Before You Say I Do – EP03 – PT 2

be seen as man and wife, fulfilling Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. And welcome back. Before you say I do, and what to do if you already said yes, and we're talking about non personal factors that shape our relationships, and where relationships are talking about male female relationship, and we are on religion. Go ahead, and you're going to quote another Hadees. In one of these is that people came to Prophet Mohammed Salah Islam and said,

Prophet of Allah, we want to do suggest to you. So Prophet Muhammad said, if there was a provision to go for surgery for anybody else, then a lot, it should be women going for surgery to husband, have you heard this had this before? If I were to command anybody, to make sudo, to prostrate in front of anybody, it would be what I would have commanded a wife to make sujood or to prostrate for her husband think that this is misused? How about the other hand is that says women are deficient?

In what?

in their religion and in their intellect.

When these statements are taken out of context, what happens, they will definitely be misused and abused by others. And as such, they will reflect on the type of conception that we have on male female relationship. There is also the notion of racism, what is racism, racism, what color is part of it, but racism is when we assign a specific value to a person on the basis of their biological because color is part of their biology. So what we do is that we assign a value to a person on the basis of biology. So what happens is that we will take white Europeans as the paradigm or as a yardstick, the closer you are to being like white to being like European, what happens, the better

you are, the more successful you become. Or even less, the way you feel about yourself becomes what becomes insulated. And that is why that's really funny. If you look into most of the images that people have of Jesus peace be upon him, even though we do not believe in them. What did Jesus look like? He's usually what a white man he stole. And he's blond, and he's blue eyed. Hey, now, what happens if a white man, if I am a white man, what do I think? one of two things? Either God looks like me?

Or I look like God. And can you imagine what would that do to me? Okay, but see, what happens is this. How does racism play in our male female relationship? I have Muslims who come to the masjid and they say, I'm looking for a girl for my son. I say, okay, that's fine, shall we'll help you? Or tell me about her say she has to be fair skinned?

That is such a common request that I get. And mind you, they're talking to a black man. So they come. And they say, we're looking for a fair skin to marry our daughter. Why don't they say we're looking for somebody good? Don't they say that? But when do they say this? later on? The most important is what? woman has got to be white, though. It's got to be fair skin. But why is this? Because now we have been conditioned being taught, we've been bothered with the idea that you know what beauty is in what is in color, the closer you are to white Europeans, the more beautiful you'll become? What happens if you're not white? People try to become white. They either bleach themselves,

or they make themselves blondies. They put in color lenses and what have you. But now because we've been given definitions of beauty, that are based on racism,

there are racist in origin, that we take these definitions, and we use them and they do have an impact on our male female relationship, the way we view others. And that becomes very disgraceful and it becomes very despicable. Yet that is something that we cannot escape. Some people can say, Well, you know what, I watch TV, but it does not affect me. I say that's fine. You are kidding yourself. What do you take when you have a headache? Would you go to the pharmacy and buy medicine that you have not seen an ad for on TV? Most people don't do that. What do they buy something that they saw on TV Tylenol? By Tylenol because you know what it was on TV, we've seen it on TV, and

that's what people do. You may choose to reject it, but you cannot escape it people. It is there all the time we can choose to reject but we cannot escape from all these non personal factors. Okay, would you say that people are racist? Of course they are. Give an example. What

I was not feeling well. So the doctor said, you know, go get blood tests. Sometimes when people get tired, there might be something with their thyroid. So I went there. And I remember I went to the nurse. And I said, I would like to get a blood test. And this is in California, in Southern California, where most people there are white. So she immediately saw me and she said, but we don't do HIV or AIDS testing in our center. Why did she make that statement?

Why did she make that statement?

What did she see in me? Exactly. She saw black man, young, in college. Good looking, and why are you laughing?

So

she saw this, and she immediately what does she assume? What does he assume? Oh, he must be here to get an eighth test.

On what ways is what gave her that impression? The color of your skin? So as we're being racist, not only are we assigning value to people, but we're also stereotyping people. And as such, what do we say? Are we want a fair skinned for my daughter, I will offer a skin for my son, and it just goes on that way. And that is very sad. Okay. And then there is capitalism.

Okay, what is capitalism about?

It's about now in racism. The value is biological. In capitalism, the value is what? monetary. You have money. What happens?

You know, they say Money Talks.

It really does talk. What does it do? It assigns to people virtues that they don't have. It really does. It assigns to people, virtues that they do not possess. Oh, he's so smart. He's really dumb, but he's rich. In reality, that person is dumb. But he's the dumb person with lots of money. But what do we say about them? Oh, they're very smart. They may be. But then sad part about capitalism is when it assigns to people, virtues that they do not deserve? Neither do they have yet we assign them these virtues? On what basis? How much cash? And how much money do they have on them?

How does this play in our male female relationship?

in marriage? what we look for somebody who is rich? No, people go crazy. from people who come from a rich family and somebody is considered to marry what a poor person immediately what is the idea?

Where do you want work? Are they in it because of your money? As if everybody is after that money of yours? But then again, what happens is that even when we are up there, what are we looking for people from within

that same socio economic status that we are? Okay, just going back to the idea of racism 2003 70% of Japanese women in the US married non Japanese men. That's a high percentage. So if you are a Japanese woman, your chances of getting married are what they really good, is 70% of you are willing and they are getting proposals from non Japanese men, then that's good news. That same year, only 2% of African American women got married to non African American men. What does that tell you? People may have their own preference, or no problem. But what does that tell you? What does that reflect? Japanese women, 70% of them got married to non Japanese men, yet only 2% of African American women,

they got married to an African American man. So what happens is that now we're only to look for those who are like us, you know, it gets funny in the US when people come in. And they want you know, they want a girl for their son, who comes from where

not from the same country. But what else from the same province, from the same city from the same village, preferably from the same city that they grew up in. They get so very specific as if nobody is good with these kind of people. And of course, that is not acceptable. And then there is sexism, similar to racism, and similar to capitalism, where we assign value to people on the basis of their biology or the basis on their material. Also in sexism, we assign value to people on the basis of what their gender, you know, interestingly, if a man and a woman are hired to do the same job, and they do the same job perfectly fine.

Chances are, the man will get a better salary than the woman.

Even though the job is done the same, it does not matter who's doing it yet, a man will get a better salary than a woman why

we practice this almost at any given day. This is what we look into. And this is what we practice. And people may have their non personal factors. But remember that as far as these non personal factors are concerned, sometimes we don't even pay attention to it. They do have an impact on us, and we don't pay attention to it. Remember one time, and maybe I can do this with the brothers nine right now. So please, if you would participate in this, please close your eyes. And I promise not to punch you in the face. God, close your eyes. Close your eyes. Okay. And now I want you to for those of you who are single, yes, the girl of your dreams.

Open your eyes. What country the second from when we do this exercise. You ask questions that people really do not you know, you start imagining what what kind of a question Did you see? Okay, now so that nobody is left out to my favor. Everybody just close your eyes. Okay, sisters, as well. Imagine that you are in your house and you hear a sound going on downstairs and you feel that there is a burglar downstairs. So you go downstairs and you see the burglar. They have a mask on their face. You call the police and somehow the police manages to come and get the burglar and the burglar is caught open your eyes. What did you see? How many of you saw a man

that the burglar was a man? How many of you saw a woman as a burglar?

With these what happens? Why do we assume this? Do women steal?

They do but what happens when we thinking this way? Immediately? You know it's funny because sometimes even if your house is robbed, how does the police and the people start talking? Or he probably came from the window? Why is it a he could have been a woman for was it oh he probably came from the window creepiness she but then again we automatically say what he probably came from the window. So anyways, our time is almost over but these were some of the non personal factors that shape our relationship as far as male female relationship is concerned. Okay, so inshallah, who is this we come to the conclusion to this part of our program. We're glad that you've joined us and

inshallah, we hope that you will join us again, until we meet next time we say so long and Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh