math camp love... it all adds up

Latino Perspectives: It all adds up: Math-teaching couple gives back by mentoring, shaping young minds by Peter Madrid is a cute story about a couple who met at math camp and now are doing a lot of work promoting math education and making a difference in the life of Latino youth. I find the story especially sweet because I went to the same math camp where they met. It is good to hear that they are still together, with kids, and loving what they do.

ramadan mubarak y'all

five fingers

I recently saw and was pleasantly surprised by the film Five Fingers. I honestly don't know how I missed seeing it in the theater when it came out (2006). To begin with, the cast is amazing. Laurence Fishburne plays Ahmat. Said Taghmaoui (the perennial movie terrorist who has appeared in Traitor, Sleeper Cell and Vantage Point among others) plays the silent and unnamed Dark Eyes. The Afro-Cuban actress Gina Torres plays Aicha. Colm Meany (better known to some as Chief O'Brian from Star Trek) plays a travel guide named Gavin. And the film centers on Martijn, an idealistic young Dutch pianist played by Ryan Phillippe. I don't want to give anything away but I will say that the film is an impressive psychological drama which provides a layered and complex portrayal of the relationship between Islam and the West.

40th anniversary of the young lords

Democracy Now!: Influential Puerto Rican Activist Group the Young Lords Marks 40th Anniversary

See also:
young lords
felipe luciano
more felipe luciano
"one man's freedom fighter..."

obama's ramadan message

"i'm both muslim and christian" (part 3)

We've mentioned (the former Rev.) Ann Holmes Redding, the Episcopal priest who announced her conversion to Islam, before but here is a clip of her speaking in her own words.

The latest update in her story is that in April she has been officially defrocked by her bishop, so she is no longer an Episcopal priest. Also, she has co-authored the recently published book: "Out of Darkness Into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Christian and Jewish Sources.". Her co-authors are Jamal Rahman, a "Muslim Sufi minister at Interfaith Community Church" and Kathleen Schmitt Elias, "a former nun, now a Sufi Jew".

"i'm both muslim and christian" (part two)
"i'm both muslim and christian"

qawwali kissing flamenco

for more of this amazing fusion and synthesis, you might want to check out the Sologak blog: Sufi Chant: Qawali & Flamenco

sotomayor and the long march of puerto rican history

Of America: Justicia!: Sotomayor and the Long March of Puerto Rican History

music and islam: wind, strings and fear of a black planet

Brother Dash: Music And Islam: Wind, Strings And Fear of A Black Planet

female, muslim and mutant

altmuslimah: Female, Muslim, and mutant: Muslim women in comic books
part 1
part 2

my friend the devil

Chickenbones: My Friend the Devil: A Memoir of My Association With Eldridge Cleaver by Marvin X

shaykh adil kalbani: first black saudi imam of masjid al-haram

I would be really shocked if Shaykh Kalbani turned out to be the first "black" (whatever that means) Imam of Masjid Al-Haram ever. It is more believable that he is the first "black" Imam under the Saudis (since 1744) unless you go by the one drop rule. In any case, check out...

Mujahideen Ryder: The “Saudi Obama” – Shaykh Adil Kalbani, first Black Imam of Masjid al-Haram, Makkah

what do you call a black man with a phd?

The following is an interview of Henry Louis Gates Jr. conducted by his daughter Elizabeth Gates taken from The Daily Beast under the title My Daddy, the Jailbird.

Earlier this week, my father was wrongly accused of breaking into his own home. We had just returned from China, and he had flown from New York to Boston to prepare for a few days rest on Martha’s Vineyard. As my father was settling in, a police officer named Sgt. James Crowley showed up at his home.

Sgt. Crowley said he was responding to a call from a woman who described two black men breaking into her neighbors’ home with backpacks on. He demanded to see proof of residency and my father showed him both his Harvard ID and his state ID without hesitation. Shortly afterward, a miscommunication ensued, and my father was handcuffed and taken to jail. Our family is both saddened and outraged at this, and as I watched his mug shot scroll across various news stations last night, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was experiencing.

Daddy, how did it feel to read in the police report that although you had been cooperative with Sgt. Crowley, while he was standing uninvited in your home, your behavior had been reduced to “loud and tumultuous” after asking to see to his badge? Were you surprised at the inaccuracy of the police report?

Well, the police report was an act of pure fiction. One designed to protect him, Sgt. Crowley, from unethical behavior. I was astonished at the audacity of the lies in the police report, and almost the whole thing from start to finish was just pure fabrication. So yes, I felt violated all over again.

When Touré quoted Malcolm X in his piece for The Daily Beast and wrote, “What do you call a black man with a PhD? A nigger,” did you agree with that statement? I mean, will education still be our eventual leveling point?

No, I think the actions of Sgt. Crowley aren’t the actions of everyone on the Cambridge police force or all white people in Cambridge or Boston or in the United States. I mean, there are bad white people and bad black people. There are good police officers and bad police offers. We depend on the police—I’m glad that this lady called 911. I hope right now if someone is breaking into my house she’s calling 911 and the police will come! I just don’t want to be arrested for being black at home! I think this was a bit of an extreme reaction.

So you do think this was reduced to race? You do think this was purely racially motivated—that when he came into your home uninvited and didn’t read you your Miranda rights and he didn’t follow procedure?

No, when I was arrested I was not read my Miranda rights. I clearly was arrested as a vindictive act, an act of spite. I think Sgt. Crowley was angry that I didn’t follow his initial orders—his demand—his order—to step outside my house because I was protected as long as I was in the house because he didn’t have a warrant. I think what he really wanted to do was throw me down and put handcuffs on me because he was terrified that I could be dangerous to him and that I was causing violence in my own home—though obviously he didn’t know it was my home.

If I had been white this incident never would have happened. He would have asked at the door, “Excuse me, are you okay? Because there are two black men around here try’na rob you [laughter] and I think he also violated the rules by not giving his name and badge number, and I think he would have given that to one of my white colleagues or one of my white neighbors. So race definitely played a role. Whether he’s an individual racist? I don’t know—I don’t know him. But I think he stereotyped me.

And that’s what racial profiling is all about. I was cast by him in a narrative and he didn’t know how to get out of it, and then when I demanded—which I did—his name and badge number, I think he just got really angry. And he knew that he had to give me that, and his police report lies and says he gave it to me. If he had done that I would have simply taken it down and wrote a report! I was definitely going to file a report, now—just not as big as the one I’m about to file!

So since it’s clear this happens every day to minorities everywhere who don’t have representation, who like yourself previously believed in the justice system, what can we do as a community to make sure that our world starts to place value on all people of color—not only the exception, as you have been referred to so often during this ordeal?

I think its incumbent upon me to not let it drop—not to sweep it under the carpet—but to use this as a teaching event for the Cambridge police and police in general and for black people—don’t step out of your house. Don’t step onto that porch! You’re vulnerable. And second? To teach the police about the history of racism, what racism is. Sgt. Crowley found it outrageous that I was demanding his name? I mean, excuse me? Whose house was he in? Hello?

Yeah.

My house. I mean, he was there investigating? He should have gotten out of there and said, “I’m sorry, sir, good luck. Loved your PBS series—check with you later!” [laughter from both of us] If he would have given me his card I would have sent him a DVD! [more laughter]

But you’ve always taught my sister Maggie and me to stay on the right side of the law. Did this challenge your perception of what side that really is? Or are we always going to have to humble ourselves to this humiliating degree?

No. I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it’s difficult for “poor people”—poor white people, brown people—to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are. I mean listen, Liza. I was lucky. I could have been in there all night with as few as three other prisoners. What if I had been anonymous and in some other place? It’s scary, man. That’s why we have to fight through organizations such as the NAACP defense fund, on whose board I sit—we have to fight for equal rights for all people. It’s beyond race, it’s class and race! And that’s crucial.

There’s been so much talk about Black America moving into a “Post-Black Era.” What do you think it will take to actually achieve that? I mean, is it possible?

The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. [laughter] The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again. I am proud of the American people for electing the best candidate who happened to be a black man and that’s a great historical precedent in the United States, but America is just as classist and just as racist as it was the day before the election—and we all, to quote my friend Cornel West, “are recovering racists,” and we all have to fight those tendencies. In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room—and we have to become sensitive to it.

If this had happened to you before Maggie and I were born, would your ideals and what you’ve taught us have changed?

No! The ideals stay the same. America has already been founded on great ideals. Listen, Liza. America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history, and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system…

Yes.

…How they got there. Will they ever get out. The whole prison system is designed to dehumanize you. From the time you get in they take your belt off—they strip you of your identity. They put you in with other criminals in a claustrophobic cell—I mean, you don’t have a shot. It’s like the door shuts and boom: you’re dead. They’ve given you a new identity; they’ve stripped your identity as a person and given you a new identity as a prisoner and that is horrifying. I didn’t realize it until I experienced it. I was astonished, you know? Your cell phone doesn’t work and they set it up that way. It’s cold, man.

I realize.

If I didn’t have the money? I mean, where would I get the money? They said, “We know you have the 40 dollars because we went through your wallet.”

No.

Oh yeah

I’m sorry, Daddy.

Me too.

Elizabeth Gates is a graduate of The New School University, where she cultivated her love for fashion and writing. A former intern at Vogue Magazine, her interest in image, art and fashion has driven her desire to contribute to the vast narrative of modern culture in America and abroad.

obama on what the police would do if he were discovered "breaking" into his current residence like henry lous gates: "here i'd get shot"

And lest you think this was an isolated event, here is an old Grenada link about another Black professor who was arrested for going to his office.

salim muwakkil and pat hill

marc sims interviewing salim muwakkil

(a snapshot of an interesting conversation... from before the Democratic primary)

8 weeks to optimal health

I just finished reading Dr. Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimal Health and am intending to generally follow it. Basically, Dr. Weil is advocating a gradual series of changes with the aim of promoting a healthier lifestyle. It's not really about calorie counting as much as strengthening the body's healing response, reducing stress, preventing cancer and heart disease.

I also plan to supplement with ideas from The Book of Sufi Healing by Shaykh Hakim Moinuddin Chisti which I recently checked out from the local library. I'll also dust off my copy of Natural Healing With the Medicine of the Prophet by Imam Muhammad Al-Akili. We'll see how it all goes.

Dr. Weil's Website

Planet Grenada
islam and natural healing
islam and natural healing (part two)

maya angelou: we had him

(written by Maya Angelou on the occasion of Michael Jackson's death)

We had him

Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing,
now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips
like a puff of summer wind.

Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace.
Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.
In the instant that Michael is gone, we know nothing. No clocks can tell time.
No oceans can rush our tides with the abrupt absence of our treasure.

Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember
that he was a gift to us and we did have him.

He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love,
and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style.
We had him whether we know who he was or did not know,
he was ours and we were his.
We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.

His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing.
He gave us all he had been given.

Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana's Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England

We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him, and we are the world.

the more things change..

Huffington Post: Philadelphia Private Swim Club Forces Out Black Children

NBC reports that more than 60 African-American campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club because -- according to John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club -- "there was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion ... and the atmosphere of the club."

It may surprise some Americans to learn that not only do certain private clubs still refuse to admit African-Americans, women, and gay people, but that this kind of enrollment discrimination is considered perfectly legal.

This recent case of discrimination at the Philadelphia club is merely a continuation of discriminatory admission standards. Such official bans on non-Anglo Saxon men may seem superfluous considering outrageous membership fees are usually enough deterrence to keep non-white people off the golf courses and out of the pools, but when The Creative Steps Day Camp managed to pay the $1900 for their young campers to enter The Valley Swim Club, the staff resorted to drastic measures.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

the headscarf martyr

The Guardian
Kate Connolly in Berlin and Jack Shenker in Cairo

It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times.

Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.

Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.

[complete story]