Framing the Miracle
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Channel: Sherman Jackson
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the loss of black Americans in the face of defeat and the importance of recognizing the value of vertical rays in achieving goals. They emphasize the need to adapt to culture and avoid negative consequences. The "immigrational slur" is a result of "immigrational slur," and the "immigrational slur" is a result of "immigrational slur." The speakers emphasize the importance of investing in the miracle and being organized to achieve a sense of mission. They also discuss the need for acceptance and respect for men and women in the community and for cultural production to be sustained.AI Generated Transcript ©
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Whenever the below
up level level
or shadow hacking Mullah Wrangler, she Nicola was
from a Long Island,
Russia and somebody, suddenly Emily was the one that put them in descending upon the pony cleaning shop, a nasty forbidding saying, when
you really mean well, that's why I didn't want to lower it.
First of all, I want to thank city staff, and everyone else who's responsible for 40 business opportunities to come in here and to share with you some of my thoughts and feelings, and to benefit from that intellectual, the spiritual, and the practical capital that's in the room. I think that we are in a very unique moment
in our history as a Muslim community in America. And it really does behoove us to not only take advantage of but to come to try to create as many forums that will afford us an opportunity to come together, and to share the kinds of capital that we can bring to bear on the situation. I think that for far too long, we have been siloed, we ever been sort of mutually alienated, we have not sort of found that rhythm that we can all move to together, as a result of which we have not been able to achieve all that we can achieve, or take advantage of all the opportunities that we have before us. And I'm going to talk about that, I hope in a very unique matter. today. I'm someone
who,
although from extremely humble backgrounds, I have had the
pleasure
and the luxury end of traveling to many countries around the world, including the Muslim world. And it never fails to impress itself upon me. What an enormous opportunity we have here, as an American community, if we would just recognize that opportunity, recognize what it takes to take advantage of it and operationalize all that we have to move forward. So I'm going to be talking about tonight, the miracle of Islam and black America. And I want to start off by trying to practice this, because I don't think that we are quite used to thinking about the emergence and the rise of Islam and black Americans in terms of a miracle. And I think that
we need to come to understand some understanding as to why that is.
Many of my students, over the last couple of years, have been used to hearing me
make the statement that is that defeat as a disaster
and defeat as a disaster, primarily because it leaves the one who has been defeated, with the sense that he or she can only retrieve their sense of dignity and re establish their place in the world. If they are able to do to the one who conquered them, or the Conqueror did to them.
That becomes their sort of marching order.
Even more importantly,
this sense of defeat can imbue the defeated one
with a sense that the most effective of the most effective way
to reverse those fortunes,
is to adapt the ways the tools are thinking, the priorities and the end the sensibilities of the country.
Now, this is routinely disguised,
vanquished, people don't tend to say,
I'm going to adopt the ways of the victim. It tends to be the size at 1000 different ways.
is so much so that oftentimes, those who present themselves as the most ardent opponents of the Congress can turn out to be precisely those who are most firmly in the Congress grip,
most firmly in his group.
Now, for my perspective, as a Muslim,
the clearest and most deadly manifestation
of this defeat, disguised as religious commitment
resides
in
the loss of one's vertical games.
I'm an academic, so you're part of it, but I'm trying to break it down. So that
what I mean by vertical gaze, I mean,
we lose our ability to look up.
And our gaze is exclusively and consistently projected out.
We look up at the adversary, we look out, and we look out at all those things that we want to achieve in life.
And because we are only looking out, we only recognize world new ways of achieving what it is that we want to achieve. We recognize worldly waves of visiting upon the Conqueror or the Conqueror visited upon us. But here we have to ask the question.
And this particular moment,
if all you recognize a world in ways,
whether you recognize it or not, in fact, whether you admit it or not.
Because he, the dominant civilization in the world today, has set the worldly ways through which you want to try to achieve your aims and your ambitions.
And if all you recognize all those ways, and those mechanisms,
you are a follower, and he still is the leader.
This is the way it is. And part of the challenge
is how you arrived at a point where you can see something beyond the material ways of the world as a means of accessing that which is most precious in you. That which is the highest expression of yourself
that wants to tempt you into a universe of values and meanings that enable you to achieve a modicum of independence from that color.
And this is where it becomes important to recognize the value of that vertical gaze
about vertical guys, I mean, again, this ability to go beyond just this,
to do that, to look up to Allah, to look up to the ultimate power. And to believe that that ultimate power has the ability to bring about miracles.
And if you don't have that, and by the way, I want to be very clear.
I want to be very clear here.
We are in the world where
there is no Archimedean point you can't get outside the world. I'm not talking about looking up in order to float up and away from the world. I'm talking about opening up your doorway, and letting that divine strength, that divine guidance, that universe of divine values and sentiments, have those accompanying you in the world that will enable you to see things in the world that you otherwise might not even be able to see.
Because if you are limited
to the material mechanisms that have been crafted by those who have conquered you
you will never be able to transcend that or toward anything else.
This is what
I mean by the importance of a personal gaze what has happened to so many of us, we've been reduced to entirely horizontal people. That's all we do.
We just look up,
even in the way we deal with each other, in even in the way that we deal with our spouses and our children,
you really think that you can be on good enough care that you can guarantee your child's success as a Muslim? Do you want to think that you alone,
they really honestly think that if you do grow food,
even after you have done all you can do, you need God's guidance, you pray that Allah guides your children, that protect your children, and even under circumstances that don't look like they're gonna make it because you are attached to Allah, you know that miracles can happen.
And once you are induced to the point where you no longer can believe that
it was you can't go beyond the world that he created.
This is the reality.
And all this kind of talk, you know, it doesn't sit right.
With so many of us. And we're living in a moment where
it is extremely difficult to engage in constructive self analysis and criticism.
And part of what makes that so difficult is that you know, that there are there are those out there who want to do nothing, but use that against you.
Right. And yet, that's precisely what humans do, if you are to improve the kind of person that you are.
And we don't believe that we have been reduced to a vertical gaze. I want to ask you all this, and I don't want any adulteration. You know, I don't want anybody to
incriminate themselves. So take this as a rhetorical question.
On average,
how many times you say today,
the average Muslim
of you are those your average Muslim? You know,
how many times a month? Do you think they're important?
Once,
twice,
five times.
Have you been asked anybody? Don't lie.
Tell the truth.
Only to that?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm talking about, again, a vertical. Because that's what you do when you read.
When you read a plan, you're trying to leave connect to that universal values and meanings that come from outside this world. You're trying to reconnect with what Allah has said, what the divine word, right? On ask ourselves, How come? We don't?
That's why
by fall asleep.
That's why because we reduce it to this.
Right?
And we can't do that anymore.
Right. Now, I want you to listen to me
very carefully.
Because part of what can happen if we're not careful?
Is that the world out there can completely paralyze us
or quietly drive us to incent?
What do I mean by a Saturday? I don't mean running around acting crazy. But I mean, in the sense of, we can continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.
Think about us communal, collectively, how long we've been doing some of the same things that don't work and expect a different result.
Because we don't have the ability to transcend those circumstances. On attachment to values and meanings. There's time for online self that all in power.
We need to understand
there's a person or and
we're Allah
instruct the Prophet himself to say that they said
say, or Muhammad,
I do not control any benefit, or any harm that might come to me.
Except as the law moves.
And I know the unseen me of angrily unseen,
I would have been nothing but good
and bad would find no way to me.
But I am just a bringer of good tidings. And in water, for people who believe this is the Prophet Muhammad, saying, What?
Every moment of my life, I'm doing what I'm not being where I'm looking up every moment of my life. Because I know, I don't have control over what comes my way. And when I'm alone, I will not be able to surmount the challenges to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to me, my naps, my soul, my fears, my anxieties, or be too big of a barrier between me and what I should do.
And only by being able to look up, and to attach myself to that power, will I be able to navigate this thing here called life. This is the Prophet Muhammad SAW.
A man who always looked up even when he was looking down, and we know the eyes, that he was able to somehow
this is what we have to remind ourselves up. But there's another dimension to this blonde, the horizontal state of consciousness that I've been talking about, this is what I want to talk about winning tonight.
Part of the reason that defeat is such a disaster,
is that the first thing that it destroys in the defeat, is their ability to believe in the miraculous.
And this, in a sense, is precisely the aim of the Congo. Because if you can reduce you to believing and nothing but what you see before you, the AVO always appear to be too great, too large, too insurmountable for you to do anything.
As a result of which you reduced
sense of powerlessness.
And you end up
with
a sense of
desperation
in which he has gone through all kinds of all kinds of crazy things, but is it desperation? You're not thinking you're not planning? You're not even invoking principle. So if you're just desperate, you got to do something.
While you're waiting if
you don't do something,
right.
But again, you do that something, and you're done something ended something and what does it produce?
What do you do?
That's more something more, something more something?
Right. That's one. That's one thing that can happen to us.
What do we fail to believe in the miraculous? The other thing is that those challenges become so insurmountable, that we just
can't beat them.
Join.
You just surrender. You've just given sometimes you give it I mean, you put this on our handle on the front, right, but you no longer exercise any real agency and the decisions that you make in life.
I want to suggest
that Turner pizza was spent.
This is what has happened
and continues to happen to us
as a result, which
we have overlooked,
and we continue to overlook. So look
what can only be characterized as an absolute miracle right here in America
and I believe
And then as long as we continue to miss recognize this miracle, we will remain of course.
And as one of the ancient Muslim sages says,
one who has lost his way
will never be taken to their destination, no matter how long and how fast they travel.
If I'm trying to get to California from here,
and I am my, my direction south,
I can travel forever. I'm never getting worse.
I'm never going to California, because I'm heading in the wrong direction.
And I believe that as long as we continue to miss recognize this miracle, we will remain off course. So let me try to explain
what I mean by this miracle.
And when I say miracle, I'm not speaking metaphorically, I'm speaking in real terms.
Many of the young people in this audience and I'm talking particularly and y'all understand why just relax everybody. I'm talking particularly about the black American young people in this audience who were born to a Muslim mother and a Muslim father.
They will take their Islam on, almost rented. And this was almost a big deal for them.
Right.
And partly because that's all they've ever known, but it's not like that's not like me. Right? We have what
we purpose, okay. However you want to phrase it, all right. But it was a more a more conscious break, was something else that I found what I mean by that for our children, many of them.
So they've ever known that, but this is what I want to focus on FOMO
this has now gone.
Okay.
If on the day I was born,
and my goal
is on the day that I was born. I see my brother Jimmy Jones, I can say something similar on the day that we were born Do
you love me, but if someone have come to our Christian parents, someone come to my Christian parents, both of whom were cool. And then Jim Crow south, and the men can be 20s and 30s. If someone would have told them, that that no black child that you're holding on your arms right now is one gay boy wants to be a Muslim. That one day you want to visit that child's home, and you want to find your granddaughters wearing a hijab, praying in Arabic.
If someone had told them that the city they lived in, I'm from Philadelphia, would one day be teeming with mustard, you can't turn a car or that fundamental muscle. And the city of Philadelphia is someone that told them that if someone had told them, at some point, the most famous human being on the planet would be a black American Muslim named Muhammad.
It fact if someone had told them that this plan itself would be the second largest religious representation in the entire black American community, no one around them would have been able to believe that
no one no one would have seen this.
I've been Muslim
some 40 years
but I can tell you I'm the smart one is that understand?
I know Muslims growing up as a child
I know no Muslims growing up as a child.
This is a phenomenon that logic takes place in my lifetime.
So now we have what we have brothers. We have sisters, we have cousins we have aunts, there's hardly see you to no one in America today for this knowledge
contingent on black American Muslims?
How did this happen?
And I know that there are million here, who will tend to see this
as just a continuation from Africa through our slave experience,
let me share a little
factoid with you
upwards of 10 times the number of Africans that were brought to America as slaves went to Brazil alone.
So I understand that went to Brazil alone.
Do you see any black Salafi movement in Brazil?
Do you see a nation of Islam movement in Brazil?
Do you see a Muhammad Ali in Brazil?
You said Malcolm in Brazil?
Do you see anything like you see in terms of the phenomenon of Islam and black America, anywhere in the Western Hemisphere?
Anywhere?
Do you recognize this?
Someone came in 100 black Americans, the gun goes on. Coming off so often that Latin
and tiny volunteer situation produces this groundswell in a Muslim in the black American community.
Right. And
when we look at this carefully, we'll see not only there's something unique about this, but there's something and hold on because a lot of us get a little upset yet but there's something uniquely American about this
see this that came out with a
report a couple of days ago many of you may have heard about this has hit a black Americans like 20% of Muslims in America of course, that that number is depressed. All right. And this is not just propaganda. All right. I mean, we know the numbers depressed because right? Somebody like me, probably wasn't okay. Why?
Because you want in real?
Time what you really
sharpen Jackson.
Many, many, many Muslims. Listen to him.
All the
all Jimmy Jones.
So those numbers are depressed. All right. So let's bump them up one by one.
Well, that is
to say that 20% You have nothing like this anywhere else in the entire Western world.
than that
the overwhelming majority of Muslims on places like England, are immigrants, not from the native population. You can say the same thing about friends. The same thing about Germany. The same thing about Islam, then Thai entire Western world, there's only one major Western democracy. All right, and what's between the first and second largest contingent on native born peoples of that country, and that is this community of black American Muslim community.
That's how you make
it happen only here.
And one of the questions a number of questions we need to begin to ask ourselves is why?
If we want to begin
to recognize the miraculous nature of what we're dealing with you
we can look up for men.
And remember,
the whole record 11 Nothing happens in this creation without Hall's permission.
So this can be an accident. But ask yourself this.
Why does this live in America comfortable America.
Why not let you know.
Why not the dominant group of whites.
What what specificities reside in the Fed? That
is
Islam came to, and the majority, the black American community. And this is not a nationalistic platform. We'll get to that in a bit. But when you don't understand this, why Black Americans we lost?
Why black Americans here in America? Why that people who are the very conscience of this country,
the black American community,
the one community that can constantly remind America, just by its very existence, of the fact that no matter how powerful, how rich, how come to potential America may become a 10th. Never, it can never deny the fact that it remains capable of great evil.
that humanity is the conscience of America, that humanity is committed to which Islam comes. Why does not come to that community in America that has never been associated with any kind of domination or conquest?
Do you realize how important that is.
So when the black American community goes out and speaks and represents this land, people don't see them as an attempt to dominate.
You don't get the sense that I'm not going to surrender to them.
Because that community has not been associated with conquest and domination. And yet this is demeaning the community to which Islam comes about
what is the sort of Islamophobic rhetoric full up to the fear that these Muslims can be what
conquer and dominate?
And yeah, this lab calm so back community in America, there has never been known for what
competent dominated one of the Dow potential potential of that, why does them come to that group of Americans, the only group of Americans
for whom protest is accepted as a part of an authentic identity?
You understand what I mean by that?
You see, black Americans,
you he gave me some?
Rubber, but I want to make this I want to make this clear.
You see,
there is there is
that is a
See, everybody thinks that the greatest slur not everybody, many people have the greatest star and you can record a black American at the N word. That's not true.
Right 2.5.
East Coast
fact the N word can be used as a time
bomb.
Well, there's one phrase that I never mean anything but something negative to a black American. And that's
it
on the time.
Is there any other book in America even that has such a capital?
Black Americans authentic, to the extent that they resist the unwarranted imposition of anything upon them, and they are authentic, to the extent that they don't
normally come up Americans. And this lamb comes to them.
You talk about the necessity of speaking truth to power, or even to the pain. This is the group that is more likely to do that. Because protest and resistance is a part of their authentic identity. And this is the group to whom Islam comes to an America
this accident. What is that now come to that group in America? Who are the leaders excellence, and the production of one of the most effective exports that America has? And that is a popular culture.
Who are the champions of popular culture in America today and happen
a couple centuries.
You
Got it?
Why did this lamb come to that people, you begin to get a picture here. And by the way, by the way, and I'm gonna say this, and I asked a lot of guy my heart and dyed my tongue because we've been misled for some time. And many of us are stylists have been party to that misleading because we've allowed our community to fall into the understanding that ships, imams, and scholars are the only ones who have anything to do with our future. And we put everything in them. Let me tell you something. All right, the plausibility structures that I need to break that down
see, this is what you got to imagine and work with me, okay.
Now, just imagine if I do a nine right there, I see that
all right. Now, if you don't have that nine, okay. All right. You see a nine, right? No, no trick questions. I don't I don't, I don't play trick questions. University. I don't play trick questions. All right, have asked me what this is. It's not right. Now, if I put an E
and an O, right there.
What does that nine
G see that?
That's plausibility structure
is the things around the nine that enable you to recognize it as a nine out of nine.
And the nine itself can't defend this nine this?
Time to say?
Do it again.
Right.
Right. And I say What's that?
Right. They're not taking
an oath.
Put them on either side. Right. Now you see vitamin that says ego, therefore, that nine is no longer not is what is achieved. All right. Here's what we need to understand. Let's assume
that that nine is all of the teachings of the sun, all the teachings of shanti and everything else. All right. All right. That's, that's the man. All right. We cannot preserve the integrity of that nine. If we can't control what goes on either side.
By side what I mean by that.
That's culture.
This time when I'm talking about,
okay, there was a time
I remember one morning, I was in the airport
somewhere. And I was hungry. So I stopped at
one of those Burger Kings in the airport, Detroit airport. So remember, I want to get one of those avian cheese breakfast sandwiches. Right? So that
is the gentleman in front of me, black American gentleman. All right. Who was a Christian and Have Not Known was a Christian. Had a nice crucifix. No one else. You know what I mean? Right bulging isn't easily as a Christian. Okay.
A woman came out and dumped a bunch of sandwiches into the bins this man finally said what he said it's gonna be Miss was that don't tell us this one. I didn't know
what what's really important as Christian
changed the value of his eating poor as a Christian. The cultural production of books like the nation understand
that that allows the women in the nation I'm certainly day one. But Facts are facts.
And we cannot ever
be ashamed
are willing to recognize facts of the law. So stand up for the two impotent yourselves.
Right?
That plausibility structure, you can put that in there and you can double down and triple down and I'm gonna how many times you do that now, it's still gonna be one 780.
Right? Our children are suffering more culturally, than they are religious,
when they when they fade away from Islam, but I believe in god no more. I don't believe in Muhammad no more. I don't have a cultural plausibility structure. And what's actually cool and Muslim.
All right.
Well, I can be a gangster Muslim, I don't know what.
That's
so since I can reconcile this.
What I'm saying is that what is going to reinstate many of the values of Islam is the cultural production from people like the people in this room, who are not scholars like me.
To understand your role in that regard,
that night will be important until the Day of Judgment, that nine represented what
religious teachings
that would be important to the Day of Judgment.
What statue enjoys, that will depend on a whole lot of things that don't necessarily have anything to do with
it. And this is where we have to become a community really.
And we have to recognize the role that all of our community members have to play
understand what I'm talking about.
Who's gonna make a call to the muscle? The house Correct?
Right, the total standard program
I've been spending Mr. Hein title. I thought life I'm not deprecating tradition, at all. All right. Okay. But the tradition itself recognizes the fact look, you have Abu Hanifa you have a madman, you have a massage. You have all of them. All right. How was it slam able to sustain itself in the world? In the world? They have to fight wars did they not?
was interesting.
That was aware of World Wars.
Okay. That they have to defend. I mean, they have to Okay, did they have to face the Crusaders? Yes. That make you feel better?
Okay.
The battles
bad, that means?
I can say a lot of the best plans, but I can't be strict. No children, I ain't gonna get busy with my wife
those bouts
general, in general, the sheriff's
the generals who designed the weapons
are you going to get my point, or you can get my point.
Civilization is sustained by more than religious scholars.
And we need to understand that.
And I don't say this
as a blanket criticism of the scholars,
I say this in an effort to get you to stop letting yourself off the hook.
Because I have a role to play as well.
And the scholars wall and park is to keep the boundaries as broad as we can legitimately take them
and allow you to do your thing within those bounds
so that we can become a commodity again. All right, recognize that the 949
this is what's happening now. Many of the debates that we're having in the Muslim community now, I could not have imagined 25 years ago.
That's the power of cultural development
especially in a position
I have no cultural authority. And yet Islam comes to that community in America, who are the champions of cultural production?
Who could have planned this?
No, no, I mean, it's very serious.
Who could the black community itself have planned this?
Who could have planned this, when you really start thinking about this?
When you really start thinking about this,
and thinking about it seriously,
and you're able to hook up
and allow that to inform your business, you may be able to see something akin to what Allah describes, with the mother of Moses from him in the basket and thrown him in the in the water and let it flow.
To be picked up by whom the most powerful man on the planet,
why is slammed in the black American community in America,
the most powerful, the wealthiest, the most influential country, on the planet.
This is all an accident.
But you see, part of the reason we can see this,
this will cause miracles.
We want what
we want, do.
We,
we must take it.
But they face it, she does like that. So we can see
who to absorb.
And because we can't see the miracle, we do not
allow ourselves to invest in this miracle. Because if we see this as a miracle, then we have to see ourselves as part of a miracle.
I'm a Muslim.
I mean, as I said, not in dreams. Could my mother have imagined that her son to be a Muslim?
And you multiply this by millions in America.
I didn't happen.
And it wasn't easy. I still remember some of you may remember this too.
Because see that the conversion was coming to one a walk in the park. I remember still vividly today was an Islamic Center in Philadelphia on Broad Street. Brown was teaching me a brand new muscle. I mean, as you do some secondary thing, private muscle. And he was teaching you how to perform. And then he said, then you take someone who knows. I said, Oh, no
no, no. That's how strange it was. If all what I'm talking about. That's how strange it was. I remember you know, faster than the first one on the bomb in August. I can headaches man, I've never seen a weddings like that.
And that was after day one. I'm
21 We did
some of the sisters, do you remember the first time you put on
one of those? You bought the house enjoy your dad who come back
in the fall off your head.
Right? The first time you walk into your job or to your classroom with
the stairs, this the back. And yet, we didn't.
We didn't.
We didn't
hear anything America who could have predicted that.
This is what we have to get back to. We have to recognize the miracle that this is and we have to invest in this miracle. And we have to understand we have responsibility to take care of this miracle. And this miracle is what will give us a sense of mission. This is what we lack now. This is why we're so individualistic in our dealings. We've got no sense of you
Mission. Because when we have a simple mission, we understand that we can't achieve the mission alone.
We need to be brothers and sisters, and a real man. We don't have time for pettiness, we don't have time for ego, we don't have time for self pity. When I'm tired all that stuff, we don't have time to be scared. Because we see ourselves as being connected to something that's greater than all of us as individuals.
And that will inform the way I deal with you, even when I disagree with you.
You look at the way some of us tear each other apart, today,
over what
he said,
right, and I'm not arguing that we should not address each other about what needs to be addressed. But if we have a sense of mission, then we understand I have to address this brother, or this system in a manner that deals with the issue at hand. But that also does not take him out or her out of the play as part of the mission, because we need them all.
Is what I'm what I'm trying to say here.
This is what happens when we can begin to recognize this, this, this miracle that we have. All right, because you need to be imbued with a sense of mission, many of us don't have a sense of mission. That's why we can sacrifice anything, including all the pain.
I remember once many years ago, I was I was teaching in the University of Texas, and it was
early shared, who came to town, and some of the brothers were talking about another brother who arrived in town, you know, you know how, you know, great brother, you know, they had all these accolades about him. I remember distinctly, you should ask the following question. He said, Because he spoke no English, I don't think he did. He said, Heather
Sahaja Sahaba said, then the saboteur set an alarm. And then
he said, This person,
or that person of knowledge, or a person with a mission, because the person to the mission is more effective than the person of knowledge alone.
Even if we can't be shaved, even if we can't be scouts, all of us can and must be capable of mission.
We have to have a sense of mission.
Without a sense of mission weekend sacrifice. Well, that wasn't the mission, we can be charitable. Without a sense of mission, we can even be character courageous
will always rationalize ourselves and do the safe thing to do. Because we don't have a sense of mission. And all of this is partly because we cannot recognize the miracle of Islam and black America.
Now that they're pressing me on time, I want to make to last, it's really important
to back to that time.
Because
part of the reason that we don't recognize the miracle of Islam in black America
is that there are many people who don't want to allow us to recognize that miracle. Because there are many people for whom, if their racial, and their ethnic group is not the center they don't want to recognize.
But instead we
can disabuse them of the ability to recognize Alright, I'm gonna send you this.
All of us recognize a miracle that happened 14 or two years ago doing that.
And not only helpful Oh, it was number one, in some sense more important.
All those people around him
that could bring about a miracle in seventh century Arabia through pagan Muslim, I know worshipping Pagan Arabs, a miracle that turns the world and we no matter how they see
The black white mix, we all recognize this miracle. Because our miracle, if Allah can bring about a miracle to the atoms in seventh century Arabia, why can't we do the same thing for black Americans in 20th and 21st? Century American?
One? And why can you recognize that? And why can't you recognize that, and you recognize that?
I've said it before, Ben has a master plan on the Prophet. But all of the muscles, all of the muscles are so many it was man, too many aftershocks, all of them benefited from the protection that Benny has offered to the profit and losses.
So even if you're not black, this is your miracle tube if you're a Muslim.
And this takes me to the point that I really want to make.
This is not some warm over sophisticated call somehow black nationalism.
And I'm not saying all this stuff that I've been saying, just black.
I'm saying this because I'm a Muslim who recognizes Divine Providence for what it is.
And one of the things we have to be real careful about, especially in America, because this is what America breeds. It breeds primary identities.
That trunk religion,
no pun intended.
So as to what I mean by that.
All right, let me give you an example.
Why the Americans at the founding of this country,
they identified whiteness as a primary identity
as the apex identity. And once that happened, Christianity couldn't do anything with it. American nationalism couldn't do anything with it, I'm gonna have to patriotism couldn't do anything with it. All right. Whiteness was the identity that separated White from now, but
it was the apex identity,
we have to be very careful that we don't fall into the same trap. Some of us as black Americans want to do the same thing.
We adopt the black identity as our primary identity. All right. And that means that this time to work to support that black identity and never challenge it.
We use our blackness to domesticate this land.
Instead of Islam, to domesticate All Blacks. We always ratifies black people.
Oh, you're
always right.
We're always fighting.
We
were making the wrong times.
And what's going on? And what's gonna correct that some of us like, as long as we're down with the dominant black culture,
then whatever infractions we have
a lot can't really be all that upset with them.
Because we've done with the dominant black culture. Now, that's where blackness becomes an apex identity.
All right, now I want to say, I'm a black man and a man, I have no intention of being a black man in America. So my primary identity is Muslim.
My primary identity is Muslim. My values what I see as right or wrong, alarming form by the fact that I'm a Muslim, responsible before Allah.
And that's why no matter who you are, I can write this is right, that's wrong.
And with that, we can become an empowered community.
among black folks, I know some of our women listening.
We don't have time for planning my time.
I am sensitive to all the issues that our women have to confront
on the issues of all the disappointments on the page, right, all of the dismissal, all of that's real. But we have to address this as Muslims. We can't say I'm a woman. And what this man has to do is import everything I want and don't want. All right, it does my
meaning I don't do it
myself I'm talking about and the beauty of it is that we can address those issues as Muslims
this is what we have to understand we can not allow ourselves to fall into the timer identities. All right? And once we want a slab to follow rather than the
Islam has to be it man
is not in the sermon to be our leader. And that's why my sister and I, we can come together and we can agree or disagree. And she's gonna say
I shall hold books I've been reading on occasion. Okay. All right and numbers you see, okay. And this is an abridgment. He dabbled in Sabah. He mastered the cattle icicle Allah Sahaba.
A book and what's Aisha corrected? A mouse a harbor? So many times?
No, wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Why? Because she's a woman.
And once a holler said, We got seven for this woman. They said, What?
Oh, oh, he said that? Oh.
I'm very serious about this. You know what I'm saying?
Because I probably have
only been socialized more and more and more to make the problem worse. Last thing I want to say I want to say
no, no.
I will say sometimes.
Especially the dominant group of women.
say two things. First.
I would advise America to be smart.
What do I mean by be smart?
If America is smart, it will recognize that in the black American Muslim community, it is similar
to Western world,
as pulling out its head, trying to figure out how can Muslims become an organic integral part of the society? The entire Western world? That's all you hear?
Way back in 2001? I think it was.
They asked a group of black leaders gathered in a church of Philadelphia, what can we do to make Muslims feel like a more a part of us? The Reverend Al Sharpton said what? Oh, what are you talking about? Then that a person in this church pointed out a brother, a cousin, a father, a mother, a sister, someone close to their family? Who's now Muslim, so they are already a part of us?
Can you see that America?
We have Christian parents America, minimum says Christian Brothers, Christian sisters, hey, there's me.
We don't have that problem. We can show you. Right? What a healthy integration, I have the indigenization. And notice, I did not say a simulation. Because you're in a similar control society, and you don't belong to this MA. I'm gonna simulate into my own
Indigena indigenize. All right, we can teach you that this can be done.
You need to understand the value of this black American Muslim kid. And then finally, I want to say this. We intend
to pool our resources. If you're not organized, educate ourselves and to acquire enough power and influence to be able to defend our interests right here. We're not gonna run from power.
We're not going to hide and then imagine that somebody else is going to take care of us for us.
We're going to pursue the ability to take care of ourselves. But this is what you have to understand about us. And maybe I'm just speaking for me. So I'll say this. You can agree if you want a ride but
you see, you said we have been instructed by our Prophet.
Okay. We know even more something always right.
We know that. And this is why our Prophet taught us what
owns a Hapa volumen among human help you
My brother, what he does right or wrong, that asked him almost all the love, we understand that we shouldn't have our brother, if he is right, the how can we help our brother if he is wrong? And the Prophet said, Why'd
you stop him from doing that wrong?
This is who we are.
This is who we are as
American, black American Muslims
who are as interested in the common good as anyone else, but a common good, that is negotiate with us at the negotiating table.
Not uncommon good that you decide that we must assimilate into
the second one off here. I apologize for going over time. I just wanted to be clear and obey the law told me he didn't want to take a whole lot of time anybody