was an attempt to deal with the issue of immigration. All right, it was a very complex law. But to make a very long story short, it basically was designed to ensure that America would be made a country whose majority was from North West Europe. They didn't want issue.
Right? They wanted North West European. And it's a very complicated thing. But basically, it might be described as depending on the percentage of people from the country you're applying from, they're already here. That's the percentage that's eligible for immigration. What I mean by that, so the English are 46% of the population in America 46% of the immigration are English. I'm down and down and down the lobby. All right. By the way, why do you think Americans majority white?
I mean, for the moment
you're asked a question, why someone was second blacks and Latinos, what, what, why is American majority white?
I'm sorry. Everybody else? Okay. The immigration policies contribute majorly to this. Okay. And 1965 that policy was prorogued. All right. And there were two major contributors to this. One was the Cold War.
America sort of woke up and and sort of decided that we're really losing out to the Soviet Union was the Soviet Union. All right, that, that we're getting brain drains out of all these Muslim in Asian and Middle Eastern countries. All right. But the Soviets are getting more than Reagan.
All right. And this is not the part. That was one insect. The other incentive was actually the Civil Rights Movement here in America. And the idea that justice it was wrong to discriminate against blacks on the streets of Selma. All right, it was wrong to discriminate against people of color applying for immigration. All right. So the national origins act is prorogued. This opens up the floodgates for the parents of grandparents. All right, of many of the people who are Muslims in this.
All right now, I don't I don't I don't want to overstate things. I'm not saying that there were no immigrant communities or international communities before 1965. I'm not saying that at all. Right. And that's a documented fact that they were here. But in terms of this critical mass coming at a time, and this is important as well, when the muscle wound itself is in the throes of an Islamic revivalism.
Okay, all right, this is a very important fact or element in what goes on. We are coming down from countries where people are increasingly turning back to their slum crews. Right. Okay. As summit revivalism begins to unfold. This is the beginning of the coming of the international community now, so far,
with some exceptions.
But religion has been
an element of the basis of authority in black American Islam. And by that, I mean, that, that Islam itself would be seen and interpreted through a lens. All right, on the basis of which it would seek to do the work of black religion, are in progress, promote the health of the black community, and protect, insulate and empower it against the forces of white supremacy and anti black racism. Right? That was simply a part of how Islam tended to be interpreted. Okay, so black and, and the degree to which it was exclusively that are not varied from community to community. It will be more that way in that middle, too.
What I call the Super tradition, the super tradition, which is the intellectual religious tradition of Islam as the basis of authority.
All right, in other words, now, if you want to talk about how we can address the issues of racism in America, now you have to do that on the basis of explicit arguments from the court and from the Hadith, from the Sunnah, maybe even from the schools of law. But this is now the basis of authority by which you articulate Islam. All right, before Black religion wouldn't have provided much of the basis for how you articulated your plan of procedure. All right. But with the coming of the international community, there's a shift. And part of the reason for that shift is This
is traditional black Sunnis, and the Nation of Islam are going back and forth about who is and who is not a Muslim. All right. One of the things that confer immediate authority among our upon the international community is what?
They come from the Muslim world, and they aren't Muslims, who is
all right. And yet, they
this is going to sound polemical, but it's not alright.
They only represents only represented Sunni tradition, by assumption,
that the violence that what I mean by that, in other words, to put it bluntly, olive skin,
okay? Represented religious authority.
Okay, if you look like you came from the Muslim world, you were presumed to know what you're talking about when you said anything about
if you didn't know you were talking.
I'm being very serious about this. All right. Most of the people who came to America from the Muslim world, we're not clerics had nothing to do with any religious training.
All right, nothing to do with it at all. All right, of course, they had a popular practices and, and certain assumptions. I mean, I mean, you know, Christians in America sort of, sort of know how to be Christians. You follow me? by that? I mean of that. So don't get them any kind of theological discussion. They don't know anything about that. All right. This is what you had a largely in the immigrant community. Now, the Shiite community is an exception to that, maybe then the question ends, but for the majority
Sunni community, you have an international community come in with a presumption of religious authority. All right, okay. against the black American community, all right, it moves now in transition from black religion to Sunni tradition, all right. And this leads to a relationship of domination.
Right? Or potential domination. Now, what is domination?
Domination as I define it, are we going over time?
Let me let me wrap up real quick. Domination
is
a phenomenon where
I take your story from you.
And I give you a supporting role in my story.
Right. And when you assume a supporting role of my story, everything that you do enhances me, even if it doesn't enhance you.
All right. And this is sort of what happened in this early period. So for example, Palestine becomes a major issue. Police brutality is not
alright, Kashmir becomes a major issue. All right. urban poverty is not, you see the point that I'm making? All right. And not only that, these become a slanted issues. Okay. These cannot be defended as a slanted issues. All right. And this is the beginning of that tension that we find, you know, between the international community and the black American community. All right.
And that tension is going on now. 1975 Elijah Muhammad dies, his son, email was the Mohammed takes over and redirects that entire community into Sunni Islam 97. All right, Farrakhan stays and stays when the original Nation of Islam, but 90% or so common to Sunni Islam. All right, here's where you begin also to get however, a concerted effort on the part of black American Sunnis to learn that soon
intellectual tradition. All right, so that they get get about the business of articulating Islam in America for themselves. All right, that phenomenon has reached sort of maturity today. All right, but in the interim period, all right, that tension a remain. Alright. Now, the next big thing that we get after 1965 or 1975 is of course,
where you get a number of things, whether it be trying to keep it short. The big one is what 911 911.
Now
I have to be careful about how I say this, because it can be massaged, misunderstood, and misused.
911 was a horrific act of terrorism. All right. And my training as a scholar Islamic law says that it was an act of terrorism than Islam itself to condemn.
No question about that. All right. Innocent civilians killed. No question about that. Publicly directed by Coronavirus, even though these people use it directly in an ethical public. All right, that is among the most the most severely punished pawns in Islam. All right. All right. So on moral and legal terms, because I'm in love, and not 11 is condemned by follow that.
And yet,
this is where it gets dicey. But I'm gonna say it
911
carried a certain silver lining for this relationship between international and black Americans.
Right? What was that silver lining 911 forced that community to recognize. All right, a movie out.
But all of these opposition's that they had brought from the Muslim world with them. All right, up to 911. America was an ideological playground. You can say anything, you can write anything. Don't believe me? Go back to some of the Friday Sermons before 911. And see what you hear some of those who must know what I'm talking about. It was an ideological playground. 911 Put that to an end. Right. Muslims now have to be more disciplined in the way they go about their business. Not only that, not knowing I mean, every good Muslims.
Because I have two more points.
To see.
He's got to say it right.
No, I mean, I want you to lie to me.
Irrelevant.
You see he,
his point is that the silver lining?
America
is the land of white supremacy. Now, hold on, hold on. I don't I don't say that as a sneer. Okay, you bet white supremacy even if I believe that that's not the point that I'm making. Okay. All right.
Okay, when we say in America now,
women like X, who talk about,
say, white women when talking about the tumors?
Right? They don't even come to mind if I follow me by that. Okay. White is norm.
Normal is invisible. And visibility is the greatest power you can have in any society.
So I thought what I mean by that.
Right. Now, you have this construct called whiteness with normal written on top. Somebody's following me about that. Okay.
Everybody that's come to America has tried to like,
get into that way.
Some of you will be surprised at some of the people in this room who sent me 580 years ago. Why not? Why
Irish why can you talk about white
Jews?
Why
not? My very serious, very serious about this. All right. Those are groups that became white Italians. Do you realize that there were times
prosecuted under miscegenation laws known as education laws are you can have sex and white women, we would prosecute a Italians, by having sex with white women, Tony Soprano would have been prosecuted.
Very serious. I'm very serious. All right. So you have this construct. But the bottom border is perforated, you can get through by following me by that. So Italians get through, right? Right. Lithuanians get through, Jews get through Irish get through. All right. And guess what?
In the early stages when they came here, and guess who else was on their way to get into
international Muslims?
By von Neumann international Muslims on their way, now, you have to understand something about the international Muslim community in America. This is one of the most educated, accomplished minority communities in America.
Okay, well, as you know, Italians, you know, three generations ago, worked three jobs just to put the first kid to college. But if I'm gonna mean by that immigrant Muslims or international Muslims come to at the time,
I was invited to a friend of mine, in fact, when I lived in Michigan, invited to his house to have a meeting with some members of the Michigan Supreme Court now. Now, you know, what his standing is, if he can get members of the Michigan Supreme Court, just to come to his house, and have conversation?
Right, any advices there? All right. Okay. It's myself, because we're going to talk about the relationship between American law and Islamic law. All right. So we're about to, you know, have a conversation. And before we start, the chief justice, of the Michigan Supreme Court, got up and said the power.
He said,
and English,
by biology, and English. My family has been here 300 years.
And my kids keep asking me that, when are we going to get rich?
Okay. Now, why do you say that?
Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that my Syrian friend whose house it
had a Ferrari parked outside next to his tennis courts, went inside his house, he's got an indoor swimming pool.
You follow what I'm saying? And the
first generation
comes in like that. All right. It's a very accomplished community. And for that reason, it's able to establish institutions. All right. And clip that's not as fast as the black American community has been.
Right. Now, the Latin However, blocks that southern border, even international Muslims who are legally white, are no longer socially white.
All right, that brings them into more of an ability to identify with their black American brothers and sisters. All right, those tensions are still there. All right. But that's opened up a kind of conversation. Trust me ideal. I'm sorry to say this. I mean, what you said tonight, all right. We might not have heard that 30 years ago.
All right. That's a very common thing to say today. Not some not so much. 30 years ago. All right. I got the feeling that my time has run out. I wanted to say a little word about hip hop, but maybe I can come up with a question. If we have any time for question and answer no.
Thank you very much.
We are going to do, there's another event here at eight. So we're going to try and get this done in like 20 minutes. Mindful follow up on this one. So that being said, you're an academic meaning I think, fielding questions from the crowd might be something you're used to. Okay. And we also don't have an extra minute. So if y'all can talk loud, that'd be great. And let's do this until like, let's say,
if we had any questions, if not, we're good.
Yes.
That's fine. I'm not sure.
So, the first question is, you mentioned the 5%. spin off of Yes. I don't really know much about the 5% nation, but
why do you think you'll notice, at like why there were spin off information
To
satisfy.
My second question is, in your research have
observed relationships between black international science like journalism, civilian and black.
Okay. The first question is that we have to take these types
of piece by piece.
There's a very specific story that goes along with the breaking off of the Five Percenters from the Nation of Islam.
Clarence 13x, who founded the Five Percenters was originally a member of the Nation of Islam. He was caught one day teaching an unauthorized lesson of the nature of this man, he was rebuked for that, that ultimately led to his decision to go a separate route and start something different. Right.
Something similar happened with the Sri Lankan news. Right, so you have
schisms within the nation that ultimately result in spin off movements that become their own thing. Right. Is that seven? Yes.
So it's split off as an individual who then like, establishes another movement? Yes, yes. As for the relationship between African and Latin American Muslims,
it varies.
There's a there's a colleague of mine, Zayn Abdullah
University has written a book called Black Mecca. And it's about the relationship between black American and African and most on African Muslims in Holland, as some of the same tensions exist.
Right?
There's harmony, and there's tension.
And then part of that, you know, also is related to the fact that, to some extent, black America was some spill.
Still sort of, in the process of, of crafting their own understanding of how to take ownership in America?
Well, I think that what I would say about if I was the following, you know, we talked about the importance of black religion as a sort of a basis of authority for the articulation of Islam in the black community.
You know, coming into the 90s, and then the 2000s, there is some question as to which as to whether black religion is even still alive, right, both in Christianity and Islam. And there are some who might argue that, whereas black religion may have been the wasteland, on which
the past is now.
Right, hip hop is now the preserver of a quote unquote, Islamic identity, even if it's not a purveyor of a summit is
necessarily, alright.
Does that make sense? All right. In other words, in other words,
it has been said,
not by me, it has been said, that hip that that Islam is the unofficial religion of hip hop.
Right.
But again, but again, the question becomes, is that more as identity, all right, or actual practice?
So what I mean by that, and I think that what's important, from my perspective, is that we don't make the same mistake with hip hop that we made with with the Nation of Islam. Right, and throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Okay, because the Nation of Islam was irregular in the terms of theology. Right? Certainly under the influence of internationalism community. All right, which lots goes up assuming black community will gravitate and tour. All right, the entire nation was dismissed.
Big time mistake. All right. Identity is important.
Right? Identity is important.
A young Pakistani, a former student of mine set the volume to
look, I know that some of these like young black American Muslims who are like hip hoppers, I know that their Islam is not like necessarily practiced in the way that it's supposed to. All right, but they strongly identify as Muslim. Okay. She said, Look, if these people make it through
their 20s
or 30s, will bring something different.
In other words, their Islamic identity sustains into their 20s. By the time they hit their 30s, practice will begin to catch up. It just phases of life. Right? And she said to me, those in the immigrant community, on the other hand, all right, when they lose their sovereign identity, there's something so forgotten.
The Nam. Right. So I think that that's an important thing to recognize as well. But we can go down the list of, you know, people identified with the slab or who are Muslims who are who are who are hip hop's beautiful, most depth blue page and go through the skeleton. I mean, you could just go down to this. Right. And the the percentages, I think, are disproportionate.
disproportionately high.
Right? Yes.
Actually, two questions. The first question is kind of related to you said that the Nation of Islam was the main core that had basically a mass conversion of bringing the African American community. No, I would have worded like that, I would say that that nation of Islam
produced the redefinition of black American culture and cultural identity, okay, such that the barrier between Islam and blackness was shattered. Okay. So now, knowing that perspective, not African nine, a lot of American college enrollment community got locked up, but the black,
the black community still stood strong. Now going forward, what is the identification of being an American black muscle, or at least just an American Muslim, for example, the women wear the hijab, you can instantly tell that that's a Muslim men, maybe somewhere in beard, some don't. So it's all over the place. So for the map, like, for example, in Nation of Islam, you have the bowtie, suit, everything that identifies you knew that that was Muslim.
So what is it? What is the next phase that you see the integration between the African American community and the international community that can identify itself as an American Muslim?
You really want that?
No, no, no, guys, because, you know, we want it when the FBI shows up,
I'm gonna get back to the mask. All right, we want to sort of be the real Muslims as opposed to this conference, you follow? So this is the answer that what we want? Let me answer your question in a bit of a different way. I think that there are some key developments that I haven't had the time had a chance to talk about, but that impinges directly upon what you're talking about. One is that both the international community and I would argue to a slightly lesser degree, as well as the black American community builds the Muslim tradition, right, to the extent that the enemy at large segments of the population,
right.
I mean, that if you go across college campuses, across the country, all right, as I have in my younger years, right,
you will be shocked to encounter the number of young Muslims, right, who actually see themselves as believing practicing Muslims, but more scared to death of their own religious tradition.
Right, because of the manner in which it's been used sort of to, to, to control and dominate, as opposed to empower.
All right. And what this is not producing is a new generation of Muslims, black and immigrant who are searching for alternative sort of basis of authority. All right, why was that? Can I give you a a moment?
All right. All right. So you have this sort of political quote unquote, activist divide now. Right. That is, that is partly the way but the function of the way that that that tradition has been has been handled. All right. And there
on both sides, I don't want to you know, it's not all the clerical sides fault. All right. In fact, that leads me to the next one that I'm gonna make. We have another problems in this country.
And I think that we're not aware of it. You know, you have to be aware of the fact that I don't care where you come from, if you're in America, all right.
Part of your religious history, a major part of every disease history is the history of Europe.
Okay, because that really is a sister who comes to America with the earlier
remedies. And part of that history is that religion is a problem. And religion is something that ends with society has to be both tested. All right, and the liberal epistemology of the Western Academy, all right, is such that it was always to domesticate religion. So then it can never challenge the state or the dominant culture. And it breaks down communities into individuals, radical individuals. That kind of thing that you're talking about, requires precisely what many Muslims are unwilling to do. And that is shut up, sit down and go along with the program.
No, no, I mean, that can be abused. Don't I don't don't, please don't misunderstand me. All right. But you know, you don't imagine for one moment that the Nation of Islam, for example, all right, could do all the things that I'm talking about doing. All right, without an effective hierarchy
by following me by
now, now, that makes me sound like I'm one of these Bolsheviks or something like that, right? No, that's not that's not what I'm talking about. Okay. But if you want to talk about this, right here, to become the new Muslim God.
But all I mean, by that, all we have to have is
King Jackson, or a minimal meaning Jackson,
who says, That's it, you go there you buy tomorrow, this is what I want you to wear every day. You hear me? You hear me? And when people hear you say something like them, they will see this, when people see you pray in public, they will see this, when people want to talk with your wife, they will see this, you see, do you see what I mean by that? And over a period of time, what happens?
This becomes what
you get the fall what I mean by that.
But we don't do that.
Alright, so make up your mind.
You can figure
out the answer to a question.
Yes. What total?
of black Americans on survive,
shifted the majority?
Well, I think that I think that all of them survived. I think that a couple of things. I mean, again, some of the things that I talked about in terms of
when
we talk about institutions.
I'm going to put this without getting too academic.
We don't live in a vacuum is what I'm trying to say. Okay. So when you get developments, such as, you know, the rise of social media or something like that, right? Well, you don't have any control over what your flat, let's say, you know, has access to all right, you get people who emerge as authorities, all right, with very questionable qualifications, and all these kinds of things. And this is going to have an impact on the texture of the community that you live in. All right, now, you can talk about what institutions you know, remain. Alright. But how does okay, how do those institutions relate to all of this? All right. And so that's there's much
there's much thought going on to these things right now.
And I think that
wow, while many of us may get the impression that, you know, my presentation of Islam and black America is somewhat bleak. I don't see it that way at all.
I'll tell you a little story. I have a I have a nephew.
I'm who's a Muslim.
Young
gonna see.
Oh, no, no, no, I'm not.
But the day after 911 schools will close the second day after 911 schools will open.
This boy was about 12 years old. You know what he did?
He went to school, public school with a foam on
meaning What?
What?
What?
No, no, no, you get you get, you get my point.
That's still a part of the American Muslim community.
All right.
And I think that for me, I mean, social media is a problem, not simply because of the eMERGE
tons of quote unquote authorities have questionable
qualifications, but because of the destruction of anything
it leads to internal bleeding. Did you follow what I meant by that?
You know, you and I can have a
seat put it this way.
If
if you get up
and just Just call me the N word straight up, all right.
I'm not saying it would be, like a good thing to do.
But I don't think they're very many people would blame me.
If I
about Kolkata
now that you've been following me by that, okay. In other words, an open offense elicits an open response, if I want to mean by that.
When you're offensive,
it's just a slight.
This, you devour me my life? See, I can't even address you. Because the first thing I have to do before I can address you, is admit that you hurt me. And I'm not going to do that.
So I'm just going to believe in internally and hate your guts forever.
Because it's by following me by that. This is the kind of thing that's going on all the time now, among Muslims. Not everybody, but
Right. This is a major challenge.
It's a major challenge. So to me, a major challenge. Is this getting etiquette? Manners, added back into the everyday practice of Islam, where we can differ different, stronger, Right? but different in the spirit of brotherhood, sisterhood and respect.
That's enormous ly important. Okay, because if you damage me from that little tiny issue, when the big issue arises, we can cooperate. Because trust is gone.
Right? So it's not all these, you know? And I'll say there's probably Oh,
you know, everybody's up to the scholars and the mannerisms and, you know, the activist and all the leaders. Yeah, they have their role books, so do you.
So what I mean by that, is that you can do that the way that they can.
I saw a commercial one time, and I'm just saying this, it really hit me and I couldn't remember if some of you may have seen this commercial. There's a white guy sitting in an office, he's doing a job. And if you're interviewing for a job, there's a Latino guy sitting on the, on the, on the other side, right? He's interviewing for the job. Okay. So the interview ends, and Latino guy gets up and goes up. Okay? Now the white guy comes in and says, So how did it go? He balls up the Latino guy's
resume and throws him in the trash and says, I think we got enough color around here. Right? The second white guy reaches in the trash kid, takes out the resume slanted down on desk straightened out and says, I think he lost something here.
You follow?
That one?
If all I'm saying says this is not this is not acceptable.
We won't put up with this. All of us can do this.
By phone what I mean by that you don't have to be innovative. You don't have to be the man. You love your style. You have to have a PhD. Brother that's not right.
You can't talk to people.
But it's all I mean by that we can all do that. Okay. And if we fail in that regard, is not the stylists fault is not doctor the scalpel is not the chance fault. It is our fault.
You mentioned the sheer contrast.
Well, I'd say that the Shiites have always had a much more structured hierarchy.
And that has made for
a number of differences
within the Shiite community relative to the sun, and I think that as well, the Shiites had certainly you know, gone back to you know, what, I used to live in Michigan, in places like Dearborn, they had clerical presence, you know, from from from very early on.
Right. So so that's one of the differences between the Shiites and the
Yes, injection earlier how nations
Aside from the traditional blacks and the Muslims, there's kind of obviously like a difference in theology and you're saying that this was considered completely theology or whatever. But what's your discussion or attention in terms of who is more black?
And
hey,
yeah, I guess around the edges,
I guess
depends on where you are, but I guess around the edges,
the Nation of Islam with the claim of quote unquote, no blackness, whereas traditional Sudanese would say, a whip black, all right, but blackness is not the measure of a slap.
So you get you thought,
so but then you get those tensions. Yeah.
You wonder.
How did you see
the role of women coming together of these two communities, the black American community, we
have a whole bunch of goofy guys sitting out there in the hallway, we got mangoes we got wildlands we've got everything. Please take some their plates out there and forks for you. And thank you so much. It means a lot