9 minute read
Black America Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
BLACK AMERICA DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE “Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good enjoining what is right forbidding what is wrong; they are the ones to attain felicity” (Quran 3:104).
BY JIMMY E. JONES
Advertisement
BLACK MUSLIMS: MEANINGS AND MANIFESTATIONS
African Americans, whose ancestors were forcibly transported from Africa to what would become the United States of America, are ideally positioned to answer the Quran’s call to be the ones “enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong” in both the American and international contexts. This assessment is repeatedly heard from those within and outside this particular community. However, this phrase is unlikely to become a reality if we don’t abandon some of the narratives that helped enable the brutal racism, xenophobia and nativism that still afflicts this country today.
Three of these narratives are particularly disempowering: despite the fact that the negative social and economic consequences 1. The contextual situation of our beloved Prophet Muhammad of such “revolutions” are heavily borne by economically stressed (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) is irrelevant to the situation that urban African Americans. African Americans find ourselves in today. Additionally, such “revolutions” often leave all African Americans
The facts speak for themselves. Muhammad ibn Abdullah was in a worse political position. A riot is riot, no matter who precipborn into a very tribalist society. He never knew his father Abdullah, itates it or participates in it. U.S. history tells us that the deadliest who died almost six months before he was born; lost both his mother riots in this country have been carried out by people identified as Amina and his doting guardian grandfather Abd al-Muttalib at the “Whites” against African Americans, other people of color and age of six; and was raised by his uncle Abu Talib who protected additional marginalized groups. When we are justifiably outraged him, even though the two didn’t share the same faith. by these wanton killings, the PVEE syndrome often causes us to
All of these themes are familiar to many in today’s African lose our minds (rationality) and morals (ethics). American community. Nevertheless, the Prophet rose above all 3. The “Black Community” is monolithic. This particular narrative portrays the “Black community” as a group of mainly poor
YES, THE “BLACK COMMUNITY” IS FAR LESS POOR people who are almost all descendants of those
THAN IT WAS HALF A CENTURY AGO, WHEN ABOUT who survived the Atlantic Slave Trade. This 60% OF US LIVED AT OR NEAR THE POVERTY LEVEL. notion is thoroughly debunked in Eugene’s Robinson’s paradigm-shifting “Disintegration:
THIS DOESN’T MEAN THAT RACISM HAS GONE AWAY; The Splintering of Black America” (Anchor
THE MONOCHROMATIC WAYS IN WHICH WE TEND TO In the first chapter, “Black America Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” he uses census data and
PLOT OUR STRATEGIES FOR OBTAINING JUSTICE. the historical election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president to show that the “Black community” of 2010 was/is very of them to become the leader of and moral exemplar for a small, different from the “Black community” of the 1960s and 1970s. marginalized multicultural community that ultimately conquered He argues that instead of one “Black community,” there are now the Arabian Peninsula and spread throughout the known civilized four: “A mainstream middle class” — the largest group, “A large, world of that time shortly after his death. abandoned minority” — approximately 25%, “A small, transcendent
The Prophet’s life example is extremely relevant to the African elite” — like the Obamas and Oprah and “Two newly emergent Americans’ situation today. He clearly loved his hometown Makkah groups” — mixed race and communities of recent Black immigrants. and his people. However, he never let that love silo him into a narrow Surprisingly, the largest group is what he calls the “mainstream tribalist view of justice, as many of the leaders in Makkah had done. middle class,” as opposed to the large, abandoned minority “with 2. The Post-Victimization Ethical Exemption Syndrome. less hope of escaping poverty and dysfunction than at any time
Much like combat-induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder since Reconstruction’s crushing end.” Yes, the “Black community” (PTSD), Post-Victimization Ethical Exemption (PVEE) is a mental is far less poor than it was half a century ago, when about 60% state that comes upon those who have been traumatized. In this of us lived at or near the poverty level. This doesn’t mean that case, various active forms of violent prejudice and discrimination racism has gone away; rather, it means that we should reconsider are the causes. The impact of the almost weekly wanton killings of the monochromatic ways in which we tend to plot our strategies people like Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd by for obtaining justice. For instance, do the terms “Blackamerican,” police or vigilantes are the most recent public manifestations of the “Black Muslim” and “Black America” really make sense in the curracism that has permeated the U.S. since its inception. rent U.S. reality, which is substantially more diverse than the one
The PVEE syndrome often allows survivors to promote a narrative we faced half a century ago? that defends, rationalizes or minimizes the unethical acts done by Prophet Muhammad was a synergistic visionary leader who them or other members of their group because their people, either faced some of the same issues that African Americans face today. are or have been oppressed, traumatized, brutalized and/or terror- Nevertheless, he did not choose to silo himself or other people ized. Therefore, an urban riot is no longer a riot but a “revolution,” based on tribal/geographical affiliations — even as they sought to
kill him. We would do well to revisit and learn from his Prophetic paradigm and clear Quranic imperatives that formed the basis of his praxis.
Practicing devout Muslims read, recite and study the Quran each and every day. However, even a cursory reading of the Quran by Muslims and people of other faith traditions reveal, among other things, three interconnected imperatives: God is one, humanity is one and justice is one.
God is One. “… And there is none like unto Him” (112:4). This last verse of this oft-recited surah pretty much says it all — nothing in creation can compare to the One who created it all. The second verse proclaims that “God [is] the eternal, absolute” and succinctly emphasizes the Creator’s timelessness while reaffirming God’s incomparable Oneness. Somehow, the English word “monotheism” doesn’t measure up to God’s ineffable existence.
This surah begins by admonishing the believer to “say: He is God [Allah] the one and only” (112:1). Consequently, the strong belief in and constant affirmation of God’s Oneness is essential to the Muslim’s being.
Humanity is One. “O mankind [humanity] revere your GuardianLord, who created you from a single person, created of like nature his mate and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women. Reverence God through whom you demand your mutual (rights) and (reverence) the wombs (that bore you), for God ever watches over you” (4:1).
Even militant atheistic Darwinists like the infamous Dr. Richard Dawkins, a British ethologist and evolutionary biologist, agree that all humans who currently live on this planet have one common ancestor. Nevertheless, we English-speakers have fallen in love with this idea of “race.” In referring to “race,” Anglophones usually mean that people who look different than they do belong to what is essentially a different species. Consequently, we talk about the “White,” the “Black,” and the “Asian” races, as if these terms are grounded in biological reality.
In 4:1 and elsewhere, the Quran makes it clear that we all belong to one human race. Science has only recently discovered and proven this critical point. “Race” is clearly a biological fiction and social construct that has been used to divide and conquer human beings for centuries. Much of the rhetoric we are hearing today from American political leaders and social activists on the “left,” “right” and “center” is a part of what has become a well-worn, tried and true tactic that tends to downplay the commonalities among humanity.
Justice is One. “O you who believe, stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God even as against yourselves or your parents or your kin and whether it be (against) rich or poor, for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts) lest you swerve. And if you distort (justice) or decline to do
justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that you do” (4:135).
Another English rendering of this oftquoted verse appears as a part of the “Words of Justice” exhibit hand-stenciled on the wall of Harvard Law School building. The European Enlightenment popularized the notion that all people should be subject to one standard of justice. However, the concept is found much earlier in 4:1 and throughout the entire Quran.
While this is not an easy standard for individuals, groups and societies to abide by, it is pretty much agreed that to the extent that we hold everyone to one standard of justice, we would have fairer and freer societies.
According to the 2016 Sentencing Project (https://www.sentencingproject. org/) report, “African Americans are more likely than White Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely. As of 2001, one of every three Black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos — compared to one of every seventeen White boys” (Ashley Nellis, Ph.D., The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons, June 14, 2016).
These stunning statistics and other indices tell us that the U.S. has a long way to go before it lives up to the Quranic imperative of “justice is one.”
THE WAY FORWARD
These stunning statistics and the almost constant vigilante and police-involved killings of Black and Brown people should also outrage God-conscious people. However, just because we are outraged doesn’t mean that we are free to lose our morals and minds. Our moral compass should be rooted in the Quranic imperatives, and our minds should be firmly fixed on how to make the world a better place for all members of the human race. Currently, there are people who call themselves “Muslim” who do things that impede our push for just societies. First, there is a group that denies the existence of any racial prejudice inside the Muslim community. We live in a society permeated by many forms of prejudice, with one of the major ones being racism. If the society of our Prophet could not escape its version of racial prejudice, what about us?
Second, there are African Americans and other cultural groups among Muslim Americans who analyze absolutely everything through a lens that privileges their own people. If we are to be witness for all humanity (2:143), we must push back against and dismantle these tropes as primary modes of analysis and action. As the Quran proclaims, “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for God as witnesses to fair dealing and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just, and that is next to piety, and fear God because God is well-acquainted with all that you do” (5:8). ih
