Article: At the corner of progress and peril
The Washington Post has an article today that gives a more diverse view of black American men than just the one that has been portrayed in the media recently.
Any of you that have been reading this blog know, I am not one who buries his head in the sand and tries to point out a few notable exceptions in an attempt to make it the rule, while ignoring the mountain of problems that are out there for Black America in general, the Muslim community or Black American Muslims. Just doesn’t help much
In the context of Black American Muslims, I have personally come to believe, based on my extensive travels to many masjids in different cities across the US, and working with Muslims in the prison system (and after they get out) that the situation is much more dire.
While the Black American population in general has a good number of black males that are professionals, we just don’t see that many Black American Muslim males that are professional converting to Islam.
Yes, we do see them, but relative to the numbers, it is just not that many. (remember I am speaking of converts)
The percentage of black men graduating from college has nearly quadrupled since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and yet more black men earn their high school equivalency diplomas in prison each year than graduate from college. Black families where men are in the home earn median incomes that approach those of white families. Yet more than half of the nation’s 5.6 million black boys live in fatherless households, 40 percent of which are impoverished. The ranks of professional black men have exploded over four decades — there were 78,000 black male engineers in 2004, a 33 percent increase in 10 years. And yet 840,000 black men are incarcerated, and the chances of a black boy serving time has nearly tripled in three decades, Justice Department projections show
When it comes to Black American males that embraced Islam, we find that a significant number of them converted in jail. This is because many of the da’wah efforts have targeted the prisons and “the Hood”, while relatively little effort has been spent toward giving da’wah to more educated individuals.
I am not being snobbish here and saying not to give da’wah to the poor and downtrodden. I AM saying that because little effort has been made to call more educated individuals to Islam, we are seeing a massive skew and many social problems that are coming with it that the Muslims are not only totally unprepared to deal with but seem to prefer to ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist.
And those Black Americans who are educated and do convert find themselves in a “neither-world”, unable to relate to many of their fellow Muslims. They can’t relate to those in many inner city masjids who put little to no importance on educating their children, often do not have a job (much less a professional one) are irresponsible and have many social problems.
But on the other hand they also cannot relate to those in immigrant masjids whose programs are often blatantly geared toward a particularly ethnic group or nationality. And furthermore, the immigrants often assume because he is black that he is only there for zakat or sadaqah money. But when they realize that he actually has intelligence he is then used as the ”typical convert” to show off. This allows them to ignore the fact that for every brother like this, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of others that are in unstable situations.
So this type of brother often finds himself wandering aimlessly trying to find his niche. Then after some time, in many cases he becomes disgruntled and aloof from the “community”. I know one such brother (a college educated professional convert) who refuses to use the word “community” as it relates to the Muslims in his city, preferring the word “congregation”. (That is actually a more accurate description of our situation)
What happens to these kinds of brothers? I was talking to a friend just last night who was telling me that one such brother became so disenchanted with the situation that he is barely Muslim. This caused me to think and I thought of four others like this are disenchanted to one level or another.
These types of brothers are often completely forgotten about. How many black college educated/professional converts do you know? How are they doing? Should there not be concern for them too?
Filed under: Race
I have seen this in the city I live in. If a brother is from a solidly middle class background and can't really hang with brothers who came up poor or out of prison then they are either loners or hang mostly with immigrant brothers. In Atlanta, they tend to go to the WD Muhammad's community even if they dont agree with the approach to Islam. Where I live now the WD community is not very middle class and has a lot of issues, so most brothers are stuck out trying to find their own niche. My husband is lucky in that he can mix with all types of brothers but his closest friend is an AA convert professional but he lives in a different city.
You can't depend on the masjid to help, they don't even have much for the second generation immigrants. You really have to push yourself to be more outgoing because it definitely will affect your deen.
Um Abdillah:
It is really difficult being that outsider when it comes to socializing. A brother (and his wife and children by extension) in that situation (in an immigrant community) is often left out by the other attendees of he masjid when it comes to gatherings at different homes throughout the year. And Eid is often one of the most lonesome times of the year.
Eid is a time that really brings things into perspective for these brothers because it shows them who they really are in the community.
Everyone else is with family and friends while they are left either at home alone with the wife and kids (if married) or to go to the masjid gathering where he will feel awkward eating his food alone or having some forced conversation with a brother he barely knows or sees.
This is true of a lot of brothers. There are very few organizations or institutions geared towards the American-Muslim and educated brothers often have to go with the immigrant brothers whom they may not relate to that well. There has been very little dawah aimed at colleges and the like and prison dawah is succesful because you are dealing with people who are looking for radical alternatives to the way they have been living.
My uncle complained of this. He said the ex-prisoner Muslims didn’t really accept you unless you had been to jail, and the other groups of Muslims had their own issues with reguards to poverty, education, etc.
As salaamu alaikum Tariq,
Two very important issues: 1) lack of professional African American Muslims Males (AAMM) and; 2) estrangement of those professional AAMM amongst the larger Muslim community.
I can empathize your sentiments about the estrangement but feel unqualified to comment on that. I do feel qualified to comment on the lack of professional AAMM and its relationship to dawah.
You rightly identify the primary source of dawah to the AAMM community being prison/’hood’ outreach. In these forms of dawah, those AAMM who become Muslims do not belong to a professional class because if they did, they most likely would not be incarcerated/living in that system /community.
However, I believe, from my experience, that another place where Muslims are very active are on College campuses. Just go to any of the D.C., NY, NJ, Houston, etc., area Muslim Students Associations and you will find them engaged in many forms of dawah on campus. Since you noted the lack of professional AAMM, the presence of these organizations poses a few questions:
1) Are they less active/efficient/numerous in dawah than the prison/’hood’ dawah organizations?
2) If so, which is the causal factor that has caused the prison/’hood’ dawah to be more effective?
I will without say that the MSAs are definitely less active/efficient/numerous than the prison/’hood’ organization because much of the leadership is very short term (at the most 4 years or so) whereas they leadership and commitment of Muslims who are involved in dawah in the prison/’hood’ has greater commitment and in some instances many of those Muslims giving dawah are former recipients of that dawah. In addition, the low budgets and resources of the MSAs also make them less efficient than the prison/’hood’ system.
On the second question, which is the more important one, it is difficult to discern which is the critical variable involved. The above-mentioned commitment and budgetary restrictions are no doubt factors but I argue that another subtle but significant factor is the most critical: time.
Time is perhaps the reason why Muslims are effective in the prison/’hood’ systems/communities because the members of those groups constantly run into our dawah or meet Muslims. Furthermore, the ability to assess ones values and ask the meaning of life once in prison or struggling in the ‘hood’, perhaps opens AAMM minds to Islam a lot more. On the contrary, that is not the instance with MSA dawah to potential professional AAMM in college because those AAMM are often occupied with studying to maintain the competitive grades needed for MD/JD/MBA programs or rigorous technical courses in engineering or architecture that they simply tune out many aspects of their social/college community life. Furthermore, the fact that they see the MSA perhaps occasionally in their limited four years on campus or socialized with the few Muslims in their classes makes difference compared to inmates or inner city community members who often befriend and socialize with many Muslims before eventually accepting Islam. The time factor definitely hurts dawah towards the professional AAMM.
Your point about if the number of professional AAMM ‘relative’ to the numbers of professional African American non-Muslims is important. I think its measurable if we compare the percentages of the sub-categories of 1 and 2:
1) Total # of African American males (100%) = professional African American males (%) + non-professional African American males (%) + other/NA (%)
2) Total # of AAMM (100%) = professional AAMM (%) + non-professional AAMM (%) + other/NA AAMM (%)
If someone has the statistics, they could be plugged in to see how much of a percentage difference exists between professional African American males and those professional AAMM.
Having assessed a problem, we should work towards improving it! I think some recommendations to remedy this problem would be have professional Muslim organizations have joint events/conferences/rallies with professional African American organizations on issues they are both concerned about (i.e. civil liberties, role of minorities in America, etc).
As Salaamu Alaikum,
I partially agree with your comments regarding the African American muslim ummah. First, I would like to express my personal observations on the issue. The muslim ummah is comprised of two distinct groups emmigrants and American (African Americans). The African Americans are comprised of Nation of Islam and followers of WD Muhammad.
There are professional African American muslims. A significant number of professional are developed via the Clara Mohommed School system. Some muslims remain unidentifiable out of fear. On the other hand, a large segment of the muslim ummah are not professionals. Professional or non professional is not the true issue. If you study the sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), you know the early converts were the rejected and oppressed members of society. The middle and affluent classes were blinded by their material wealth. It wasn’t until the muslim won battles that they began embracing Tauheed. The African American muslim are following the sunnah of Prophet Muhammad. We will make in roads as our dawah efforts increase. Dawah will erase the false concepts of Allah and Islam currently held by professional non muslims.
The emmigrant muslim community was not destroyed by slavery. Their social, family, and business structure has a firm foundation. As you know their are numerous professional emmigrant muslims. They have Muslim Chamber of Commerce and other organizations. It is our relationships with each other that will enable Islam to spread correctly throughout landscape of America.
Do not be dismayed by small numbers? Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had only seventy followers after ten years of teaching in Mecca. He fought every battle out numbered 3 to 1 or greater. Remember, Islam is calling Americans to embrace an alternative life style based upon righteousness. Americans and their culture is grounded in filth. The Western value system makes all haram seem appealing. Islam rejects all haram!
Brother Rafiq
Wa alaykum as-salaam
All due respect, but I think you overgeneralized the Black American Muslims. There are a large number of Black American Muslims who do not follow WD Mohammed. I would estimate that anywhere 40-60% of Black American Muslims do not follow WD Mohammed. Most of my comments are regarding this group.
The NOI is a totally different story altogether that I will save for another time, but to say that African Americans are either in the NOI or follow WD Mohammed is very inaccurate.
Also, while American culture has a lot of filth in it (especially in the last 30 years) I personally don’t think it is fair to say that it is *grounded* in it.
First, I would like to thank bro. Tariq for bringing these taboo issues to front. I’m tired of the slogans and band-aid approach from immigrant and AA Muslims who seem to be looking at these situations in our communities through rose colored glasses. I would like to make a few observations myself to build on the aforementioned points.
I’m African American. I’m Muslim. I have a college degree. My wife is African American. She’s Muslim. SHE has a college degree. And we have NO ONE that we can relate to in this particular city. I’m not being snobbish either but most of the AA Muslims outside of the WD community that I have come across have a plethora of social issues that they bring into the Masjid with them because they are ex-cons or are of some other disenfranchised demagraphic. The prevailing attitude of the immigrant toward AA Muslims who “piggy-back” (pardon the mention of khinzeer) onto the activites and dinners and what-not in the masjid is that AA muslims are a bunch of parasitic con-men in tattered thobes with no real education/sophistication about them and furthermore - they have nothing to offer the community - they only come to take. Whether it be shelter, sadaqah, or some menial job working for some Palestinian in his weave shop.
Furthermore, (and I’m speaking from over 25 years of being a floater in Islamic communites in my area) - there is a disturbing amount of mentally unstable AA brothers AND sisters who have had traumatizing events in their lives and as a result, are struggling with some form of mental illness or another. Yet, it is again TABOO to sugguest this - even though I (and I’m sure Bro. Tariq) can cite numerous examples of AA Muslims displaying blatant mental illness in and outside the masjid.
I worked in the prisons for almost 2 years giving classes on the basics of Islam and many of the brothers got out and began gravitating toward one community or another. But as I observed in the jails, many of the brothers had to take some form of medicine for a wide range of mental illnesses such as bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. Where do they end up - in the masjid where OTHER disturbed AA brothers tell them that there is no such thing as bi-polar, schizoprenia, etc and that if you make a certain amount of adhkaar or read a fabricated story of some wali that may or may not have even existed, then their problems will just go away.
And just a point about this notion that targeting “poor/black” people first or even exclusively is “sunnah”. I don’t have the time or the space to address this in detail but what is actually Sunnah and what has been propagandized as “sunnah” is not always the same. I have been involved in Da’wah projects in poor neighborhoods, jails and in corporate boardrooms so I’m speaking from experience here. It is just as wrong and against the sunnah to ignore middle-class educated folk in favor of lower-class lesser educated folk. Isn’t Islam for EVERYONE? The real reason that many “du’aat” are in favor of the hood instead of the campus or even corporate america is because many of the “du’aat” are uneducated themselves. They are ill-equipped to navigate through the real world where people don’t just blindly follow and superstitiously immitate whoever they believe is a religious authority. They are insecure when dealing with people who critically and logically analyze and debate and consequently, may “eat their lunch” and send them home packing and even shake the da’ees iman. Therefore, to play it safe, most AA “du’aat” stay out of those circles in favor of jails where any brother with an arabic vocabulary can become the prison ‘allaamah. After all, better to be a big fish in a small pond than a guppy in the real world.
Brother R, really interesting comments. Couple of points
!. You would be surprised how many middle class AA Muslims were in prison also. Unfortuantaly due to hip hop and maybe its simplestic to blame the culture but thats what I see, black men who want to assert their masculinity turn toward crime and such. I went to school across the street from an all male HBCU that shall remain nameless but you would see guys who came from surburbia, good grades etc dropping out of school, selling drugs or trying to be rap artists because they thought that was the defininition of being a black male. Just to point out that not all Muslim ex-cons are entrenched in that culture, some of them were just young men who made some stupid decisions in their youth. Probably they don’t want people to know they went to prison, I mean who wants to advertise that fact.
2. I think MSA’s are not as successful because giving dawah is not about just handing out a pamphlet. Its about building relationships or having long term contact with a person. Campus’ are usually segregated and MSA’s tend to be just social clubs for certain immigrants, usually desi or Arab depending on which campus. There is not a lot of contact with African Americans. I think they probably bring in more White Muslims because there is probably more contact in classes. Obviously this is generalization.
3. I think there are lots of AA Muslims on the DL but because of possible career ramifications, they don’t advertise it. Also the emphasis on external Sunnah by some masjids/communities may keeep some brothers away who may believe in Islam but not believe they have to dress like a Pakistani or Arab to be Muslim.
My observations may be dated, I do hope things are getting better with the under 25 age group.
Salaam ‘Alaikum
My personal observation about people who convert in college is that it doesn’t happen b/c of the MSA, but in spite of it. Again, my observation is that people will convert either through just picking up the Qur’an at B&N on their own, or after forming a friendship with a Muslim and talking, learning, etc. It doesn’t come from Islam Week and it doesn’t come from pamphlets in an office where someone’s rarely there.
At the last university I went to, there were two distinct groups of Muslims: the MSA kids, who were all Arab and Desi, and the rest of us, Black, White, and Latino Americans as well as numerous students from W. Africa. The two rarely interacted. Group 2 found the MSA unwelcoming, condescending, and ethnocentric, and Group 1 were off in their own world, unaware of how some members were keeping other Muslims out of what essentially became an ethnic organization.
I think that the MSA has really done good work since 9-11 and have become a leading organization on many campuses. Also, as Tariq said, the majority of African-American Muslims are not in the NOI and do not follow WD
please come share on the ummah boards, http://www.ummah1421.com/boards
people refer to your blog often there
This is addressed to “the R”. I am very ashamed of some of your comments, especially since you have exposed yourself to the most vunerable in Black America by working in the prison system. You are the last “thing” they need. It is VERY arrogant for you to assume that all “ex-cons” and those from the “hood” are so mentally ill that they are unworthy of your support/fellowship in the masjid.
You also speak of the “traumatized” men and women who, to summarize your words “infiltrate” the Islamic community.
There’s no wonder why you seem to have trouble connecting with the rest of the black Islamic community. There may be some “blind imitation” going on in our communities as a whole, yet it is the so-called brother (such as yourself) who seeks to perpetuate a demeaning attitude toward our brothers/sisters who have fallen in order to elevate his own low self-image that may be one day held responsible for causing someone to run from Islam.
You may have a degree, as I have, but you seem to be an “educated fool”. How dare you demean brothers who may not have had the opportunities that I or you have had? How dare you? I am appalled. You have no business working with prisoners. I hope you continue to keep your head in the clouds and leave our brother/sisters who are “disadvantaged” in the eyes of society alone. As a black woman, RN, BSN who has worked with the mentally ill, I know that when all else fails, “medication” is used as a band-aid to cover other deeply rooted problems. There are some serious challenges facing some of these men/women who are incarcerated, but many, if not most, have underlying issues of neglect, hopeless and isolation. You are a part of the problem, based on your statements, and not the solution.