how race is lived

From Gene Expression: How race is lived in ... Latino America? On how racial categories operate within the Latino umbrella. This is old but not outdated.

wafah dufour

Bin Laden's niece appears in racy photos is an old story which came out in December. But I question why it got any attention at all. I wonder if on some level it was promoted because it seems to validate Western notions of what women "really" want, especially relative to the Muslim world.

khalid al-masri

America kidnapped me by Khalid al-Masri

shaykh amadou bamba

Check out Izzy Mo's piece at Third Resurrection on Shaykh Amadou Bamba of Senegal

cultural creative

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 75% Idealist 69% Fundamentalist 56% Materialist 50% Existentialist 44% Postmodernist 44% Romanticist 31% Modernist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

saul williams

As I said before, I saw Saul Williams recently. The talk/performance was pretty good and raised some deep questions in terms of spirituality, culture, afro-futurism, gender, etc. Later, online I found several interviews with him which echoed alot of the same themes. I think I'm going to take advantage of them because that way you get to see his words verbatim.

One such interview is from Splendid online magazine:

Splendid: The book [Said the Shotgun to the Head] seems to touch on themes of enlightenment, particularly a thematic thread of pyramids. Does this allude to the way they were built (i.e. out of flesh) in the ancient Egyptian sense, or is there something more?

Saul Williams: The idea is simply that I'm dealing with ancient folklore surrounding the matriarchal essence and nature of an ideal society. That's all it has to deal with. So then we're learning about balance...balance, balance, balance. There's a Native American saying that if we're not careful, we'll end up exactly where we're heading. The whole idea is that, if thinking of God is male has led us to the state that we're in, and I would argue that it has, then maybe we should re-approach how we think of things. Get ourselves out from between this rock and a hard place. Re-imagine the world. Don't simply think of your god as this angry man who punishes you, but of this nurturing mother who loves you.

A previous Grenada entry, islam and the divine feminine touches on this idea and points out how there are feminine aspects to God "even" in Islam. One fact which we can briefly point out is that "Rahman" and "Rahim" the names of God which are used over and over again at the beginning of all but one sura of the Quran have a root RHM related to the word for "womb".

Splendid: The book tends to take a more utopian point of view when it comes to God as the eternal loving mother...

Saul Williams: That is the point of the book right there, to have that love and compassion with the harshness. That's why the book initially started off as a poem called "Kali-flower", an allusion to the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation, the goddess who says everything must be destroyed in order for things to be rebuilt. Buildings have to fall, because that's the only way people are going to wake up. It's no different than Malcolm X saying, "You don't have a revolution unless you have bloodshed."

I don't have much more to say about the above, except that it is a good example of the freshness Saul William's wordplay; breaking words down and putting them back together like legos. Also, the larger point is dead on... any kind of change will involve sacrificing something old in exchange for something new... whether you are talking about the political world or your personal life.

Tastes like Chicken interview

V: So, you mentioned Kali. Did you study different religions?

S: Yeah, on my own. I’ve just always been interested by it. I guess my latest interest has been in just spirituality, and spiritual practice. And in searching for the spiritual practice that suits me best, I’ve often pulled from different religious practices. I find that a lot of what suits me comes from Hinduism and Buddhism, as many of us do. I think we pull from the East a great deal. It’s almost like we had a team of experts in the field of spirituality, and we sent them to the East and said, “Okay, you guys, work on that.” They did a great job. We can benefit ourselves by looking to the East for greater understanding and depth of our spiritual connection to reality.

A fact which I keep thinking back to is how, between Muslims, Christians, Jews, Bahais and all their offshoots and everything in between (e.g. Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mandeans, Samaritans, Gnostics, Druzes, Kairites, Noachides, Rastafarians, Hebrew Israelites etc.) in a literal sense more than half of all Earthlings worship the God of Abraham. They may disagree about all sorts of other people and concepts, but they all look back and acknowledge that there was a special covenant between God and Abraham which has some relation to their spiritual life today.

And then the other kind of deep fact is that a large chunk of the other half follow religious traditions rooted in India (Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, etc.)

And so India and Iraq (where Abraham was born) have an odd kind of near-monopoly in terms of being the sources of human spiritual life.

In his Pop Matters interview he says:

The biggest influences on my work, in that context, would have to be Hafiz and Rumi. Hafiz was a 12th century Persian poet whose name in Arabic means "One who remembers." He knew the Koran by heart, he knew his poetry by heart; he was a spoken word artist, if you will. Poetry has always been recited aloud, but besides that, the lightheartedness and spiritual nature of Hafiz's poetry has always been something that I've aspired to. And then there's Rumi; I've been deeply influenced by him. His work is very inspiring. There are tons of poets, moving chronologically from the past to the present, that have inspired me.

The same set of questions tend to run through my mind when I hear non-Muslims say they are into Hafiz or Rumi. First I wonder if as non-Muslims do they have the background to understand the religious references? Do they respects Hafiz and Rumi as products of Islamic civilization which can be part of an argument for Islam's validity? And then I actually have to ask myself the same questions. Do I really understand Hafez and Rumi? Are they really a part of Islamic tradition or are they rebels who are really outside of it? I tend to think that non-Muslims who think Rumi is "cool" are not recognizing the extent to which he was a practicing orthodox Muslim and so they might be misreading him somewhat, seeing what they want to see. But then again, I certainly couldn't claim to be a scholar on the subject. I actually have met at least one person who become Muslim by way of an interest in Rumi. So if we are concerned about dawa or even just about improving Islam's image in the West, it would be beneficial if someone could make and present a coherent argument pointing to the connection between Rumi, Hafiz and the other Sufi poets to orthodox Islamic spirituality.

Splendid: Your interpretation of religion is so much more human that what we're taught -- so much so that you almost feel sorry for those bound by religion, a bunch of sheep in a herd or something akin to a mob mentality.

Saul Williams: They become literalists, sure. But your beliefs can empower you, even if they're completely dogmatic. I think what's most important is that you have a daily practice in your life of prayer, meditation, something, so that even if you have dogmatic beliefs, you have that daily practice to open yourself up to being loving and compassionate to other people. Then everything's cool, even if you're not trying to find the [...] holy grail.

There is probably some more I could say but I'll just leave this alone for now. If he comes up, he comes up, but it will happen naturally.

Tastes like Chicken 2nd interview

Saul Williams Homepage

when will things stop getting scary?

US to extend military executions rules to Guantanamo Bay by North America correspondent Michael Rowland

The US military is clearing the way for executions of condemned terror suspects to take place at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The army has just changed the rules governing the location of military executions. The new regulations are primarily aimed at service personnel sentenced to death at a military court martial.

Previously executions could only take place at a military jail in Kansas but now death sentences can be carried out anywhere, including the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

The army has confirmed the new rules will also apply to any Guantanamo detainee sentenced to death at a specially convened military tribunal. The move worries anti-death penalty campaigner David Elliot. "The death penalty should not work in a sequestered manner where the public can not see what's happening," he said.

None of the 10 terror suspects charged with war crimes, including South Australian David Hicks, are facing the death penalty, although it could be sought in future cases.

From ABC News Online

hispanics and alito

HispanicBusiness.com: Hispanic Leaders Speak out Against Alito. But on the radio this morning it seemed like his confirmation was all but a done deal.

jingoistic jingles

In These Times: country's jingoistic jingles. If you didn't like country music before, check out what has happened since the Dixie Chicks.

aaron mcgruder

From the artists network of refuse and resist!: Why do editors keep throwing "The Boondocks" off the funnies page? (from 2004)

african hip-hop

Is Hip Hop African music or not? This is a question that has provided the most elusive answers yet as the music take the entertainment industry on the continent by storm. Malawi is slowly responding to hip hop music but does the genre have any place in this country? In the article Malawian Hip Hop: crying out for attention? Levi Kabwato talks to a local hip hop artist, a producer and a disc jockey to find out.

on the serious tip...

In Race, Whiteness, “Lightness,” and Relevance: African American and European American Interpretations of Jump Start and The Boondocks by Naomi R. Rockler, the Boondocks becomes a subject for serious academic discource.

Here is the abstract:

African American and European American participants were interviewed about two syndicated comic strips written by and featuring African Americans: Jump Start, a comic strip that portrays African Americans in a normative middle-class family narrative and focuses only occasionally on racial issues, and The Boondocks, a comic strip that focuses frequently on racial issues. The African American groups interpreted the comic strips through the terministic screen of race cognizance, through which racial politics and oppression were highly relevant. Almost all of the European American participants, however, interpreted the comic strips through the terministic screen of Whiteness, through which racial politics and oppression were not relevant.

wayward christian soldiers

Wayward Christian Soldiers by Charles Marsh examines the striking contrast between white evangelical Christans and their support of the war on the one hand, and Christian moral teachings on the other.

advice for evil overlords

Just for fun: The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord. I thought this was pretty hilarious. Of course, reading the newspaper it is pretty clear that some folks don't need any help at all in becoming Evil Overlords.

south florida latina converting to islam

The following story appeared last year in the Sun-Sentinel under the title "Some S. Florida Latinas converting to Islam for emphasis on family, women's roles" by Tal Abbady. Alot has already been written about Latinos (especially Latinas) becoming Muslim. I've even posted similar articles on Planet Grenada. But personally I thought that this was well-written and more interesting than most, especially in describing the relationship between Latino culture (in this case the women interviewed were Cuban and Dominican) and Islam.

Miami, USA - Melissa Matos slips into an easy communion with her newest circle of friends. At regular meetings, they invoke their families' native towns in Cuba or the Dominican Republic, or recipes for arroz con pollo. English is interspersed with Spanish. And, posing no incongruity to the women, hijabs, or Muslim head scarves, frame their faces.

When she converted to Islam in May, Matos, a Dominican-American raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, expected the passage to be lonely.

"I said to myself, `Great, I'm going to be the only Muslim Latina in the whole world,'" said Matos, 20, a student at Florida International University who recently joined a group of Latina converts to Islam.

Scholars say Matos is part of a growing number of Latin women converting to Islam for its emphasis on family, piety and clearly defined women's roles, values converts say were once integral to Hispanic culture but have waned after years of assimilation.

The women are among 40,000 Hispanic converts to Islam in the United States, according to the Islamic Society of North America. About a decade ago, Latino converts began forming Internet groups such as the Latino American Dawah Organization and the women's group Piedad that trace Hispanics' ties to Islam back to the Spanish Moors.

Grass-roots leaders say the number of converts grew sharply after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bucking a trend of thought among Americans that links Islam to terrorism.

Sofian Abelaziz, president of the Miami-based American Muslim Association of North America, said one indication of the conversions is the demand for Spanish-language copies of the Koran, which spiked after Sept. 11. In the past two years, the group has filled orders for 5,500 Spanish-language Korans for schools, cultural institutes and prisons around the country, out of 12,000 orders total.

Matos and other converts say the recent media spotlight on Islam was their first exposure to the faith and spurred further learning.

"[Before] I picked up the Koran, my attitude was, `There's something wrong with this religion,'" said Matos, 20, of Miramar. A friend gave her a copy of the Koran. "But then I saw it was filled discussions of grace from God, of the protection of things we talk about as human rights, of a universal brotherhood. ... This is a religion that encourages thinking and contemplation," she said. In May, Matos converted by reciting the shahada, a prayer in which converts attest to their belief in Allah and Mohammed in front of Muslim witnesses. Islam now circumscribes her life. She is studying Arabic, prays five times a day, wears a hijab and follows Islamic dietary laws.

"There is no conflict between my Dominican heritage and Islam. I grew up in a culture where you have a family you love and you take care of one another, and Islam complements those values," Matos said.

Matos' conversion rattled friends and family members who linked Islam with Taliban-style oppression, but scholars say Latina converts are practicing a confessional Islam that offers strong moral guidelines.

"People might ask, `Why would women convert to a religion that is so traditional in its gender roles?' But that's part of the appeal. There's a recovery of dignity," said Manuel Vasquez, religion professor at the University of Florida. "Second-generation Latinas are caught between the morality of their parents and the morality of the larger mainstream society. Islam offers a clear code. Women ... know they are respected, taken care and protected from the negative influences of secular society. It's a kind of empowerment they don't experience in a culture that is constantly sexualizing them, and Latinas are particularly sexualized."

The converts may be fashioning a form of Islam that meets their needs in a country that allows them to do so.

"It's a comment on our society, on the fragmentation of American family life," said Leila Ahmed, a Harvard University professor who has written extensively on gender in Islam. "We have to bear that this is happening in America, where there is freedom of choice. These women are not converting in order to go and live in Saudi Arabia. We also don't know how permanent these conversions are in a country where people convert two or three times in their lives."

Like many converts, Matos calls herself a "revert," a reference to the Muslim belief that everyone is born in a state of submission to Allah. Being Hispanic and following Islam now are inextricable.

"When I meet with [my group] we speak in Spanish," she said. "We'll talk about what it was like back in Cuba or the Dominican Republic. And yet we're all wearing hijabs. It reminds me of the universality of Islam."

Religious leaders say the Latina converts assimilate easily into Islam.

"What they see in Islam is what their parents used to practice: that respect for elders, the care and protection that husbands are obligated to give their wives," said Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, director of the Darul Uloom Islamic Institute in Pembroke Pines. "Many converts tell me, `This is how my parents grew up.'"

When a Hispanic Muslim friend slipped a copy of the Koran into her hands, Marie Hernandez found "a total way of life."

"I started reading about the life of the Prophet Mohammed, and I was convinced that this is the true prophet of God," said Hernandez, 22, of Boca Raton. "This is the message I have to follow."

Islam also was a powerful antidote to a troubled adolescence, during which Hernandez left home for two years.

Conversion meant the end of partying, very little television and waking up at 5 a.m. for her first prayers. It also meant reconciling with her Honduran-born Catholic parents and becoming a Muslim wife. She met her husband, an Egyptian, through a meeting arranged by her imam. They have a 20-month-old toddler, Fatimah, named for the Prophet Mohammed's iconic daughter.

"At first my parents thought it was weird, and they were scared," Hernandez said. "They thought I might get too extreme in my worship. But now we have a beautiful relationship. Part of being a Muslim is to honor your parents, and I started treating my dad the way I should have."

A strong draw for Hernandez was the idea that for Muslims, Islam is the culmination of all religions. In the Koran, Jesus is venerated as a prophet, and entire passages are devoted to the Virgin Mary -- a ubiquitous figure in Latin American culture.

"It's important to know that Jesus and Mary play a role in Islam. Most Latin Americans are Catholic because that's all they know, that's what their predecessors were," said Hernandez, who cooks tamales to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

Converts say they are evidence that Latino identity is in flux.

"One reaction Latinos have with regard to Latinos who come to Islam is, `You're leaving your religion! You're leaving your culture!' But Latino culture is evolving," said Juan Galvan, president of the Texas chapter of the Latino American Dawah Organization.

"It's quite possible that Islam will one day be inseparable from Latino culture just as Christianity is."

Roraima Aisha Kanar, 52, is from a family of Cuban exiles who fled Cuba in 1959 and settled in Miami. Dissatisfied with Catholicism, she converted to Islam 30 years ago.

"My mother was devastated. I couldn't go to the beach and wear a bathing suit. I had to be covered and not wear makeup. I couldn't wear low-cut dresses. I felt like telling her, `Do you mean to tell me that's what's important in life?'" she said. "I think Latinas who convert are looking for a culture that we'd always had and then lost: strictness in the family, respect towards the elderly, moral and spiritual ties and the importance of having God in your life. Our grandparents had values similar to that. As converts we're just coming back to our roots."

After her conversion, she grew apart from her nightclub-hopping friends. She married a Turkish man with whom she has three children.

For Kanar, wearing the hijab, which some see as a sign of subjugation, is liberating.

"I lived through the '70s women's-lib movement," said Kanar, who works in accounting and owns a real estate business. "As a woman you wanted to be accepted as a person with a brain and not just a sexual object that had to be looking pretty to men all the time. I saw covering as something that would give me a lot of self-esteem. It did."

Kanar says she has straddled her Latino heritage and Islam comfortably.

"As soon as you speak to me you forget I'm wearing a hijab. I'm Cuban, and I speak with my hands. I love Celia Cruz. We don't go to Calle Ocho and we don't celebrate Christmas. We eat Spanish food, and though we won't have pork, we can do a nice lamb. What does it mean to be a Cuban, really? I feel Cuban, but I'm a Muslim Cuban."

human verification

At first I kind of liked the idea of being able to see all the potential comments but I really don't need to read that much spam. So with apologies to those who may be inconvenienced but, I'm going back to the old way of doing comments... using character recognition for human verification. (Wow, that makes it sound like something out of Blade Runner... actually it occurs to me that Edward James Olmos appears in both Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica, and both projects deal with issues of "human verification")

what does jesus look like?

What does Jesus look like? by Rosa Clemente reflects on her own Catholic upbringing, the recent film Son of Man, and Kanye West doing impressions of Jesus on magazine covers.

disoriented

I saw Saul Williams recently. It was deep. I'm still trying to mull over, distill and unpack before sharing at length. But he alluded to a quote by Paul Robeson which Williams used for the introduction of one of his books, and I thought it raised an interesting point.

The man who accepts Western values absolutely finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions, and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living.

He also broke down the word dis/oriented and through some slightly creative etymology said it meant "to turn away from the East". We are lost and we to turn back to the Eastern spiritual traditions to find our bearings again.

evo morales and the roots of revolution

Black Electorate: Evo Morales and the Roots of Revolution by Roger Burbach

progressive faith blog-con 2006 carnival

I really don't want to get into the whole issue of "Progressive Muslim" right this minute. I've commented on the subject before. I'll just say that it is mildly annoying to me that the term "Progressive Muslim" seems to have been hijacked by a group of people who are often neither. So instead of refering to orthodox Muslims who are concerned about racism, classism, sexism and other forms of oppression in society, the term tends to be applied to Neoconservative "cultural Muslims". Go figure.

In any case, I would like to do my part to take the term back. For instance, the Progressive Faith Blog-Con is for people of faith who identify as progressive in the first sense but not necessarily the second. Check it out.