harry potter and the scorpion sister

I just felt I should give a heads-up to Sister Scorpion's two recent Harry Potter entries:

First there is Harry Potter which gives Yassir and I a shout-out and also includes a link to the Hogwarts MSA (Muslim Students Association).

And then there is You know I had to go there... which includes a number of links with more commentary about Harry Potter and various cultural/political/racial issues. Some are "new", and some have already been included in the recent Grenada entries on implications of Harry Potter, namely:
harry potter and the last review
bell hooks v. harry potter
harry potter and the magic of whiteness

living islam out loud

The book Living Islam Out Loud is a refreshing collection by 16 American Muslim women who are contributing to public life in extraordinary ways and willing to share honestly about the experiences that have shaped their lives.

A number of them like Suheir Hammad and Mohja Khaf have previously been mentioned at Planet Grenada. [1] [2] [3] [4]

I'm also going to take this opportunity to draw attention to Su’ad Abdul-Khabeer another black latina Muslim poet, who is currently a graduate student at Princeton and is also featured in the book. (This is also a chance to check if she is reading my blog...lol)

And finally, a review from Alt.Muslim: The Diverse Feminism of "Living Islam Out Loud"

the willie lynch letter

For many years now, I've seen the Willie Lynch speech/letter circulated in different Black publications. It alleges to be the text of a speech given in 1712 by Willie Lynch to his fellow slave-holders on how to use divide-and-conquer tactics to control Black slaves. I've actually suspected this for a while, but in the Death of the Willie Lynch Speech Prof. Manu Ampim gives a detailed and logical argument for why the speech is probably not authentic.

From the point of view of historical accuracy I think it is certainly important to "debunk" the letter. But I would also say that, even if it is not "authentic" the letter is nevertheless "true" (i.e. one of the biggest obstacles to political/economic progress is a lack of unity and we won't get very far if we keep getting caught up in petty squables over stupid s---)

The full text of the Willie Lynch letter is included in Ampim's article.

public enemy no. 43,527

From Slate: Public Enemy No. 43,527 takes an insightful Big Picture view on the Jose Padilla situation. And Umar Lee makes similar comments in his own blog entry: Padilla Indictment a Complete Joke; Media Duped Again

the french muslim rebellion

Also from La Voz de Aztlan: The French Muslim Rebellion of 2005

strange rumblings at the center of our galaxy

Strange Rumblings at the Center of our Galaxy is an interesting speculation from La Voz de Aztlan about how modern astronomical observations may match up with Mayan cosmology. I would tend to take such speculation with a healthy amount of salt, but the piece is interesting nevertheless.

interview with willie perdomo

An interview with Willie Perdomo, Black Nuyorican poet, and author of the anthology Where a Nickel costs a Dime. His most well-known poem is a piece called Nigger-reecan blues.

the mahdi

Ever since joining the Su-Shi Webring I've felt like I should do more to try to consciously promote the goals of the group. Here's my contribution for November...

Recently Svend White at Akram's Razor wrote an entry: Rejecting a "Mahdi" vs. rejecting the idea of the Mahdi which discusses how some people claiming that Harun Yahya may be the Mahdi, but that we should be careful to distinguish between questioning the validity of any individual who might claim to be the mahdi, and questioning the concept of mahdi overall.

harry potter and the last review

So some other bloggers have also touched on Harry Potter from a Muslim perspective:

Firstly, there is Arafat at Anthology (who has been on my blogroll for a good long while now... *cough*... hint, hint... *cough*) with two entries:
Orientalism: Alive and Kicking, Harry Potter Style and Harry Potter's Bangladeshi Date

And then there is Reformist Muslim with Muslims At Hogwarts???

And finally, if you are still intrigued by this whole idea of watching movies for their political content and not just for their visceral entertainment value, I also found reviews for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the Maoist Internationalist Movement's Movie Review Page.

bell hooks v. harry potter

From The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks:

While feminism may ignore boys and young males, capitalist patriarchal men do not. It was adult, white, wealthy males in this country who first read and fell in love with the Harry Potter books. Though written by a British female, initially described by the rich white American men who "discovered" her as a working class single mom, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books are clever modern reworkings of the English schoolboy novel. Harry as our modern-day hero is the supersmart, gifted, blessed, white boy genius (a mini patriarch) who "rules" over the equally smart kids, including an occasional girl and an occasional male of color. But these books also glorify war, depicted as killing on behalf of the "good".

The Harry Potter movies glorify the use of violence to maintain control over others. In Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets violence when used by the acceptable groups is deemed positive. Sexism and racist thinking in the Harry Potter books are rarely critiqued. Had the author been a ruling-class white male, feminist thinkers might have been more active in challenging the imperialism, racism and sexism of Rowling's books.

Again and again I hear parents, particularly antipatriarchal parents, express concern about the contents of these books while praising them for drawing more boys to reading. Of course American children were bombarded with an advertising blitz telling them that they should read these books. Harry Potter began as national news sanctioned by mass media. Books that do not reinscribe patriarchal masculinity do not get the approval the Harry Potter books have received. And children rarely have an opportunity to know that any books exist which offer an alternative to patriarchal masculinist visions. The phenomenal financial success of Harry Potter means that boys will henceforth have an array of literary clones to choose from.

harry potter and the magic of whiteness

I've already added a couple of "Thanksgiving" entries so I don't feel like I need to say anymore about the subject. But I also saw the new Harry Potter movie recently and had some Grenada-esque comments about the series.

I don't know if it has been written yet, but there is enough rich material in the Harry Potter books/movies for someone to write a serious work on the ways in which race and ethnicity (especially in the form of Orientalism) are represented in the Harry Potter series. From the alchemical references and turban-wearing villan of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to the multiple (superficial? objectifying?) inter-racial romantic pairings in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, identity politics abound.

The two main points one could cover are firstly the way the "Orient" is exoticized and objectified, and secondly the way that White European experience is central and made the norm. We can, and should describe the situation with more detail, complexity, subtlety and nuance. But the above gives the outline. And some of that detail is fleshed out over several articles and blog posts.

Arabworld Books: The Eastern Influence in Harry Potter
Hyphen: Harry Potter's Girlfriend
The Age: Potter Spell Broken
Model Minority: Harry Potter and the Asian American Image in Media
Sepia Mutiny: Hari Puttar - Attack of the Clones
Mahiram.com: Southasian flavor in Harry Potter film
Poynter Online: Harry Potter and the Imbalance of Race
Asia Times: Harry Potter and the Decline of the West
Washington Times: Harry Potter and the Guantanamo Detainees
Ed Strong: Harry Potter - Whitewashing Western Imperialism and Capitalism


Previous Planet Potter posts:
harry potter and the book-burning benedict
the magic of not reading

american muslim heritage day

From Alt.Muslim: Thanksgiving: American Muslim Heritage Day?

we didn't land on plymouth rock

One of the reasons that it is bad for us to continue to just refer to ourselves as the so-called Negro, that's negative. When we say so-called Negro that's pointing out what we aren't, but it isn't telling us what we are. We are Africans, and we happen to be in America. We are not Americans. We are a people who formerly were Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America. Our forefathers weren't the Pilgrims. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us. -Malcolm X (full speech)

For me personally, it was important to go through a stage of not feeling very American. And if an individual feels so alienated from this society that they need to go somewhere else (Ethiopia, Cuba, Arabia, Israel, Liberia, France, Canada etc.) to feel more at home or feel free, then more power to them. I have alot of respect for people who are willing to make that move based on their convictions.

But for most of us, truthfully speaking, I would say we just need to find ways to identify as American without identifying with a long history of racism and oppression and while remaining critical of anti-human foreign and domestic government policies. Those things are not a part of what it means to be American. American culture is more than just a narrow medley of European culture with non-Western accents. And patriotism is not an uncritical acceptance of government policy, but rather it means having enough love for this country to fix what is broken.

a time to build an alternative

Thanksgiving: Time to Build an alternative to Modernity and Fundamentalism by Michael Lerner

national day of mourning

The United American Indians of New England (UAINE) plan on commemorating tomorrow as a National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, MA.

thanksgiving: a native american view

From Alternet: Thanksgiving: A Native American View by Jacqueline Keeler gives a balanced perspective on the approaching holiday.

the truth about thanksgiving

The Final Call: The Truth about Thanksgiving by Yo'Nas Da Lonewolf-McCall Muhammad

coming together

I feel like for the past week especially, my entries have been really ecclectic. But now I have an urge to synthesize a whole range of ideas, to come down from the mountaintop and explain how everything fits. I want to show how to connect the dots. Reveal the connections. Make regions and categories blend and melt into one another. Blur the boundaries. The trouble is, it is sometimes hard to articulate how things should come together.

Islam is at the heart of an emerging global anti-hegemonic culture, which post-colonial critic Robert Young would say incarnates a "tricontinental counter-modernity" that combines diasporic and local cultural elements, and blends Arab, Islamic, black and Hispanic factors to generate "a revolutionary black, Asian and Hispanic globalization, with its own dynamic counter-modernity...constructed in order to fight global imperialism. *

Ok, but what's the next step? If Asians are fighting against Blacks, and Blacks are fighting against Latinos, and Latinos are fighting against Arabs how are the different elements going to combine?

buy nothing day

Adbusters is promoting the Friday after Thanksgiving as Buy Nothing Day.

For 24 hours, millions of people around the world do not participate -- in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that's become our culture. We pause. We make a small choice not to shop. We shrink our footprint and gain some calm. Together we say: enough is enough. And we help build this movement to rethink our unsustainable course.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think it is kind of deep how even secularists are still feeling a basic urge to reject materialism and perhaps implicitly affirm some kind of spirituality. At the very least, alot of folks are clearly recognizing that being greedy for the dunya isn't enough. We need to live a different kind of life.

Wikipedia on Buy Nothing Day

the new color of british racism

The Guardian: The new colour of British racism is on the recent conflicts between the Afro-Caribbean and Asian (Pakistani) communities in England, especially Birmingham.

For more pieces on Afro-Asian relations in different contexts, see also:
racial tension in birmingham turns deadly
racial jujitsu or the more things change...
afro-asian crosscurrents in contemporary hip-hop
two pieces on islam and american culture

and finally, a paper on some of the racial/religious issues raised by the music scene in England: ISLAMIC HIP-HOP vs. ISLAMOPHOBIA: AKI NAWAZ, NATACHA ATLAS, AKHENATON