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.

the quartet meme

I was tagged with:
The Quartet Meme (Grrrr)

Four Jobs I’ve Had in My Life
1. middle school teacher
2. paper boy (okay it was one day)
3. bank teller
4. dj

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over, and Have
1. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
2. Deep Cover (the 1992 film with Laurence Fishburne)
3. Five Heartbeats
4. Hollywood Shuffle

Four places I’ve lived
1. Illinois
2. California
3. Michigan
4. Massachussetts

Four TV Shows I Love To Watch
1. Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
2. Deep Space Nine
3. The West Wing
4. The Boondocks

Four Places I Have Been On Vacation
1. Cancun, Mexico
2. Spain
3. Miami, Florida (I spoke the most Spanish in Miami)
4. Wisconsin Dells.

Four Websites I Visit Daily
1. Black Electorate
2. Chickenbones
3. Third Resurrection (you wouldn't believe how cool it is when I'm surprised by the stuff that is put up there)
4. and um... Wikipedia

Four Favorite Foods
1. pizza with pesto sauce and Tortellini from Antonio's
2. a good tofu stir fry
3. a good taco salad
4. home-cooked arroz con frijoles negros, yucca and platanos fritos.

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
1. home
2. New York
3. San Francisco Bay Area
4. ummmm.... Planet Grenada

Four people whom I tag next
1. Elenamary - De Aqui y de Alla
2. Brownfemipower - Woman of Color Blog
3. DA - Crime of Aquinas
4. Leila from Sister Scorpion (who is asking for a meme)

encyclopedia of biblical errancy

I used to own The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy by C. Dennis McKinsey. It's basically a book which brings together in once place a whole host of arguments against Biblical Inerrancy. I say I used to own it because I lent it to a Christian acquaintance of mine who won't give it back. I think the book disturbed him and he must have burnt it or something. From time to time I tease him about how the Bible says something about "Thou shalt not steal".

Anyway, the book tends to take a shotgun approach. What it achieves in terms of its comprehensiveness it loses in its poor use of logic. Some of the book's arguments are valid examples of contradictions or difficulties, but many are also easy to resolve. Still, the book has its interesting points, and if you want to study Christian-Muslim polemics its probably worth a gander.

Especially since I just found out that it is available free online:
Online Version of the Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy

no hay sangre negra

Thanks to Elenamary for the heads-up...

Taunya Lovell Banks recently published a paper entitled: Mestizaje and the Mexican Mestizo Self: No hay Sangre Negra, So There is No Blackness on how Afro-Latinidad and mestizaje play themselves out in a Mexican context. Here is the abstract (will probably discuss later):

Many legal scholars who write about Mexican mestizaje omit references to Afromexicans, Mexico's African roots, and contemporary anti-black sentiments in the Mexican and Mexican American communities. The reasons for the erasure or invisibility of Mexico's African roots are complex. It argues that post-colonial officials and theorists in shaping Mexico's national image were influenced by two factors: the Spanish colonial legacy and the complex set of rules creating a race-like caste system with a distinct anti-black bias reinforced through art; and the negative images of Mexico and Mexicans articulated in the United States during the early nineteenth century. The post-colonial Mexican becomes mestiza/o, defined as European and Indian, with an emphasis on the European roots. Thus contemporary anti-black bias in Mexico is a vestige of Spanish colonialism and nationalism that must be acknowledged, but is often lost in the uncritical celebration of Latina/o mestizaje when advanced as a unifying principle that moves beyond the conventional binary (black-white) discussions of race. This uncritical and ahistorical invocation of mestizaje has serious implications for race relations in the United States given the growing presence and political power of Mexican Americans because substituting mestizaje for racial binarism when discussing race in the United States reinforces rather than diminishes notions of white racial superiority and dominance. Therefore legal scholars who write about Latina/o issues should replace their uncritical celebration of mestizaje with a focus on colonialism and capitalism, the twin isms that influenced ideological theories and racial formation from the late fifteenth through the twentieth century in the Americas.

radical women of color carnival

The Radical Women of Color Carnival: Edition #1

ashurah

It's that time of year again. Oddly enough, this "year" Chinese New Year coincided with the Muslim New Year and the beginning of the first ten days of the month of Muharram. It is definitely a time when religious sensibilities will be heightened among Muslims (I wonder how much that affected the response to the Danish cartoons).

I shared some thoughts on the subject of Ashurah last year (wow, Planet Grenada is approaching its first birthday soon) so this year I think I'll mostly just point to a sampling of what some other members of the Muslim blogosphere are saying. The comments range from...

The Informative:
Sister Scorpion: Judaism, Sunni Islam, and Shi'i Islam and Ashura
Sunni Sister: The Hijrah and Muharram
Zam Zam: Muharram 2006/1427

The Festive:
Dervish: Happy New Year
Colloquy: Tonight We're going to Party Like it's 1427

And the Personal:
Brown Rab Fish Girl: This is a weeping song; a song with which to weep (Nick Cave)
Truth & Beauty: Reclaiming Ashura

And from Grenada last year
day after day after day...

tri-caucus

WASHINGTON - The racial divide exposed by Hurricane Katrina has united minority lawmakers in Congress who hope to leverage their numbers to aid overlooked communities. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus are creating a new group that will include all of their members. The Tri-Caucus will not replace the existing caucuses.
(full story from Yahoo News)

somewhat machiavellian

I guess I sort of knew that...

You Are Somewhat Machiavellian

You're not going to mow over everyone to get ahead... But you're also powerful enough to make things happen for yourself. You understand how the world works, even when it's an ugly place. You just don't get ugly yourself - unless you have to!

How Machiavellian Are You?

One of the most interesting passages in the Bible for me is Matthew 10:16 where Christ gives his disciples the following instructions: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." For the longest time, in the back of my mind I've thought if I ever write some kind of science fiction story about some Christian theocratic government coming to power in the US, then that would probably be the motto of their intelligence agency.

islam and christianity blending in africa

LAGOS, NIGERIA At first, it seems a surprising sight: inside a two-story mosque in sub-Saharan Africa's largest metropolis hangs a life-size portrait of Jesus Christ.

Yet worshipers at "The True Message of God Mission" say it's entirely natural for Christianity and Islam to cexist, even overlap. They begin their worship by praying at the Jesus alcove and then "running their deliverance" - sprinting laps around the mosque's mosaic-tiled courtyard, praying to the one God for forgiveness and help. They say it's akin to Israelites circling the walls of Jericho - and Muslims swirling around the Ka'ba shrine in Mecca.

This group - originally called "Chris-lam-herb" for its mix-and-match approach to Christianity, Islam, and traditional medicine - is a window on an ongoing religious ferment in Africa. It's still up for debate whether this group, and others like it, could become models for Muslim-Christian unity worldwide or whether they're uniquely African. But either way, they are "part of a trend," says Dana Robert, a Boston University religion professor.

Full story from Christian Science Monitor:
In Africa, Islam and Christianity are Growing, Blending

Also see: the wise men for link to story on Senegalese Muslims celebrating Christmas.

chappelle opens up

David Chappelle is starting to talk more openly about his life and why he walked away from the 3rd season of the Chappelle Show. Apparently it wasn't a secret African-American cabal called the Dark Crusaders.

More on Chappelle's recent appearance on Oprah.
More on Chappelle's upcoming appearance on Inside the Actor's Studio

why muslims get mad

In the media, people tend to focus on the "last straw" and don't even pay attention to everything else which comes before it. Abu Gharaib, Guantanamo, Kashmir, Gujurat, the latest atrocities in Palestine, 9/11 backlash, the Patriot Act, Jose Padilla, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all of the other ways in which Muslim life and honor is disrespescted.

Al-Jazeera: US radio host upsets Muslim body A Muslim civil liberties group has demanded an apology from the host of a Los Angeles-area radio show for making fun of a stampede that killed hundreds of Muslims during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

the dirty dozen

The biggest Islam-related story in the world today is obviously the recent uproar about the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad (saaws). I really just have a few brief comments:

1. Even if you believe strongly in free speech (and I do) it is really really stupid to piss on the religious sensibilities of a billion people.

2. Muslims are under no obligation to give their money to people (or those associated with them) who piss on their religious sensibilities. So the boycotts are a beautiful response. It is certainly a wiser, more constructive response than resorting to violence (which unfortunately is also happening).

3. Anger doesn't arise in a vacum. And I don't believe that in all times and places, you would find Muslims reacting violently to a mere cartoon. (For example, Muhammad was depicted on a past episode of South Park without causing any kind of protest as far as I know) From the recent French riots we know that the European Muslim community is facing all sorts of issues of class and race, anger and disrespect, and that it only takes a catalyst to bring those issues to the surface.

Telegraph: Anti-Islamic Comments from the Danish Queen
The Brussels Journal: Danish Imams Propose to End Cartoon Dispute (includes cartoons)
Alt.Muslim: The Dirty Dozen (And the Damage Done)
Alt.Muslim: Through The Looking Glass: The Danish Cartoons

so if we take hostages, what should they call us?

Critics Say Detaining Suspected Terrorists' Wives May BackfireIt Could Alienate the Iraqi People, Experts Say

Jan. 29, 2006— Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, there have been questions about U.S. troops' sensitivities to Islamic culture — especially when dealing with women. Now there are new questions about a tactic the military calls leveraging. For example, marines found weapons and explosives in a woman's house and wanted her to lead them to her husband. The military says this sort of intimidation is a necessary tool. But internal military documents suggest it's taken a new turn: Detaining wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of getting their husbands to surrender. "If they're being taken solely for the purpose of drawing their men out of hiding, it can even appear to look like hostage taking," said Jumana Musa of Amnesty International.(full story)

Could be Jumana, could be.

what's new

I just wanted to give shout-outs to some blogs which I have semi-recently and unceremoniously added to my blogroll.

pomegranate queen This poetic Iranian woman describes herself as "a Revolutionary Other; Desert Woman; shitdisturber; certified social anthropologist; aspiring high school teacher; "starving" artist/writer/poetess; homemaker; secular B-Girl muslima; Brownstockings-girl; emotionally intense; musically-obsessed... "

Both s.o.u.l. empire and da city bass line are blogs by R.J. Noriega. It is hard to briefly explain what they cover but in a lot of respects they are like Planet Grenada's brothers from another mother.

little peaches is by a Latina Muslim blogger living in Canada who writes about her personal life. In her words: Writer ~ Wife ~ Teenager ~ Survivor ~ Student ~ Sister ~ Niqabi ~ Muslimah ~ Mother ~ Latina ~ Homeschooler ~ Daughter ~ Convert ~ Baby Wearer ~ Aunt ~ Attached Parent ~ American

And then it was over... by Lubna Grewal is a thoughtfully-written blog by a Muslimah living in Michgan.

and finally, my man's semi-anonymous livejournal blog eclectic-soul (he's the brother who first told me about the magical negro)

early mexican graves hold africans

Within just a few years of Christopher Columbus' journey to the New World, West African slaves appeared in the Western Hemisphere. And researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, in Merida, Mexico, may have found one of the earliest gravesites of these unwilling travelers. (entire article)

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.

complexion

From a certain point of view, it really doesn't matter. And there are actually other texts which give alternative descriptions. But it is still interesting that this sort of description exists in the hadith.

Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 650:
Narrated Salim from his father:

No, By Allah, the Prophet did not tell that Jesus was of red complexion but said, "While I was asleep circumambulating the Ka'ba (in my dream), suddenly I saw a man of brown complexion and lank hair walking between two men, and water was dropping from his head. I asked, 'Who is this?' The people said, 'He is the son of Mary.' Then I looked behind and I saw a red-complexioned, fat, curly-haired man, blind in the right eye which looked like a bulging out grape. I asked, 'Who is this?' They replied, 'He is Ad-Dajjal.' The one who resembled to him among the people, was Ibn Qatar." (Az-Zuhri said, "He (i.e. Ibn Qatan) was a man from the tribe Khuza'a who died in the pre-lslamic period.")

the adventures of black jesus

Son of Man is a new South African film, which premiered at the U.S. Sundance festival in Utah and transports the life and death of Christ from first century Palestine to a contemporary African state racked by war and poverty.

Jesus is born in a shanty-town shed, a far cry from a manger in a Bethlehem stable. His mother Mary is a virgin, though feisty enough to argue with the angels. Gun-wielding authorities fear his message of equality and he ends up hanging on a cross.

"We wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by spindoctors and to strip that away and look at the truth," director Mark Dornford-May told Reuters in an interview.

"The truth is that Christ was born in an occupied state and preached equality at a time when that wasn't very acceptable."

Yet another retelling/revisioning of a familiar story is A Huey Freeman Christmas which gives more than a few nods to its Charlie Brown predecessor, both in terms of music and storyline. Huey's teacher wants him to direct the school Christmas play, but Huey insists on complete creative control ("I want it in writing"). And even after getting helped by Quincy Jones, Huey still has a few obstacles and hurdles to overcome before he will be able to realize his visionary play "The Adventures of Black Jesus".

p.s. The above link should display the actual episode but the quality may vary with the speed of your internet connection. There is also a searchable archive to several other Boondocks episodes including one called Don't drop the soap. (or "A Date with the Health Inspector") Don't miss the scene where two white gangstas, reminiscent of certain politicians (and voiced by Charlie Murphy and Samuel Jackson) hold-up a convenience store owner who looks surprisingly like a certain Iraqi dictator on the grounds that he has a gun.

complexion consciousness

Arafat, the Bangladeshi blogger behind Anthology gives the straight dope behind certain colorstruck attitudes on the Sub-Continent in his post: Complexion Consciousness

twins raised apart

It would be hard to convey how surprised I was when I found a blog called Planet Granada When I chose the name for my blog, one of the things which definitely attracted me was the ambiguity in the names. I was actually *this* close to picking Planet Granada instead of Grenada. Only I went one way, and he another. Small world.

the return of the king

Nubian at Blac(k)ademic recently posted the Boondocks episode where Martin Luther King comes out of a coma to bring his new dream to a more contemporary time. This is not your grandfather's MLK. He is more like Bill Cosby without the Jello pudding pops.

captain picard

A buddy of mine from school recently got a couple of seconds of national fame. I just heard him on NPR about an hour ago. So I can't help but leave a link. It was part of a story called: Haitian Expatriates Eager to Vote on Future and his name is Jean-Luc (Guess what my nickname for him was?)

black white supremacist

If you haven't seen the classic (or at least much talked-about Dave Chappelle sketch) about the blind Black white supremacist, here it is.

But if you want to see an example of how the truth can be as strange as fiction, here is the real life story of a Black Klansman. (Although I wonder if the story was written as it was because of the Chappelle sketch)

another first

Christian Science Monitor: Liberia's New Lease On Life is about how Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has recently been elected as the first female African president.

let's hope she has a kevlar dress

Miami Herald: Chileans elected Michelle Bachelet, a socialist, as their nation's first woman president, extending the leftists' hold on the presidency while signaling a cultural shift.

not really surprising

From Counterpunch: How the FBI Spied on Edward Said

oppressed and oppressor

Sahih Bukhari Volume 3, Book 43, Number 624:
Narrated Anas:

Allah's Apostle said, "Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is an oppressed one. People asked, "O Allah's Apostle! It is all right to help him if he is oppressed, but how should we help him if he is an oppressor?" The Prophet said, "By preventing him from oppressing others."

we are, therefore i am

In “We are; therefore I am” South African Muslim theologian Farid Esack writes a self-critical piece calling for greater moral consistency among Muslims and all humanity. In an excerpt he writes:

To recognize evil in its own time and to act upon it when it is unsafe to do so is an enormous privilege. Such recognition and action is really for one’s higher self. Thus when I lodged a complaint with the South African Independent Broadcasting Authority against a local Muslim radio station for promoting hate speech against Jews, or when I regularly denounced Muslim anti–Semitism in my writings I did not do Jews any favours. I do not recall ever looking back to see how my interventions were being received by them – or even if they were aware of them. I acted thus so that my own humanity not be diminished by my silence when some part of the human family was being demeaned. This is the African notion of ubunthu – ‘I am a person because of my connected to other persons; I am because you are’. If something lessens your worth as a human being then it lessens mine as well. To act in your defense is really to act in defense of my ‘self’ – my higher present self or my vulnerable future self.

chavez and anti-semitism

Forward published a piece Venezuela's Jews Defend Hugo Chavez which reveals an interesting dynamic. In a recent speech, Chavez apparently made a reference to "Christ-killers" but in a Latin American context, Liberation Theology has long depicted Jesus as a socialist and consequently speaks of gentile business elites as "Christ-killers."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center took the comment as anti-semitic and are asking Chavez to apologize. But local Latin American Jewish organizations, as well as other American Jewish organizations are defending Chavez and are accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center of rushing to judgment by charging Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, with making antisemitic remarks.

So then that raises the question of whether the Simon Wiesenthal center is speaking in the interests Venezuelan Jews or speaking as an American organization which disagrees with Chavez's political stances?

the magical negro

This past summer, a poet buddy of mine introduced me to the concept or stereotype of The Magical Negro (surprisingly enough, Wikipedia has a link). Then over at the Women of Color blog, brownfemipower was talking about the same thing under the title black folks and the supernatural. And finally, just today I was reading about hollywood and the magical negro over at rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace (Actually, he kind of WANTS to be a magical negro. In fact, that was mainly the reason why I added him to my blogroll... i.e. he's a blogger of color who was concerned about politics and people but is coming from a non-mainstream spiritual perspective).

At this point, I don't think I would say that the Magical Negro stereotype is a bad thing. In fact, it seems kind of benign. (Is the public image of Martin Luther King an example of the Magical Negro who ended racism by singing a few songs?) There are certainly worse stereotypes out there. I'm just saying I'm starting to notice it as a recurring figure. Let me get back to you on it.

to be continued ...