moors, snakes and st. patrick

The Moorish Science Temple of America was a proto-Islamic group founded by Noble Drew Ali which gained some prominence in the United States among African-Americans before the Nation of Islam came on the scene. Not completely unlike the Nation, the Moorish Science had their own peculiar racial doctrines which set up a theological difference between whites and blacks. And so later on, when European-Americans (many of them "hippies" and "beatniks") saw something in Noble Drew Ali's teachings which was appealing to them and they wanted to accept the prophethood of Noble Drew Ali and form the Moorish Orthodox Church, a certain amount of explanation was required. And it just so happens that the explanation they chose connects Islam and the Moors to St. Patrick's Day.


Manifesto of the BLACK THORN LEAGUE

1. According to orally-transmitted teachings of Noble Drew Ali, founder & Prophet of the Moorish Science Temple of America: -- Ireland was once part of the Moorish Empire; that is, the celts were Moslems, & there were black moors from N. Africa also present in Ireland. But the moors were expelled by militant Christianity -- this event is disguised in the legend of St. Patrick's expelling the snakes - for which reason the MST celebrates St. Patrick's Day, in a mood of irony perhaps, in expectation of an eventual Return.

2. In Noble Drew Ali's system, celts are considered an "Asiatic race", & thus potential converts to Moorish Science. We consider NDA's theories to be racial but not racist, because (again according to oral tradition) they were based (at least in part) on spiritual affinity. "Europeans" who wished to Join the MST (including some of the later founders of the Moorish Orthodox Church) were declared to be really celts or "Persians" -- (which may have something to do with the oft-remarked similarity of Eiran and Iran).

3. NDA's hidden history of Ireland may be taken as an esoteric metaphor -but it is supported in some surprising ways by archaeology & even "official" history. In the first place, the celts are an Asiatic race, or at least the most recent arrivals in the west from the mysterious "Hyperborean" heartland of the Aryans -- last of those nomadic migrations which settled India, Persia & Greece.

4. Second: What is one to make of those early Celtic crosses inscribed with the bismillah ("In the Name of God", opening words of the Koran) in kufic Arabic, found in Ireland? The Celtic Church, before its destruction by the Roman hierarchy, maintained a close connection with the desert hermit-monks of Egypt. Is it possible this connection persisted past the 7th/8th centuries, & that the role of the monks was taken up by Moslems? by Sufis? in contact with a still-surviving underground Celtic Church, now become completely heretical, & willing to syncretize Islamic esotericism with its own Nature-oriented & poetic Faith?

5. Such a syncresis was certainly performed centuries later by the Templars & the Assassins (Nizari Ismailis). When the Temple was suppressed by Rome & its leaders burned at the stake, Ireland provided refuge for many incognito Templars. According to The Temple & The Lodge, these Templars later reorganized as a rogue Irish branch of Freemasonry, which (in the early 18th century) would resist amalgamation with the London Grand Lodge. The Islamic connection with masonry is quite clear, both in the Templar & the Rosicrucian traditions, but Irish masonry may have inherited an even earlier Islamic link -- memorialized in those enigmatic crosses!

6. It's interesting to note that Noble Drew Ali's Masonic initiations may not have been limited to Prince Hall or black Shriner transmissions, but may also have included some hidden lines connected to Irish masonry, & dating back to Revolutionary days in American history. It is known that many common soldiers in the British Colonial Army were masons affiliated with the Irish rather than the London Grand Lodge. This "class" difference -was reflected in the American Revolutionary Army, whose officers were "official" masons but whose private ranks tended to be "Irish".

7. Historians sometimes forget that in the 18th century, in America, the Irish were generally considered "no better than Negroes". In 1741 on St. Patrick's Day in New York a riot broke out, involving a conspiracy which included Irish, African, & Native American men & women -- naturally "of the meanest sort." Some Irish conspirators were overheard to swear they'd kill as many "white people" as possible. The uprising failed & the plotters were executed. As the bodies of two hanged in the open air decayed in an Iron gibbet, "observers noticed a gruesome, yet instructive, transformation. The corpse of an Irishman turned black & his hair curly while the corpse of Caesar the African, bleached white. It was accounted a 'wondrous phenomenon'" (Linebaugh & Rediker, "The Many-Headed Hydra").

8. Clearly the Celt & African were linked not only in the gaze of the oppressor class, but also in their own world-view -- as comrades, as somehow the same -- in a solidarity which extended to Indians & to other "Europeans" who fell beneath the level of the "respectable poor" into the category of slaves & outcasts. Racist feelings did not divide the 18th century poor & marginalized -- as would become the case under later Capitalism. Rather the marginalized of all races constituted an underclass & moreover, an underclass with some awareness of itself, hence with a certain power (the power of the "strong victim"). This consciousness might well have been developed in part by Irish-black "masonry" of some sort. And Noble Drew Ali might have known of this tradition, which he masked (or perhaps unveiled) in his parable of the snakes - & celebration of March 17th.

9. In another interpretation of St. Patrick's anti-reptilism, the "snakes" he banished were in fact "druids", i.e. Celtic pagans. The snake may have been an emblem of the Old Faith, as it is for many forms of paganism, including African (Damballah) & Indian (the Nagas) -- & even for the Ophite Christianity of Egypt (Christ himself depicted as a crucified snake).

10. Celtic pagan lore was embedded in the Romance traditions especially in the Arthurian material -- & here once again. we find ourselves in the world of the Arabo-Celtic crosses. For the romances are permeated with "Islamic" consciousness. In Malory's Morte dArthur & Eschenbach's Parzifal many Saracen (i.e. Moslem/Moorish) knights are depicted not as enemies but allies of the Celts -- & in the latter book the entire story is attributed to Moorish sources (which are now lost). Saracens, Christians, & crypto-pagans are united in a mystical cult of chivalry which transcends outward religious forms, & is emblematized not only in pagan symbols like the Grail & the Questing Beast, but even in such cultural borrowings as the lute (al-'ud in Arabic), or indeed the cult of romantic/chivalric love, transmitted from Islam to the west by Sufis in Spain.

11. Ireland's contacts with Spain certainly extend back into the Islamic period, & the so-called "Black Irish" may have as many Moorish as castillian genes. Medieval Irish monks probably absorbed Sufism & Islamic philosophy along with the art of the illuminated manuscript -- witness the extraordinary stylistic resonance between the Book of Eells & the Kufic Korans of Omayyad Spain. If St. Francis could visit N. Africa & come back to Italy wearing a Sufi's patched cloak, so the Irish might easily borrow from Egypt & al-Andalus.

12. All speculation aside, the Moorish Orthodox Church entertains its own esoteric interpretation of NDA's teachings on these matters. We heartily endorse his "elective affinity" theory of affiliation with a greater spiritual Celto-Asiatic "race". DNA counts for something, but soul for a great deal more. "Every man & woman their own vine & fig tree" (one of NDA's slogans) is not a matter of fate but of character, not of birth but of choice.

13. In our historical/imaginative exegesis & unfolding of NDA's parable, we have uncovered a complex of heretical Islamic & Moorish cultural strands linking Celtic neo-paganism, esoteric Christianity, & the Arthurian cycle, thru Sufism & masonry, to the perennial libertarian struggle of the marginalized & oppressed peoples of the "Atlantic" world.

14. We propose to embody this poetic complex in a popular chivalric order, devoted symbolically to the cause of "bringing the snakes back to Ireland" - that is, of uniting all these mystical strands into one patterned weave, which will restore the power of its synergistic or syncretistic power to the hearts of those who respond to the particular "taste" of its mix. We have borrowed this slogan from contemporary neo-pagans in order to symbolize the special mission our order will undertake toward Celtic-Moorish friendship. The BLACK THORN LEAGUE will be open to all, regardless of whether they are MOC members or not, providing only that they support this particular goal.

15. "Black" in our title signifies not only the black banners of the moors but also the black flag of anarchy. "Blackthorn", because the tree symbolizes druid Irelands & is used to make cudgels. "League", in honor of the various Irish rebel groups which have organized as such. Other organizational models include such Masonic revolutionary groups as the Carbonari, or Proudhon's anarchist "Holy Vehm", or Bakunin's Revolutionary Brotherhood. We also emulate certain anarcho-Taoist Chinese tongs (such as the Chaos Society)~~ & hope to evolve the kind of informal mutual aid webworks they developed.

16. The League will bestow the Order of the Black Thorn as title & honor, & will hold an annual conclave & banquet on St. Patrick's Day in memory both of Noble Drew Ali's vision, & of those rioters of 1741 who conspired in low taverns to overthrow the State. Bring The Snakes Back To Ireland!

Hakim Bey:
Moorish Tag Day Update

Planet Grenada:
"funny, you don't look moorish"
white muslims and moorish science
hakim bey, ontological anarchy and cultural expression

"my pride is racist people say, but no one minds st. patrick's day"

I haven't heard this song, or seen this video in a very long time. But given today's date it seemed appropriate. The song is called "Split Personality" from a group called Basehead.

happy birthday to me

Cool. Tomorrow is Planet Grenada's birthday. It's been an interesting year.

more marvin x

Chicken Bone: Artist Profile: Marvin X
In the mid-1960s, playwright Marvin X founded the Black House, the Black Education Theater and many other Tenderloin stages that served as headquarters for the Black Arts Movement.

In 2004, X put on the Tenderloin Book Fair and University of Poetry, a sprawling daylong lit fest. Now 61, he's writing a book about Islamic history in the Bay Area and is writing a play with Dead Prez.

King: The Black Arts Movement is built on many ideals. Which, for you, are the strongest?

Marvin: The Black Arts Movement is about consciousness-raising music and literature. It's about the Paul Robeson concept of the artistic freedom fighter; about making statements that saturate the political nervous system.

King: You've been called a radical activist. What would you tell a group of 20-year-old playwrights if they said they don't care about radicalism?

Marvin: I would say what Mao Zedong said: "Let a hundred schools of thought contend." I don't want anything to do with them. Go do your thing. I've got a mission to actually change something. Like Bush said, you with me or against me. Contrary to Bush, the main addiction in America is not oil, it's white supremacy. That's the addiction from which all other addictions spring. Deal with the problem of supremacy, and you'll solve the greed for oil, the murder for oil. That's what's radical to me. We need a thousand Frantz Fanons, and white people need to have a 12-step supremacy-recovery program. Go in, have a detox. Maybe it'll help you, and us.

King: Do you think hip-hop is to black culture now what jazz in the 60s was to the Black Arts Movement?

Marvin: No! Jazz in the 60s was aligned with the freedom struggle, the music of Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders. It was liberation music. Hip-hop don't have that, at least not on BET, MTV. That's because the ruling class don't want people awake. They want people asleep. . . . I grew up in a politically charged household. My parents were involved in the NAACP and published a black newspaper in Fresno, so it's not strange for me to be politically conscious.

King: What do you think about the concept of Black History Month?

Marvin: Now people are writing about the Black Arts Movement. But you won't dare invite the originators, who are still alive. You don't want them around because that would reveal your contradictions.

previously on Grenada:
marvin x
marvin x: first muslim american poet
my son, the fanatic

children's crusade

Washington Post: In Uganda, a Fresh Start For Former Child Fighters

The children are victims of a 20-year insurgency waged by the Lord's Resistance Army, a shadowy rebel group that wants to overthrow the government and install the Ten Commandments as law. Since it was founded in the 1980s, the group has kidnapped an estimated 20,000 children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.

Thousands of the children have escaped. When they return home, many suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, having witnessed brutal killings -- sometimes of a parent or sibling -- or having been raped, beaten, deprived of water and food or forced to kill, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal in March 2004.

For a previous post on Christian terrorism, check out: eric robert rudolph

"goodbye children"

World Net Daily: Isaac Hayes quits 'South Park' after spoof on Scientologists It makes sense that he would quit working on South Park after it started to mock his own faith. (Hayes is a Scientologist). But he apparently didn't have a problem with South Park mocking every other religion, so I don't think he can claim that he wants to respect all religions equally.

the south park where chef becomes muslim

sandra day o'connor says us risks edging near to dictatorship

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.

Ms O'Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supreme court justice, declared: "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary."

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

Common Dreams: Former Top Judge Says US Risks Edging Near to Dictatorship

louder than a bomb

In These Times: Louder Than a Bomb: an Interview with Chicago Hip-Hopper Kevin Coval by Aaron Sarver.

I just saw Kevin Coval recently. It was the second time I saw him live. He's a decent Chicago poet who has some interesting pieces dealing with his Jewish heritage and how it connects to his political convictions. He has this nice piece which connects the swaying of orthodox Jews while davening to hip-hop headnodding which he performed on Def Poetry Jam a while back.

a soldier's story

Has anyone out there seen A Soldier's Story ? That's one gooood movie. The film was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning work by Charles Fuller, A Soldier's Play about the murder of an African-American, Sgt. Waters (played by Adolph Caesar) near an army base. The officer sent to investigate the murder, Capt. Davenport (played by Howard E. Rollins Jr.) is also Black, and many of the soldiers on the base are also African-American. The initial suspicion is that the murder was racially motivated and committed by the Klan but the story (often told through flashbacks from when Waters was alive) gradually gets more and more complex.

The setting of the film is in some ways like one of those Russian Easter eggs... a shell within a shell within a shell. It takes place during World War II when the Allies are fighting against a Nazi regime... inside the United States which is still very racist, on an army base where segregation is still practiced, among African-American soldiers where some of them have very definite ideas of what it means to be Black.

For example, in one flashback scene, Sgt. Waters says to CJ, a Black solider from the south:

Them Nazis ain't all crazy. Whole lot of people just can't seem to fit in to where things seem to be going. Like you, CJ. See, the Black race can't afford you no more. There used to be a time, we'd see someone like you singin', clownin', yassuh-bossin'...and we wouldn't do anything. Folks liked that. You were good. Homey kind of nigger. When they needed somebody to mistreat, call a name or two, they paraded you.Reminded them of the good old days. Not no more. The day of the Geechee is gone, boy. And you're going with it. We can't let nobody go on believing we're all fools like you.

In another scene, Sgt. Waters talks about an earlier time during WWI,

You know the damage one ignorant Negro can do? We were in France in the first war; we'd won decorations. But the white boys had told all them French gals that we had tails. Then they found this ignorant colored soldier, paid him to tie a tail to his ass and run around half-naked, making monkey sounds. Put him on the big round table in the Cafe Napoleon, put a reed in his hand, crown on his head, blanket on his shoulders, and made him eat *bananas* in front of all them Frenchies. Oh, how the white boys danced that night... passed out leaflets with that boy's picture on it. Called him Moonshine, King of the Monkeys. And when we slit his throat, you know that fool asked us what he had done wrong?

I think I have more of Sgt. Waters in me than I care to admit. Probably some CJ too. And the less said about that, the better.

Also, check out: A Soldier's Story Script but this is like the script available for Deep Cover in that the document doesn't include the speakers' names. So it is useful if you want to find a particular quote, once you've already seen the film but it is not so useful if you want to follow the story. I also looked for the script to the original play online, but the only sites which come up are ones that aren't free.

not really the same thing but it is in the same ballpark

I was pretty surprised when Brownfemipower and other women of color bloggers were alluding to the fact that for some reason their blogs seemed to come up in searches for internet pornography (See A Radical Woman of Color Perspective). In the case of Planet Grenada, I use site meter and webstats4u.com to keep track of hits and in general I would say that visitors are getting what they came for. (Only occasionally, some people are looking for specific information related to the island nation of Grenada).

But what surprised me recently is that yesterday, I received the greatest daily number of hits EVER on Planet Grenada (413 page views) but the overwhelming number of them were from people searching for info on wafah dufour (Bin Laden's niece who posed half-nekkid... yes nekkid... in GQ and is trying to have a music career). Since I actually have a brief blog entry on her it is not as inappropriate as what is going on with the abovementioned radical women of color bloggers, but still, I would never have expected (or hoped) that this would be my most popular post.

What is also kind of odd is that the original post went up over a month ago so why is the spike happening now?

post traumatic slave syndrome

In These Times recently published an interview with Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. The basic idea seems to be that the legacy of slavery constituted a kind of trauma and consequently African-Americans today generally suffer from something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. I have my reservations. Personally I'm a bigger fan of Frantz Fanon or Naim Akbar when it comes to understanding Black psychology. But from a certain perspective, they are all saying basically the same thing: Racism drives Black folks crazy. And somehow Fanon and Akbar both manage to sound optimistic and empowering as they say this.

Fanon says: Yes, Black folks (well... mostly the colonized Algerians) are crazy. Literally, clinically crazy. But so are the French. And things will be okay after the revolution.

Akbar says: Yes, Black folks are crazy (in a cultural sense). But things will be okay after you read my latest book.

But Leary sounds like she is saying Blacks are literally crazy in a clinical sense, in a way which tends to call into question Black humanity. Moreover, she sees the problem as rooted in past slavery rather than present conditions, which then puts serious limits on what we can do to get well. Anyway, tell me what you think.

gordon parks r.i.p.

I only want to be a soldier, I'm holding on, to a culture
Focused like Gordon Parks when it's sorta dark
For niggas that's flooded with ice, my thoughts the ark
- "Dooinit" , Common

NYTimes: Gordon Parks, a Master of the Camera, Dies at 93
Wikipedia: Gordon Parks

whites will be a minority in ny

New York Times: Whites to Be Minority in N.Y. Soon, Data Show
In New York City itself, whites have been a minority since the 1980's. But now the demographics of the surrounding area has been changing a lot as well.

the african palestinian connection

From Third Resurrection: The African Palestinian Connection by Rami Nashashibi

inner city muslim action network and latino activists

This particular march will be happening in Chicago, but there might be others in your vicinity. But I mainly think it is great that I.M.A.N. is even involved in this. They are an Islamic organization with a real commitment to helping people here and not just "back home" in Muslim countries.

Click here for more info on HR 4437
Click Here for more information about the march

In keeping with IMAN's (Inner City Muslim Action Network) larger commitment to advocate on behalf of and organize along side the most vulnerable and exploited sectors of our community, particularly in urban areas, IMAN is actively requesting larger Muslim participation in tomorrow's march and rally against Bill HR 4437.

Bill HR 4437, commonly referred to as the Sensenbrenner Bill (after Republican House Representative Sensennbrenner from Wisconsin), is one of the most draconian and unjust pieces of legislation to be introduced to congress in recent years. While it has deep implications for all immigrants and the larger society, it most viscously targets the large undocumented Latino community and anyone or any entity that provides them with the most nominal level of support, including the most basic human services.

IMAN will join a coalition of many leading Latino organizations and agencies across the state to take part in a Day of General Strike on Friday March 10th. Please join us to demonstrate the concern of the larger Muslim community for this social justice and human dignity issue. As sectors of the Muslim community continue to struggle with its own legislative injustices, our larger community cant afford to be silent or aloof from these types of actions and opportunities to build solidarity with our Latino brothers and sisters across the state. Moreover, this is a great opportunity for segments of the Latino community to interact with the Muslims through their presence at the march and through the Friday Jummah Prayer, which will be in English and translated into Spanish.

Email latino@imancentral.org or call the IMAN Office at 773-434-IMAN to speak with Adalberto Madrigal for organizing details

Meet at 11am to car pool in the parking lot of the New IMAN Health Clinic and Administrative Center at 2748 W. 63rd Street, just east of 63rd Street and California Avenue or meet at the marching location itself at 11:45am to march with IMAN at Ashland and Lake. Finally, some of you may wish to join us at the rally itself at the Federal Plaza at 230 S Dearborn St at 2pm, right after Jummah services.

what a country!

I think Bowling for Columbine was so on target. There is something in U.S. American history which laced "us" with a stream of fear and alarmism but somehow bypassed Canada. And it's something older than 9/11. My guess is that alot of it is wrapped up with slavery. Nat Turner, the Haitian Revolution, etc. The fear of the black/brown mass rising up. And so today, fear becomes an easy button for politicians to push.

Al-Jazeera: Canada allows Sikh knives in school

afro-latino? latino? black?

From Elenamary's site: Afro-Latino? Latino? Black? (On Mariah Carey)

race and dc comics

In the course of looking for links on black comic books (mainly the Storm/Black Panther wedding being done by Marvel Comics) I came across an article called The Racial Justice Experience: Diversity In The DC Universe: 1961 - Today by John Wells which summarizes how race has been dealt with by DC.

better late than never...

I was tagged by Black Looks a few weeks ago
1. Black and White or Color; how do you prefer your movies?

Color. (I'm not always deep. I'm a fan of the old Twilight Zones and a few old movies... 12 Angry Men comes to mind... but I generally want some color. Goodnight and Goodluck was alright but I'd much rather read about the McCarthy era in a book.)

2. What is the one single subject that bores you to near-death?

Sports. Like Huey Freeman says: "And today in sports, a black man somewhere ran with a ball and jumped with a ball and threw a ball and people got really excited as if they hadn't seen it a million times before"

3. MP3s, CDs, Tapes or Records: what is your favorite medium for prerecorded music?

8-Track.. lol... I used to DJ so I appreciate vinyl. I feel like I'm practically Amish since I've never downloaded music onto an I-pod or burned a CD on my computer. But seriously, I guess I'm still a CD-person.

4. You are handed one first class trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world and ten million dollars cash. All of this is yours provided that you leave and not tell anyone where you are going … Ever. This includes family, friends, everyone. Would you take the money and ticket and run?

With ten million I could take care of my family, friends, everyone.

5. Seriously, what do you consider the world’s most pressing issue now?

This is kind of a cop-out because it's kind of amorphous but I would say global north-south issues.

6. How would you rectify the world’s most pressing issue?

Among other things, political power needs to be decentralized, shared among different countries. We need a stronger UN, and other international bodies. Third world countries should democratize (on their own terms), develop and cooperate.

7. You are given the chance to go back and change one thing in your life; what would that be?

I have an answer but I'm not sharing.

8. You are given the chance to go back and change one event in world history, what would that be?

First I will get onto a soapbox and suggest that history actually isn't determined by individuals or specific events... especially if you think about Guns, Germs and Steel.
I also saw Butterfly Effect one too many times so I'm actually really skeptical as to how effective any changes would be.
But for the moment I'll say I would prevent exposing Europe to the Black Death. That way, Europe's Dark Ages would have progressed very differently, and so would the early encounter between the Indigenous people of the Americas and the Europeans.

9. A night at the opera, or a night at the Grand Ole’ Opry – Which do you choose?

Since I don't speak Italian, I will say Grand Ole' Opry.

10. What is the one great unsolved crime of all time you’d like to solve?

The 2000 Presidential election.

11. One famous author can come to dinner with you. Who would that be, and what would you serve for the meal?

Sushi with Suheir Hammad.

12. You discover that John Lennon was right, that there is no hell below us, and above us there is only sky — what’s the first immoral thing you might do to celebrate this fact?

I'm Muslim, but I have a certain amount of respect for Buddhism. I really do think that certain vices really do have real spiritual consequences which we experience even in this life. So I'm not actually certain that I would go out an rob a bank or something. Um.... eat a ham sandwich?

plan for iran

Alternet: The Peace Movement's Plan For Iran starts to raise the question of what people of conscience can do to prevent a war between the US and Iran.

post-oscar wrap up

So, the Academy apparently gave in to the pressure and the Palestinian film Paradise Now was designated as coming from the "Palestinian Authority".

Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla won best original score for his work on Brokeback Mountain and he gave a thanks to all his Latin peoples.

Crash won for best picture. I thought the film was interesting and better than average but in certain respects it fell short. It did a fair job of discussing the complexities of race relations but the contradiction represented by Matt Dillon's character (being both hero and villain) was too big to swallow. Perhaps a better actor could have made it more palatable, but in the end I think the character, as written, is unbelievable. Other characters from Crash certainly represent varying combinations of virtue and vice but Dillon's character straddles too wide a fence for anyone to sit on convincingly.

I was surprised that Dolly Parton didn't win best song for Travelling Thru from the Transamerica soundtrack. I was impressed by the irony of having a country-style gospel song which talks about being "born again" in a movie about a transgendered person waiting to get their operation.

Instead Three 6 Mafia won the Oscar for best original song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow. On the one hand, it is good to see more Black people winning Oscars, especially since Jesus (as) doesn't get enough shout-outs at these kinds of award ceremonies. (And he did get a shout-out, along with George Clooney and their mommas) On the other hand, it is disheartening to vividly see what kinds of roles for people of color tend to get the big prize. (Denzel didn't get the Oscar for Malcolm X, he got it for Training Day. And in another year, Do The Right Thing didn't win best picture, but Driving Miss Daisy did) But maybe I'm being a little paranoid since even the white guys tend to win Oscars for playing crazy or broken men (Charlie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rain Man, etc.)

Did anybody else watch the Oscars? What do y'all think?

Alternet: Crash wins!
Al-Jazeera: New Trouble for Paradise Now
Lyrics to It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp
Lyrics to Travellin Thru
Blog for Transamerica (with music)
Good Summary of Movie Award History which isn't IMDB

us intervention in venezuela

Common Dreams: US Intervention in Venezuela by Medea Benjamin looks at why the US calls Chavez undemocratic even though he keeps getting re-elected and has higher approval ratings than Bush.

chavez and iran

Miami Herald: Chávez's wooing of Iran called troubling

support our ceos

Another piece from Ron English

the art and subversion of ron english

I'm not sure what this picture means except that it seems to go well with the previous entry. For those that don't know, Ron English is the artist whose paintings were featured throughout the film Super Size Me. He also has his own website which is full of other images he's created called Popaganda. Enjoy... or be unsettled and disturbed. It could go either way with this guy's stuff. Or check out: Ron English: Agit-Pop Artist

where is the beef?

When I first became Muslim, I gave up eating pork. At the same time, I was generally reading and thinking more critically about what kinds of food I put in my mouth and what that meant politically and healthwise. After a while, as I learned a little more about Islamic laws, I stopped eating supermarket meat(non-fish, non-zabiha) as well. And quickly thereafter I decided it would be simpler to tell people "I am a vegetarian" and avoid meat altogether and I continued this way for years. At the moment, my eating habits aren't really any different but technically I'm not sure I would call myself vegetarian. In principle, I'm just sticking to a halal diet. But I definitely don't go out of my way to eat halal meat (even though there is a Muslim grocery store an easy walk from my house).

I'm not sure why I'm saying any of this except it seemed a good introduction to justify why I'm including links to:

The Meatrix (a site which parodies the Matrix in order to criticize factory farming) and the McDonalds Video Game (A "simple" Sim-city type game where you get to run McDonalds and are encouraged to do all sorts of shady and unethical things just to stay in business).

I'm not the kind of extremist who goes around splashing red paint on fur coats, or breaks into labs to free the animals from the experiments. I'm not even taking the position that "Meat is Murder", after all qurbani is a part of Islam too.

See also:
Crescent Life: Who Says Muslims Can't be Vegetarian?
Elightenment: Islamic Vegetarians Fight the System
Grenada: sean muttaqi, vegan reich and the hardline movement

tears and solidarity also...

I haven't written on Sunni-Shia unity in a while, so I thought I should pass along this link from Ihsan: tears and solidarity also... on the events in Iraq in the wake of the destruction of the shrine of the 10th and 11th imams.

afrocentricity and islam ii

In response to Afrocentricity and Islam II over at Garvey's Ghost I just wanted to make a couple of points:

It is possible I was being unfair and assumed that Sondjata believed certain things which he actually wouldn't agree with. I just saw our exchanges as tapping into a larger conversation between Muslims and Afrocentrists of different stripes where individual Muslims and individual Afrocentrists take different positions, but there seem to be some general trends.

For example, I would say that Molefi Kete Asante who literally wrote the book on Afrocentrism is "anti-Islamic" in the sense that he dismisses Islam as merely being a form of Arab nationalism and says that Blacks who are Muslim aren't truly Afrocentric. Others are more in the middle, like Cheikh Anta Diop or Blyden who have more positive things to say about Islam without necessarily being Muslim themselves. And at the other end you have people like Naim Akbar (the psychologist and author) who would identify themselves as both Afrocentric and Muslim at the same time. Another good example would be Duse Muhammad Ali (an Egyptian Muslim who was an early Pan-Africanist and an influence on Marcus Garvey). So not all advocates for Afrocentrism/Pan-Africanism have the same relationship to Islam. Some are quite positive, while others are quite negative. And I'm not making any claims about where Sondjata fits on that continuum.

The other big idea which I hope to throw out there is that perhaps it would be good to not have a rigid concept of what it means to be "African", especially for the purposes of Pan-Africanism. "Africa" is larger than the events which occur within the geographic boundaries of the continent of Africa before the native inhabitants were influenced by outside forces. "Africa" is a living set of cultures which changes over time, accepts new elements, makes them her own, and transforms them in her own image. It is also something which spills outside borders and includes the whole diaspora, from the streets of Harlem, the favelas in Brazil, the southside of Chicago, the dancehall of Kingston, mardis gras in New Orleans, Cuban hip-hop, the Hatian Revolution, the military campaigns of Hannibal, or the writings of the al-Jahiz the classical Black Iraqi author. And I would argue that this is especially true when it comes to looking at the Black presence in Middle Eastern civilizations.

Let's assume that Diop is right in saying that ancient Egypt was a Black African civilization. Even if Jacob and his children were blonde-haired blue-eyed Vikings when they arrived in Egypt, their descendants hundreds of years later had definitely intermarried with the native population and left Egypt as an African-descended nation. (the Bible is actually rather explicit on how Abraham, Joseph and Moses married African women. And it is also possible to give more examples from the Bible and Muslim writings to expand on this point.) So it seems wrong to simply dismiss the Abrahamic religions as being absolutely foreign to Africa.

That's basically what I wanted to get across in these discussions.

what the hell?

What the hell?

Actually, one of these opened up near me. It still boggles my mind how a store can open up and have a racial slur as its name....

latino voice of opposition to the war: march for peace

OBJECTIVE: A 241 mile march that aims at ensuring that the Latino voice of opposition to the War is heard loud and clear across the Americas.

WHAT/ WHEN: Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across this 241 mile quest for peace starting in Tijuana, Mexico, going through Marine Corps Depot Camp Pendleton to the Cesar Chavez burial site in La Paz, CA, culminating in The Mission district of San Francisco with a memorial ceremony and blood drive.

The March will begin on 12 March 2006. The coalition of the willing will arrive at La Paz, CA on 22 March 2006 and culminate in San Francisco from 26 March 2006 to 27 March 2006.

WHY: Latinos represent nearly 15% of the US population and 11% of the US military, with many serving in combat or hazardous duty occupations. In addition, an estimated 20% of the fallen service members in the early months of the invasion were Latino. With the continued growth of the Latino population and its vital importance to the future of this country, it is time the Latino community become an active and vocal part of the 60%+ of US citizens that oppose this War. It is also time to show the Latino community that they have a voice and a right to fight for peace and stability. Fernando Suarez Del Solar is committed to self-sacrifice. At 50 years of age he cares more about ending this war than even his own health. We make this call not only to the Latino population but to all those who agree with our message “No more bloodshed in Iraq”.

For More Information Click Here

organizing the religious left

In These Times: Organizing the Religious Left by Bob Burnett is another brief review of Lerner's The Left Hand of God.

And from Common Dreams: Praise the Lord and Pass the Petition by Ira Chernus talks more concretely about how some of this organizing is starting to take place among Lutherans.

black arabs / moors

Another blog I just found out about is called CORNBREAD & CURRY & COUSCOUS and what got my attention was their relatively recent entry: BLACK ARABS/MOORS

many hispanics finding faith in islam

From a blog I just found out about called Muslima's Voice: Many Hispanics finding faith in Islam And at the Muallaf blog, one can also find the conversion story of Marcela Rojas

black comic books

For those that don't know, Storm and Black Panther, two of the longest running (not completely tokenized and stereotypical) Black superheroes in the Marvel universe will be getting married this summer.
For Storm and Black Panther, it's my big fat superhero wedding
Reginald Hudlin & Eric Dickey Talk about Black Panther/Storm Wedding

And in order to maintain some sort of cosmic balance in the Black comic book world, Universal Press Syndicate confirmed today that Aaron McGruder will go on hiatus from the Boondocks strip beginning March 27, hopefully resuming the strip in October.

islam and afrocentrism

Over at Garvey's Ghost, Sondjata wrote a piece called afrocentricity and islam which was a response to a Grenada entry: islam and the african people. Unfortunately, comments don't seem to be working at Garvey's Ghost or else I would probably make my points over there. But what I would respectfully argue is that in at least a few a cases Sondjata is mistaken in his attempts to refute the original article (For example, some comments he attributes to Uthman Dan Fodio really were made by Cheikh Anta Diop). And in any case, the larger point is basically untouched: that various major Afrocentric scholars mentioned really did have a number of positive things to say regarding Islam's role in African history. And I would add that the best argument (at least, the best argument I can easily make right now) in favor of the fact that a strong Black and African identity is totally compatible with Islam is just the Third Resurrection blog and all the articles posted over there. Islam's roots in the Black world are just too deep to give the Black Orientalist position too much credibility. Islam has had links to Africa and Black people from the very beginning and it is sily to argue that it is in any sense unAfrican.

why is halliburton building internment camps?

alt.muslim: Why Is Halliburton Building Internment Camps?

don't know what else to say

Common Dreams: The Case for Closing Guantanamo is Overwhelming
Common Dreams: Guantanamo: American Gulag
Alt.Muslim: A Harsher Light Shines on Guantanamo Bay

clashing sensibilities

In These Times: Islam vs. the West: Clashing Sensibilities by Salim Muwakkil.

I generally like Salim Muwakkil's writings, but this time I wonder what he's thinking. On the cartoon controversy he says:

...this increasingly rancorous dispute does pit two foundational principles against each other: Islam’s proscription against portraying its Prophet, and the West’s reverence of free expression. Muslims have a religious obligation to take offense at “desecration” of Islam, while Western nations feel compelled to speak up in protection of free speech.

But in the wake of David Irving being sentenced to three years imprisonment for his views on the Holocaust (and being barred from even entering several European countries before then) I'm not sure that anyone can say with a straight face that the cartoon controversy is about Western commitment to free speech.

the south park where chef becomes muslim

This is the episode where Chef decides to protest the flag of South Park because of its racist overtones (undertones, through-tones) and along the way becomes Muslim and changes his name to Abdul Mohammed Jabar-Rauf Kareem Ali.
--
The above link died but here is a replacement: Chef Goes Nanners

without boundary: seventeen ways of looking

Currently the Museum of Modern Art in New York is displaying an exhibition: "Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking" — in which the word Islam does not appear. Nevertheless, all but three of the featured artists were born in some part of the so-called Islamic world: Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine and Turkey. They all live and work in the West and have made their careers in the mainstream international art scene, which means in Europe and the United States. Despite their Western positioning, they are routinely tagged as Islamic artists by an art world addicted to marketable categories.

The exhibition is discussed further in the NYT Arts section article, What Does Islam Look Like? And for more on the creations of Muslim artists working in a Western context check out:
muslim artists look back at the west
contemporary art from the islamic world

All three links give a more complex picture the Muslim world which contrasts with the iconoclasm which is more well-known (especially in the wake of things like the recent cartoon issue or the Buddha statues in Afghanistan)

octavia butler died

Wow, I actually first found out about her passing from the Woman of Color Blog. For those that don't know, Butler was one of the few African-American science fiction writers of prominence. She's been awarded both Hugo and Nebula award (the top prizes in science fiction) as well as a MacArthur award (a "genius grant"). The only novels of hers which I've read are Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents but both were amazing. Apparently she had started a third novel in the series called Parable of the Trickster, but never finished. She will be missed.

Grenada's Past:

octavia butler
afrofuturism/rebirth of a nation

Woman of color blog: octavia butler died
black looks: octavia butler: 1947-2006
NPR: Octavia Butler on a world without racism
NPR: Octavia Butler dies at 58
Wikipedia: Octavia Butler

masking new orleans

In Masking New Orleans, Fatima Shaik makes the connection between the Mardis Gras or Carnival custom of wearing masks and the ways in which some are trying to hide difficult truths about New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.

project censored

If you haven't heard of it already Projecet Censored is a 30 year-old media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media. Archives of past "censored" stories are available at the site.

manifest liberation: the four gates

Even more from Amir Sulaiman (see also manifest liberation: virtue vs. vice)

In the Name of The One

Manifest Liberation is:

To Liberate Ones Self from Illusion
The world of illusion is the world of non-existence. In order to be effective, to move forward with high intent, one must be with Truth. How may one realize what is not real? How may one actualize what is not actual? In order to realize, to actualize, or to manifest ones liberation, one must be free from illusion and submit totally to Truth.

To Purify the Self
To truly purify ones self, ones purification must occur spiritually and physically, individually and collectively, internally and externally. Every self that has lived and will live is part of one Self, the Human Being. The lesser self is what allows the notion of ego and the greater Self is the collective consciousness that binds the Human Being together as one. One may not purify the self without purifying the Self nor may one purify the Self without purifying the self.

To Perfect Character
To perfect character is to perfect ones relationships. To perfect relationships is to perfect ones relationship between one and ones self, one and other selves, one and ones environment, and one and The One.

To Battle
To manifest ones liberation one must wage an unceasing war against vice and the vicious, against malice and the malicious, and against oppression and oppressors. Only through battle may the Self be free of the illusory shackles that bind the hands and restrain the mind. Only through battle, may one gain liberation and ensure sovereignty for virtue and the virtuous

the myth of la's race war

From Alternet: The Myth of L.A.'s Race War Former gang members say the violent Los Angeles jail riots aren't about race; they're about power, struggle and pain. See also: one people

re-examining the left hand of god

From Alternet: Re-examining 'The Left Hand of God' looks again at Michael Lerner's ideas and focuses on the religio-phobia of many secular progressives. See also: the left hand of god

manifest liberation: virtue vs. vice

I recently saw Amir Sulaiman perform some of his poetry so he's been on my mind. And since I've already blogged on him before, I thought it would make sense to share a larger sampling of some of his thinking. The following is from a piece of his called virtue vs. vice.

Freedom is in the soul, heart and mind. It is also in the limbs, land and wealth. The most important part of liberation is in the soul, hearts and minds of the people. Of lesser importance is the limbs, land and wealth of the people. If the limbs are free to move about as they like and money is available but the soul, heart and mind are still property of the oppressor then there is no hope for true manifest liberation. On the other hand, if the limbs are chained and the wealth is confiscated but the soul, heart and mind know and long for freedom then there is still hope for full manifest liberation. The freedom fighter needs only to fight to be free. Victory in any traditional sense of the term may come but is not necessary. The first gesture of revolt is a sufficient indication that the soul and heart are free from the system that oppresses. As all change, revolution begins in the soul as aimless nameless restlessness. Its energy works up until freedom condenses onto the walls of the mind. The intellect crystallizes it into the language of the people and all together like a mountain avalanche they come crashing down upon the gates of Empire.

It is faulty to think that the oppressed people of the world will enjoy manifest liberation by way of songs, poems, and letters to congressmen. The empire will not fall by way of hemp bracelets and long hair. The yokes will not be lifted by way of slogans and pamphlets. Manifest liberation will not be voted into office. Are we to think that simply because an oppressor received less votes than another that he will simply relinquish his power? The reason an oppressor is an oppressor is that he does not care for the beliefs and opinions of the people only the labor and wealth of the people. In the psyche of an oppressor, there is absolutely no occasion when he will willingly surrender his power. Throughout history, tyrants surrender not at the end of an open forum discussion but at the hot end of a rifle. They give back what they have taken only under the supervision of a sharp sword with its promise of retribution hovering above their neck.

It is equally faulty to think that the oppressed people of the world will enjoy manifest liberation only by way of bullets, Molotov cocktails and car bombs. Even if the people burned the White House to the ground tomorrow, the ills of society will not be rendered aright. Are we to think that a righteous society will be established by those with wicked ways? If the oppressed do not purify themselves of dishonesty, greed, lust, jealously, fear, envy and the other vices that plague the human family then there can be no real success. There may be a change of flag and a change of leadership but oppression will still loom over the heads of the powerless.

Often the oppressed adopt the maliciousness of the oppressor. When the oppressed do so, they help proliferate the oppressor’s agenda. The oppressed who have accepted the diseased ways of the tyrants spread the virus of mischief and corruption like a contagion. In a strange yet common twist of fate, the oppressed are infected with oppression by the oppressors and inevitably the oppressed oppress. Then those who are oppressed by the oppressed oppressors, once infected with the virus of oppression, seek out others to oppress. What this creates is an endless wheel of coercion that cannot be broken except with an individual, independent commitment to prefer virtue to vice and justice to tyranny. Very few will have the foresight and courage to do such a thing but they will do so because that is their destiny. These brave virtuous souls are what constitute a true liberation front. They are the precious invaluable vanguard of righteousness. This group is rare but always arises. Just as sure as oppression will raise its ugly head this vanguard of purified souls will be there to smite it off. These souls inspire other souls towards success as that is their reason for being. Once the people purify their ranks, even if they number few, they can expect triumph.

No matter the battle strategy and no matter the weaponry the unjust will not and cannot establish justice. No matter the leadership and no matter the number of followers those given to vice will not and cannot establish virtue. This is the irresistible, irrefutable reality of universal law. To try to transcend it is futile and to ignore it is foolish. There will be no freedom for the oppressed one who oppresses others. There is no dignity for the humiliated one who humiliates others. With virtue comes liberation as with vice comes oppression. This is the only way. This is not a new method; this is true way since the first to come from the loins of Adam and it will be the true way until vice is wiped from the planet Earth.

Liberation will come by way of the spirited songs and sharpened swords. It will come by way of the scholar’s ink and the martyr’s blood. It will come by the way of the righteous soul and the firm hand. For the one who truly fights for Truth and Justice, firstly and forevermore must know that high virtue is what promises victory and lowly vice is what assures defeat.

Amir Sulaiman's myspace blog
more amir sulaiman
Manifest Liberation

our black shining prince

Tuesday was the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Keep him in your thoughts by looking at Izzy Mo's post El-Hajj Malik as-Shabazz over at Third Resurrection

the good kind of fatwa

Umm Yasmin over at Dervish recently posted a Declaration of Fatwa by World Islamic Scholars about Danish Cartoons. But of course, this raises the eternal question: In the popular imagination, which will be seen as more representative of Islam, a clear, decisive unified statement by dozens of Islamic leaders from around the world? Or the violent actions of a few thugs?

an opinion on the riots

Brownfemipower recently posted An Opinion on the Riots which puts alot of this recent issue in perspective. In essence, what she says is, "it is the height of hypocrisy that the Western world is calling Arabs/Muslims violent barbarians for rebelling against the representation being used by violent occupiers to justify that violent occupation."

and also there is:
the dirty dozen
everyone has their sacred cows
shouting "fire" on a crowded planet
clash of the uncivilized: insights on the cartoon controversy
why muslims get mad
cartoon protests reach latin america

un calls guantanamo a us torture camp

I honestly don't know what to say anymore. I already had one blog entry from last week when an earlier draft of the UN report was released. Now the final draft of that report came out but the response is not really surprising.

US: Did not.
UN: Did too.
US: Did not!
UN: Did too!
US: Did not!...

Yahoo News: U.N. Calls Guantanamo a U.S. Torture Camp
earlier entry: treatment of guantanamo prisoners constitutes torture

new to the blogroll

Rasa'il Khalil al-Wafa' is a blog by a PhD student at the University of Chicago who studies Arabic language and literature.

brian gumbel is looking like malcolm x?

Brian Gumbell on the Winter Olympics:

Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them ... So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.

The Daily Cardinal: original story
from Dave Chappelle: negrodamus 1
from Common Dreams: White Blindness: The Winter Olympics and Defending Bryant Gumbel

"...being the last one around"

I feel funny about this post. And I would definitely welcome feedback from the female members of the audience (especially those who see themselves as progressive).

Over at Dervish, in the entry We're Outbreeding Them, Umm Yasmin talks about how in Australia some are arguing in favor of limiting access to the abortion pill RU486 on the grounds that the non-Muslim ("white"?) birth rates are already low, and that if current trends continue, Islam will be the dominant religion in Australia in 50 years or so.

The whole discussion reminds me of the old Last Poets piece called The Pill (included below) which raises some related issues. The border between birth/population control and genocide can sometimes be unclear. In certain contexts, there is a slippery-slope from saying "There are too many people" to saying "There are too many of those kind of people".

This also reminds me of some conversations I had a year ago with a Catholic friend of mine (who I actually have recently bumped into again) on birth control. "Obviously" the Catholic position on artificial methods of birth control (absolute prohibition) is different from the usual Muslim position (sterilization and other permanent methods are prohibited, but most other methods are ok). But if you also throw in the Orthodox Jewish position (Adam was commanded to "be fruitful and multiply" so male contraceptives are prohibited) it seems like, in spite of their differences, we can loosely say that these three "traditional" religions have an ethos where having children is prized and at least some forms of birth control are discouraged. (Although I would argue that if we look at the most orthodox forms of each religion, Islam is the most liberal... permitting most forms of birth control and giving limited approval of abortion)

For example, the hadith: "Get married and multiply (have children), because I will be proud of you, in front of other nations on the Day of Judgment"

The Pill

Are you aware of the pill?
Its basic design is to kill
The fertile womb
becomes a tomb
for a new child unborn still.

I say are you aware of the brute
Whose job is to wither the fruit?
They'll cause us to fall
our history and all
by cuttin' us off at the root

They say "We'll stunt Africa's growth.
And Asia has too many folks.
Too large is the mouth
in the Latin South
We'll aid 'em by cuttin' their throats."

"No, we must approach as a friend
and do our job from within.
Let's feed 'em the pill
that's made up to kill
and make their beginning their end."

So poor folks of the world, be aware.
For their evil design is laid bare.
Watch out for the hag
with the little black bag
Marked "Birth Control: Peace Corps and CARE"

It's part of a game that they play.
And it's designed to make poor people pay.
It's part of a lie
to help you to die
while they cart your resources away.

I say conspiracy is in the air
To control the children that you bear.
Control of the land
is a part of the plan
as your kind grows increasingly rare.

It's a truth to be understood
through at first it may appear good.
But it's a menace to health
and to lineal wealth,
Since you can't reproduce when you should.

And in this respect I am told
it is better to use self-control.
For the future and truth
belong to the youth,
since you cannot prevent growing old.

So make sure that your reasoning's sound
before taking that potion down.
For it would be a shame
to come into fame
for being the last one around.

The issue can get complicated. Just between you and me, I'm not really suggesting that family planning is some genocidal plot. I'm just saying that the important thing is to make sure that people are empowered with information and resources so that they can make their own choices. And this should be done in a genuinely balanced way. In a modern Western context, reproductive freedom is often framed as the right to NOT have children. But if the issue is REALLY about choice, then we also have to acknowledge the right TO have children as well.


Sunni Path (Hanafi): Is contraception permissible?
From Al-Balagh is the article Overpopulation: Myths, Facts, and Politics which I'm not sure if I'm endorsing but questions the concept of overpopulation.

Past Grenada entries:
the men will look like the women... relates the Last Poets to Islamic attitudes on transgenderism. And race and sex discusses an interesting link between feminism and white supremacist movements and also brings up (Planned Parenthood founder) Margaret Sanger's connection to the eugenics movement.

mosques are struggling

Two days ago, the St.Louis Post-Dispatch published a story called Mosques Are Struggling which gives a good snapshot of the challenges faced by many African-American Muslim communities.

america's "other" muslims

I just put up an article called America's Other Muslims by Peter Skerry over at Third Resurrection. For the most part it describes the (African-American Muslim) community of W.D. Mohammed and compares and contrasts them with other Blackamerican Muslims, Immigrant Muslims, the Nation of Islam and the larger society.

my private casbah

My Private Casbah is a blog I recently found by Bint Alshamsa (daughter of the sun). Based on some of her discussion on religion and other things brought up in her blog, I would guess that she's a Black ex-Bahai but to be honest I really don't know her precise background. In any case, she has an intriguing perspective on things.

the revelation will not be televised

From Radical Torah (a site which does Torah commentary from a "radical" perspective): The Revelation Will Not Be Televised gives an interesting Biblical take on one of the accounts which also appears in the Quran, namely the Exodus narrative.

one people

Gregory Kane's article about the recent race riot in a Los Angeles County correctional facility, ‘People of Color’ are All One? made me sad. And at first I was not sure how much the prison race riot would relate to the degree of racial harmony in society overall. After all, Tookie Williams aside, I'm not exactly sure that we really expect inmates to sit in a circle holding hands singing "Kumbaya" living out Martin Luther King's dream. So some part of me thought, "hey I've seen Oz... prisoners aren't going to get along anyway. That's just how things are Inside."

On the other hand, prison isn't really seperate from life Outside. "They" are "Us". Especially since many of "Us" might have family and friends in prison who grew up in our same communities and will rejoin those communities when they get out. And so what happens in prison is a reflection of what happens in the larger society.

Right now, I'm wondering what impacts, if any, the riot has on Black-Mexican interactions in LA. I also wonder what the interactions are like in East Coast prisons (where more Hispanics are Afro-Hispanic - Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, etc.) Anyone know?

the islamic movement and the bolivarian revolution

In a Grenada-esque turn, Umar's recent entry on Defending the Islamic Movement and the Bolivarian Revolution talks about how in his own life, people are seeing what happens in Venezuela and what is happening in Iraq and Palestine and the developing world generally as all part of the same struggle.

It reminds me of an interesting thought experiment. From time to time, I wonder what are the long-term implications of my political sympathies. I mean, what if I could replace all the petition-signing pen with a magic wand. What if in one feel swoop, all the governments and other institutions legalized, banned, funded, divested from and pulled out of all the things and places they are supposed to legalize, ban, fund, divest from and pull out of. Is there a coherent pattern to the changes you'd want to make? How would the world be better? And also more realistically, what would be the costs? What would be gained and what might be lost?

Personally, I keep getting a certain amount of insight just from trying to imagine that "another world is possible". But a further question you could ask yourself is how do we persuade people that the new world is worth the price?

more muharram posts

We are still in Muharram, the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar, and in the spirit of the Sunni-Shia blogring it seems appropriate to point folks to Other Muharram Posts in the Blogistan which is a set of Ashurah/Muharram links collected over at Sister Scorpion's site.

It seems like every year, Muharram is a time for tension to come out between Sunnis and Shias. I wonder how folks out there, especially su-shi blogring members but in reality everyone, think about the issue. What's being done to encourage unity. I hear hints in the wind here and there, but I wonder if anything has been happening lately.

colours of resistance

Through reading about Andrea Smith and Colorlines, I found out about Colours of Resistance and it seems like a powerful and interesting network of activism:

Colours of Resistance is both a thinktank and an actiontank, linking the issues of global capitalism with their local impacts. For us, this means working locally on issues such as anti-war, police brutality, prison abolition, indigenous solidarity, affordable housing, healthcare and public transportation, environmental justice, racist immigration policies, and many more. Colours of Resistance acts as a network for us to share support, ideas, and strategies with one another across our diverse communities.

Colours of Resistance: Articles and Analysis

lantern torch

Lantern Torch: Creative Illumination is a new addition to my blogroll by Tavis Adibudeen. Who is Tavis Adibudeen?

I am a servant of Allah, Most High, a Muslim, primarily. I accepted Islam in 1995, by the grace of Allah, Almighty. [...] I cannot bear the arrogant burden of calling myself Sunni, although I strive to live by the Sunnah. I cannot hold myself in such esteem as to call myself Shi’a, although I endeavor to follow Ahlul-bayt. I cannot imagine myself to be Sufi, although I dream of achieving such a state. These are qualities of a Mu’min, which I have not achieved. I pray that Allah can grant me such qualities.

Check him out

i heart izzy mo

This is a bit late but I love Izzy Mo's Valentine links on Real Love from an Islamic perspective. And she is also totally on-point in her open letter Dear "scholars of Africa and Islam". And of course she's really been taking off with Third Resurrection. Way to go!

ricanstruction

A heads up from Adisa at Holla at a Scholar: Check out the anarcho-punk Puerto Rican band Ricanstruction

Crossing over from the sea of wealth that is Manhattan’s Upper East Side into Spanish Harlem you can see the contrasts New York’s Ricanstruction — a Puerto Rican punk/Afro-Latin beat band — have experienced. The ghetto attributes abound: Soviet-style public housing, malt-liquor bottles on the street, an excessive NYPD presence. This Puerto Rican and African American neighborhood is one marked by resistance, insists Not4Prophet, Ricanstruction’s lead vocalist. Everything from the political graffiti to the murals of Che Guevara to the community gardens exudes both resistance and autonomy.

Ricanstruction hesitates to classify itself; Not4Prophet doesn’t even like to use the word “anarchist” to describe the band’s politics. Songs like “Mad Like Farrakhan” and “Bulletproof” bring Latin beats (and political experience) to fast-paced vocals and guitar riffs. Slower, darker rhythms in songs like “Abu-Jamal” (about American political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal) feel more like the finale of a tragic opera with Not4Prophet’s pleading tone, often inspired by Bob Marley as much as Jello Biafra.

While failing — thankfully — to fall into the rock-rap genre that gave us Rage Against the Machine or 311, Not4Prophet’s love of hip hop is essential to the band’s ability to fuse the resistance culture of white anarchist punks and his own Spanish Harlem community. Their latest release, Love + Revolution (Uprising Records), includes appearances from hip hop icons such as Dead Prez and Chuck D from Public Enemy. The band members are still active artistically and politically on their home turf.

venezuela ready to receive hamas

Venezuela has said it will welcome leaders from Hamas "with pleasure" if they visit the country as part of a South American tour after victory in Palestinian elections. The New York-based American Jewish Congress has urged Latin American countries not to welcome Hamas. From AlJazeera

race reconciliation and the spiritual left

I'd heard of Andrea Smith and her work for a couple of weeks now (thanks to Brownfemipower for the heads-up) but wasn't quite sure how to respond to her or connect her work to any other ideas. But I just realized that she provides a good interaction with Michael Lerner's thoughts about the Spiritual Left.

For several years now, there has been a movement among evangelicals who are concerned about racism (especially on a religious/personal level) and have developing the concept of "race reconciliation". In her piece which appeared in Colorlines, Devil's in the Details, Andrea Smith looks very critically at this "Race Reconciliation" movement and points out their basic limitation:

While progressives generally understand that racism is a set of institutional practices that reinforce racial prejudices and maintain white supremacy, evangelicals generally understand racism as individual prejudices which can be transformed through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Evangelism is presented as the solution to racism. To quote the Christian Coalition, "We don't have a skin problem in this country, we have a sin problem." Ironically, this failure to acknowledge any sweeping material or ideological basis for racism enables periodicals to print articles on the evils of racial prejudice and then follow them up with calls to repeal affirmative action, support immigration moratoriums, and oppose multicultural curriculums in schools.

I definitely think Andrea Smith's analysis rings true as far as it goes. At the same time, in the context of Michael Lerner's ideas about developing a spiritual left, she comes off a bit harsh. And it might be better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

For example, consider Alexis Spencer-Byers, a white-Asian evangelical Christian and author of Urban Verses. I actually sort of know her. She's the person who first introduced me to the phrase "race reconciliation" (at least in an Christian context) by many years ago giving me a copy of More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel by Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice. After graduating from college, she moved to Jackson, Mississippi and has been there for about ten years, to be part of a multi-racial religious community which lives out the idea of race reconciliation.

So on the one hand, I would say that Andrea Smith is totally justified in criticizing those who would replace a serious understanding of and struggle against institutional racism with easy slogans like "We don't have a skin problem, we have a sin problem". But on the other hand, some evangelicals who wave the banner of "race reconciliation" have definitely demonstrated a real commitment to the idea through the choices they have made in life.

In terms of building a "Spiritual Left", instead of demonizing the "race reconciliation" movement outright, it might be more productive to work constructively with them, tap into their energy, and encourage them to probe more deeply on the causes and effects and manifestations of racial inequality. At the same time, those Leftists who tend to downplay matters of the heart could probably learn a few things from the encounter as well.

are desis white?

The article Are Desis White? by Francis C. Assisi recently appeared on the Crayon People site and traces how, in the United States, the racial classification of South Asian people has changed over the years. In the past when there was a greater desire to limit non-European immigration to the US, South Asians were often categorized as non-white (and therefore not eligible for citizenship). While Assisi points out:

Today, in the city of San Marcos, California, for employment purposes, the city identifies the following ethnic groups: white, Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific Islander (API), and American Indian. Here, Indians, Pakistanis and API are considered to belong to the white category. Similarly in Santa Ana, in the County of Orange, where job applicants are advised to choose their ethnic origin, 'White' includes Indo-European, Indian, and Pakistani.

It made me think back to another Grenada article: racial jujitsu or the more things change... which suggested that as a response to the browning of America, the category of "white" will expand to include more Asians and Hispanics while continuing to exclude Blacks.

islam and the african people

Islam and the African People by Abubakr Ben Ishmael Salahuddin was technically written from an Ahmadiyya perspective, but that isn't really relevant in terms of the subject matter. Salahuddin briefly brings together and summarizes comments from Afrocentric scholars with positive things to say about Islam's role in African society (and counteract the effects of Black Orientalism), especially Cheikh Anta Diop and Wilmont Blyden.

hamas

i started putting this together shortly after the election, so they are a bit overdue.
Al-Jazeera: Hamas wins huge majority
blackprof.com: Democracy in Palestine
avari/nameh: why did hamas win?
avari/nameh: ariel sharon, "the brutal secularist" & other articles, too
In These Times: Hamas: Sharon's Legacy?
Informed Comment: First Reflections on the Electoral Victory of Hamas
Radical Torah: Is Peace Possible Without Islam?

the left hand of god

Michael Lerner's newest book, The Left Hand of God deals with the issue of how political progressives can connect to, build and develop a Spiritual Left movement to counter-balance the Religious Right. (A topic not infrequently brought up here.) Alternet, recently put up an excerpt from the book which inspired the following remarks.

Michael Lerner's central claim, which seems rather obvious to me at this point is that:

By addressing the real spiritual and moral crisis in the daily lives of most Americans, a movement with a progressive spiritual vision would provide an alternate solution to both the intolerant and militarist politics of the Right and the current misguided, visionless, and often spiritually empty politics of the Left.

Lerner points out that there isn't a necessary or natural connection between those who are conservative in their religious principles and those who are on the right wing in a political sense. The "Religious Right" is actually the result of a conscious strategic compromise between different factions and has developed over a period of time. (Earlier today on NPR there was even a report on the development of this strategy)

This political Right achieved power by forging an alliance with a Religious Right that is willing to provide a sanctimonious religious veneer to the selfishness and materialism of the political Right in exchange for the political power it needs to impose parts of its religious agenda on America. Capitalizing on a very real and deep spiritual crisis engendered by living in a society that teaches "looking out for number one" as its highest value, the Religious Right has managed to mobilize tens of millions of people to vote for candidates who end up supporting the very economic arrangements and political ideas responsible for creating the spiritual crisis in the first place.

And furthermore, the status quo and the hopelessness and materialism it engenders helps feed into and maintain the arrangement in the first place:

It is the search for meaning in a despiritualized world that leads many people to right-wing religious communities because these groups seem to be in touch with the sacred dimension of life. Many secularists imagine that people drawn to the Right are there solely because of some ethical or psychological malfunction. What they miss is that there are many very decent Americans who get attracted to the Religious Right because it is the only voice that they encounter that is willing to challenge the despiritualization of daily life, to call for a life that is driven by higher purpose than money, and to provide actual experiences of supportive community for those whose daily life is suffused with alienation and spiritual loneliness.

I don't want to just cynically suggest that secular leftists and Muslims and anyone who wants to tag along should just cobble together an alliance for the sake of political expediency. But I do see spaces where there should be meaningful and constructive cooperation between like-minded groups when it comes to specific changes in foreign and domestic policy. And ideally there would be a spiritual vision inclusive enough to provide a wholistic foundation.

Also, Finding Spirit Among the Dems is the title of an interview with Michael Lerner which goes further into the ideas in his book.

i hate pat robertson blog

The i hate pat robertson blog is pretty self-explanatory.

treatment of guantanamo prisoners constitutes torture

From Common Dreams:

NEW YORK - A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory.

The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison. (For full story: "U.S. is Abusing Captives)

Also, in Walking to Guantanamo from In These Times, Frida Berrigan writes about the protestors who walked on foot from Santiago, Cuba to Guantanamo as a way to speak out against the abuses at the camp.

And finally, an earlier collection of links on guantanamo and planet grenada

happy v.d.

From the African-American psychologist and ethical philosopher, Willard Smith II, to his son:

One day some girl's gonna break your heart
And ooh ain't no pain like from the opposite sex
Gonna hurt bad, but don't take it out on the next, son
Throughout life people will make you mad
Disrespect you and treat you bad
Let God deal with the things they do
Cause hate in your heart will consume you too
Always tell the truth, say your prayers
Hold doors, pull out chairs, easy on the swears
You're living proof that dreams do come true
I love you and I'm here for you.

deep cover

From the 1992 film Deep Cover (John Hull is played by Laurence Fishburne, Gerry is played by Charles Martin Smith)

John Hull: Gerry, what's the difference between a black man and a nigger?

Gerald Carver: What?

John Hull punches Gerald Carver in the stomach.

John Hull: The nigger's the one that would even think about telling you.

I was able to find a transcript for the movie Deep Cover online, but unfortunately the webpage I found only contains the lines and not the characters' actual names. So it is really good if you've seen the movie and are trying to find the exact version of some particularly badass line. But it is less useful if you want to save on video rental fees. Deep Cover is a very "hip" intelligent film which explores issues of double-consciousness, race and situational morality in a very intense way. I highly recommend it.

the rise of reggaeton

At least as far back as the 40's with the Latin Jazz tune, The Peanut Vendor (El Manicero), musicians in the US have been mixing Latin and Blackamerican elements and forms in order to produce novel styles of music. Furthermore, through the subsequent decades, from time to time US popular music would receive new Afro-Latin injections. Reggaeton is our booster shot.

See Da City Baseline on The Rise of Reggaeton for a thorough discussion of the genre and its history. See also the myth of reggaeton from Grenada's past.

cartoon protests reach latin america

Alternet: In Venezuela, Christians join with Muslims in protesting Danish cartoons

why the devil has more vacation-time than santa: reason number 1,073

The blog, black looks recently put up an entry sex tourism in Africa: (click on link for full story). One of the reasons why this story is so surprising to me is that "normally" when I've read about the concept of sex tourism, it usually occured in Asia, especially urban centers in Thailand like Bangkok. I honestly never knew that this particular kind of thing occured much in Africa. The second aspect which is really striking, is that even though formal slavery has been essentially abolished virtually everywhere, there are still multiple and pervasive ways in which extreme poverty allows the same basic degrading relationship to continue to exist, perhaps in a mutated form.

I wanted to know how the whole sex tourism thing worked so I started a series of conversations with some of the young men working in the "tourist shops". I discovered that first the sex tourists were both men and women but it was the men (mostly from Northern European countries such as Germany, Sweden, Norway etc) who "went" for the young girls and boys. I was told that many of the tourists came every year and stayed for up to 3 months living with a chosen boy or girl. In some cases they would even take the child back to their home country. They told me that everyone, the police, government officials, embassies all knew what was happening but did nothing. One of the ways in which the Europeans took the children back to their homes was by promising to give the children an education and support his or her family back home. It was only when the child was in Germany or Norway that they discovered they were in fact to be sexual slaves. One young man told me he knew of someone who was kept prisoner for over a year in Germany before he was able to escape and seek help and eventually he returned to Gambia.

why the devil has more vacation-time than santa: reason number 4,337
why the devil has more vacation-time than santa: reason number 5,012

clash of the uncivilized: insights on the cartoon controversy

From Imam Zaid Shakir:

The current crisis shows the extent we Muslims are vulnerable to media manipulation, superficial shows of piety, and counterproductive one-upmanship militancy. If we start with the issue of media manipulation, it is clear that Western and Eastern media outlets played a large role in stirring up Muslim, and now Western sentiments. When the crisis initially broke in September, it was barely a blip on the media radar. Few outside of Denmark even knew of the cartoons. The Danish Muslim community, appropriately, by and large ignored the story. It was only after a campaign undertaken by a delegation of Danish Muslim community activists to stimulate greater interest in the issue that the crisis reached the proportions we are currently witnessing. These activists traveled throughout the Muslim East trying to draw attention to the issue. When the issue was popularized by Iqra and other Arab satellite channels, and the cartoons were reprinted by several European papers, the crisis deepened. In light of that reality, it would be hard to deny the role the media has played in sparking and now perpetuating the crisis.

full article

shouting "fire" on a crowded planet

A certain parallel struck me in thinking about this whole cartoon controversy. Proverbially, even the most radical defendants of free speech will say that it is not appropriate to shout "fire" in a crowded theater. The argument, of course, is that such "speech" can cause people to panic, will lead to a stampede, and is likely to cause people to be physically harmed in the process. Given the rioting, violence and death which has happened in the wake of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy I wonder how many people are willing to make that connection?

word cloud

It's a "word cloud" made from words commonly appearing on Grenada. (Font size corresponds to frequency). Apparently all the cool kids are doing it.

heads up

Ashurah is on Thursday.

jimi izrael on chappelle

Hip-Hop Journalist Jimi Izrael had an interesting take in the wake of Dave Chappelle's recent appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show:

I was real troubled by white media coverage of Dave Chappelle’s turn on Oprah Winfrey. Clearly uncomfortable, Dave told Oprah that he took pride in the fact that he did humor of two levels, but has lost confidence in white folk’s ability to decipher the intention of it. He said he began to have doubts that white folks bring the tool set necessary to deconstruct his show for what it is: satire wrapped in irony, wrapped in even more satire.

“Chappelle’s Show” is us laughing at white folks laughing at him, because they have no idea why they think he’s funny. But we do. Because whites necessarily have to acknowledge their nearly imperceptable privilege, bringing their own set of prejudices and assumption to every viewing. This is prerequisite for whites to glean any humor whatsoever from “Chappelle’s Show”, and we know it. You and I know that. They don’t, and that’s REALLY what’s so funny. They have no idea the show is encoded ... and it’s hilarious.

But I think Dave was worried that his show had become less a comedy than a warehouse of coonery, where whites brought their ideas about blacks to be affirmed and reinforced. They began to laugh AT and not WITH. I think he’s right---his humor walked that line, and slipped over on occasion. (full story)

everyone has their sacred cows

guess who's coming to dharma

No, I'm not converting but I was still intrigued by the Black Buddhist blog, Zen Under the Skin: Reflections of an African-American Practitioner. It is interesting to think about the process by which other Black folks move away from the traditional church and re-"orient" themselves in a new spiritual direction. Check out: Resources for Black Buddhists for more information.