colored queer waters

I’ve been going on a lot of hijab-related rants over the past month and some change. A lot of it has to do with the frustration I’ve experienced in my first year of being a Muslim convert. I find that while many of my non-Muslim friends are curious and want to engage with this newly assumed identity of mine, a lot of times its framed extremely problematic ways. I’ve struggled to establish with people what is acceptable to me and what is unacceptable to me in an attempt to understand what being a modest, hijab wearing Muslim woman means to me. A lot of posts I’ve written on tumblr are not only to share how i feel, but really work out the boundary lines for myself and see them before my eyes. It helps me know and actualize what i want and how to make it happen for myself. 

At the same time one of the biggest flaws I find in conversations around hijab wearing Muslim women is the utter lack of diversity and intersectionality when it comes to whose voices take center stage. A lot of times when i am regaled by non-Muslims about their experiences and interactions with the Muslim world, its from a framework not culturally relevant to my own. My experiences as a blackamerican Muslim woman are oftentimes inappropriately compared to other Muslim women who don’t necessarily share the same positionality as me. 

I find its really difficult for non-Muslims to understand that all Muslim woman’s experiences are equal in validity in truth, but not necessarily similar in the ways one would automatically think. 

The desire to truly understand the marginilization of Muslim women sometimes clouds the ability of non-Muslims to understand the complexities of multi-fasceted identity. In an eagerness to understand and quickly assume the role of ally, non-Muslims have a tendency to treat us homogeniously, spreading a threadbare understanding of “the collective experience” far and wide, with little regard as to how this is effectively an act of silencing and marginilization. 

So this break i spent a lot of time thinking about who are the visible Muslim women to the non-Muslim eye, specifically if you enter an independent bookstore and wanted to find titles on the intersection of women/gender studies, Islam, and feminist discourse who would you see. what are they talking about, what do they identify as problems and what do they proposing as solutions. 

I perused a shit ton of independent bookstores, because the books on Islam in mainstream bookstores requires another post on how capitalism, academia and islamophobia are intertwined.

I found two things.

First, I found a lot of books written by white western feminists with very loose connections to Islam. Memoirs of women who had travelled to the middle east in search of this “mysterious world”. *cue the orientalist tropes where the middle east is pathologized as some sort of enigma to the western imagination worthy of discovery,documentation, and ‘liberation’*

Second, I found a few books written by Muslim women; from the anthologies where Muslim women speak their truth to the more critical academic discourses on Islamic feminism. 

What i didn’t see were books by Muslim women who were african diasporic, Latino, far east asian, indigenous/first nations/Native American, European/white. I saw books which err on the side of what i call trickle down islamic feminism, wherein Islamic feminism has been narrowly associated with the struggle of Arab and occasionally women of Desi descent to the exclusion of all other intersectional identities. 

This is not a new problem for me, to be frank. Its this sort of narrow pathology that puts a distinct face to Islamic feminism which makes finding books on the subject of Muslim women from diverse identities a serious chore, and ongoing dialogues/discourses severely limited. Oftentimes when i want to understand more about the intersections of Islam and black women’s identity, I am automatically referred to Amina Wadud and nobody else. While i deeply respect Amina Wadud and have had the privilege of meeting her, i know her work isn’t specific to African American Muslim women. 

Which is why i felt so grateful when i stumbled upon the scholarship of Carolyn Moxley Rouse and her book Engaged Surrender: African American Women in Islam. 

Why i like this book: 

• Her work covers a good variety of African American Sunni women and their families, which allows you to understand how the spectrum falls in this Los Angeles sampling. 
• She spends a good time talking about how African American women located themselves in the Nation of Islam and then came to Sunni Islam. This is important for two reasons. A lot of times i hear non-black Muslims (and even some black muslims) frame their understanding of the nation of Islam and black Islamic nationalism in extreme amounts of anti-black racism. oftentimes this is a reflection of a lack of understanding around what the nation of islam is and its role in african american communities. additionally, conversations of black Islamic nationalism privilege the experiences of men far too often. Its rare to understand how black women experienced the nation of Islam and what made them switch to Sunni Islam. 
• My favorite part: With each interview subject she spends a great deal trying to detail the framework of African American Muslim communities. How the overarching beliefs and norms of Islam as a larger religion play themselves out in specific geographic locations and ethnic identities.
• She deals with the intersection oppressions African American Muslim women face that are oftentimes left out of larger conversations: poverty, the prison industrial complex/law enforcement bodies, food deserts, racism, anti-blackness in the larger Muslim community. 

While this book is a little over ten years old, its good for understand the unique struggle that is being an African American Muslim woman in the United States.  You will walk away with an understanding of how each interview subject constructs and lives our their identity as African American Muslim woman. 

It’d be really interesting to see this updated in the wake of 9/11, discussing the multiple pathologies black bodies already have of being considered “threats to the established social order/white supremacy/the state” before 9/11, and how those pathologies have worsened the oppression of african american Muslims since 9/11. 

But one can only dream………..

Anyways, I’m posting this not only so that people can understand what is being left out of larger conversations, but to bring visibility to the scholarship that attempts to highlight the unique struggle of African American Muslims.

I have a couple more books similar to this, and as i go through them i plan to post about them in more detail in the future.

With any luck, these posts (i guess you can call it a series) in conjuction with my personal posts, will help give people an idea of what constitutes the necessary groundwork to really have a conversation with me on what it means to be an African American Muslim woman. While i could totally write several educational posts on the subjects touched on in this book and beyond, I’m also a firm believer in people taking their curiosities to the streets (of google or amazon or your local library) so we can have a better conversation. 

Happy reading and exploring! 

i would love to see a shadeism in islam tumblr happen

i just have some reservations/concerns 

for one thing, i think lighter skin folk, while well intentioned as they are, take up waayy too much fucking space in conversations about shadeism as it is. its like, great, we understand that you get this, but let the folk who are the raw end of the stick on this one speak truth to power. 

you’re actually not helping shadeism if you, as a lighter skin person, become the defacto authority on something you may not always experience

its like, keep fighting the good fight, but this is a space for us by us. want to be a good ally? then don’t come onto this blog seeking cookies or gold stars

second, i want this to go HARD IN THE PAINT!!

we’re not going to shy away from the heavy stuff at all- like how dark skin folks are often times the last draft dodgeball pick when it comes to notion of marriage/desirability, representations of islam on a larger scale, authorities on scholarship

third, this tumblr needs the most ballin manifesto about how we are hear to speak truth to power, connect with each other, expand and continue a conversation that keeps falling by the wayside for many of us. and if lighter folk allies learn something by reading then great. but this isn’t the ally cookie stand nor will we entertain the notion that talking about these issues is somehow dividing islam

thoughts? things that need to be added to this?

{i know i’m supposed to be on vacation but i’m filling the queue here and thinking}

thinking about cynicalapathy’s post about how come arab communities don’t talk about shadeism

thinking about how when shadeism or anti-blackness are brought up amongst Muslims, the lightest of the light muslims always get the full spin of the hampster wheel as opposed to those who actually face shadeism on a day in day out basis

thinking about those same lighter, generally non-black people talking about why its not okay to use the N-word, or the recently discovered abeed {recently discovered for me}

but yet if i or some other Muslim from the Blackamerican or african diaspora cut that N-word down in the swaying wind, we are being too sensitive and dividing islam 

also, trying to find posts about muslims in the shadeism tag was taking waayyy too long in the D 

this needs to happen, clearly

clearly……..

Hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow. Up up and away (Chicago Muslims and allies responding to recent attacks of islamophobia) (Taken with Instagram)

We raise balloons in the hope that one day we will be free (Chicago Muslims and allies responding to recent attacks of islamophobia) (Taken with Instagram)

As many of you know, Chicago and other parts of Illinois have been the target of Islamophobic hate crimes. 

• Islamic School Hit With Acid-Filled Bottle In Lombard
• Man arrested for shooting at Chicago-area mosque with pellet rifle as hundreds worship inside 
• HATE GRAFFITI AT MUSLIM CEMETERY IN EVERGREEN PARK
• PRESS CONFERENCE ON REP. JOE WALSH’S ANTI-MUSLIM STATEMENTS

This has been a scary time for Illinois Muslims. Many of these attacks have been taking place during the last ten days of Ramadan, the holiest time of Ramadan, and at a time where Muslims are supposed to attend the mosque to worship have been riddled with fear and paranoia. Additionally, Chicago and the Northwest suburbs boasts large Muslim populations, communities that have built houses of worship, created non-profit organizations to fulfil social justice needs of that community, and established businesses and Islamic school systems. These communities need protection and our help to ensure they are able to continue thriving and serving the people who have helped built them and live there. 

One way you can help is by donating to CAIR-Chicago. 

Below is a snippet of the message i recieved from Ahmed of CAIR-Chicago. 

During tough times, nothing envigorates us and propels us forward than the support of our community and its belief in our work. Our driving force has always been to make you proud; we work for you. While we must be humble about our achievements - there is always much more work to do and to do it better - but we must also not take the progress that has been achieved by a young organization like CAIR-Chicago for granted. The strategy, networking, planning, implementation and the results are very real. It has not been easy. But despite the odds stacked against us, the difficult atmosphere, the relentless attacks, we persist. With Allah’s grace and your support, we are more excited than ever, more motivated than ever, more productive than ever. As we come to the close of this blessed month, we are very grateful for the moral support of the community; we are very grateful to note that it is at an all time high. But we must also report to you that our fundraising this Ramadan has been at an all time low - alhamdulilah. We understand the international issues that has put a strain on our community’s donor power - causes that are indeed of sacred importance to ALL of us. But as we have never wavered in producing results, our community must also not waiver in supporting the local organizations that effectively defend our civil rights, fight bigotry, promote tolerance, and build power.  I am writing today to ask you to do your part in supporting our efforts with your Ramadan Zakat by making a contribution of $500 or whatever you can comfortably afford. I also ask you to consider joining our Dollar-a-Day program. It takes just 2,000 memberships to cover our full budget so that we would never need to fundraise again. Please be among that team of supporters that will help give us full independence to do what we do best: produce results. For just ONE dollar a day (that’s 25% of your daily cup of coffee) you would be contributing to the following results every year:

• 1) Helping us put out hundreds of interviews through the public media that reach millions of our fellow citizens
• 2) Resolving dozens of civil rights cases at zero cost to the clients who often cannot afford justice
• 3) Training hundreds of young interns, externs, and fellows to become powerful, competent, articulate advocates for the Muslim community
• 4) Building competent representation at the highest levels of government, social, and civic circles in Chicago and Illinois
• 5) Securing the only downtown social high-rise space for the Muslim community - the Gallery - where we are able to host lectures, book clubs, social events, movie nights, and receptions to promote the values and ideals of our community to people of influence 
  
  

I hope that you find that we deserve your Zakat-eligible, tax-deductible donations this Ramadan. Here’s a sample of the three dozen mainstream media advocacy we have turned out on your behalf just this week. Here’s over 1,000 archived. Thank you in advance for your support.  -Ahmed 

Even if you are not a Muslim to give Zakat, please consider donation to CAIR-Chicago so they may continue to act on behalf on Muslims on the Chicagoland area and work to see justice done and Islamophobia continue to be tackled in our society. 

If you’re not in the position to donate, please reblog this message far and wide so that somebody who is capable of donating can and will. 

We have the power to end Islamophobia, and lets empower the Muslim organizations who have continually advocated on behalf of the Chicagoland Muslim community in the face of much post 9-11 adversity and are dedicated to seeing Islampohobia end. 

thenoisecomplaint:

aka, One Of The Most Ignorant Articles On The Internet.

“We ended up taking one of those cheesy green screen photos before we left. The girl in charge of the booth said we didn’t have to have our picture taken if we didn’t want to. This annoyed me, so we jumped right in and made her snap one. Doesn’t Ben look like he just married a virgin?”

“Six hours later, after a number of complications, I finally ripped the goddamn thing off. I’ve never been so happy to go home.”

can muslim tumblr reblog this load of ignorance and file complaints the way they have about nicki minaj?

hhmm… actually i haven’t talked about my personal experiences with anti-blackness within the Muslim community before. so i don’t mind doing it now

I converted to Islam roughly seven months ago, but even before i converted i had a vague understanding of how prevasive and deep anti-blackness runs within the American Muslim community. 

For example, i live in a suburb outside of Chicago, a place where there are a lot of huge umbrella Chicagoland organizations that claim to represent the majority Muslims within Chicago. But i think its very telling that if you look on many of these organizations websites how the ethnicities of the leadership and the socio-political issues presented as “concerns for the Chicago Muslim community” are largely in part a reflection of a desi or arab muslim politic and framing of ethnic-Muslim identity. there’s very little mention of the issues facing African American Muslims or even African diasporic Muslims and what the Chicagoland Muslim community is doing to help see justice done to those issues. 

On a more personal level, i notice the difference in how i am treated depending on what neighborhood i’m in. the nearest Muslim neighborhood from my suburb is Devon street, which is populated by mostly Urdu speaking peoples. No matter how I’m dressed or what i am doing, i always get a shit ton of ugly stares from people. In fact the only people who have been nice to me on that strip are two book store owners. Otherwise it may as well be like i don’t exist. 

In contrast, when i went to jummah last friday at an African American muslim mosque. well honestly it felt like i was at a family reunion. People were extremely welcoming toward me not only as a convert but a newcomer. They asked me who i was and had indepth conversations with me. The Imam introduced himself to me, was very warm, and even told me if i wanted to stay for nightly prayers during ramadan he would see to it i got back north safely. That level of kindness and inter-personal interaction is something i know i wouldn’t experience in places where the majority of Muslims are non-black. 

Finally, lets talk about Tumblr. and lets be honest in saying that tumblr as a whole has a huge issue with anti-blackness, so for the fact that the Muslim enclave of tumblrverse has an issue with anti-blackness is in no way unique. Its a reflection of a larger problem within our global society with respect to how we treat people who self identify as being black or could be labeled as such. 

Now i love that in theory Islam is supposed to be a religion that is free of the isms, but i know that’s not the case. And I think that the Muslim community on tumblr is very similar to white people on tumblr who would rather spend more time asserting that our society is post racial, that there isn’t a problem with race, or simply there is the golden rule so therefore we have no real need to talk about it. Muslim tumblrverse is really intent on sweeping a lot of problems under the prayer rug and instead opts to hold hands and sing an arabic version of kumbayaah.

yet very people ask themselves why i and other black muslims with any kind of radical consciousness are supposed to hold hands and sing kumbayaah with non-black muslims who use the n-word or “coloured” so freely. why i am supposed to tolerate the really half-assed comparisons between current socio-political struggles in the muslim and arab worlds to the civil rights movement of the united states, yet the comparison is a reflection of how little those drawing the lines actually understand about the civil rights movement let alone the positionality of african americans within united states history. why am i supposed to tolerate the double standard of being expected to know anything and everything about Islam in the arab and desi-asian worlds, yet people don’t have to know that much about islam in Africa, POC populations in the united states {latina, native american, African American}, south America, or any socio-political local that isn’t a reflection of how Muslims have been given a face that doesn’t reflect the reality of all of us. 

why are discussions of Muslim feminism only limited to the understandings arab and desi muslim feminists have created. are they really the arbitors of the entire muslim feminist literary canon? where do i fit in as a muslim womanist who is African American? who has a distinctly different experience with Muslim feminism? where does my radical queer brown muslim womanist liberation theory fit into discussions about gender based oppression an ocean away?

one of my favourites, why is the conversation around islam and terrorism solely framed around the arab and desi experience? i understand those groups are known to be the identifiable faces of Islam, and that perception grew worse after 9/11. yet we can’t even have an honest conversation about how african americans, let alone african american muslims, have experienced systemic state violence, survellience, and monitoring long before somebody flew a plane into two buildings. we were suspects and terrors and threats to the established order long before that unfortunate day. so when i get patted down for wearing a head scarf what histories are being invoked in that action that include but are not limited to 9/11.

more importantly, why is it that muslims who bring up issues of anti-blackness in Islam are always posited as being the ones dividing the community? why are we the ones causing mayhem and malay by trying to address what constantly keeps us on the margins within our own religious community? why is the community so dead set on not talking about an inconvenient truth that tarnishes our community?

and i especially loathe how when i talk about these issues, i’m not only written off as a divisive aggressive person but a convert who has yet to learn her place. and its never talked about how with converts, especially black converts, there is an assumed lack of knowledge and its the responsibility of the born in non-black Muslims to “teach them” the right way. and how within that assumed lack of knowledge there is an embedded anti-blackness which believes black people come to conversation tables completely unprepared and we are blank slates for the filling. its extremely grating to communicate that converting doesn’t mean my birth certificate is re-issued and my brain reverts back to tabula rasa state. 

People, muslims included, shy away from talking about anti-blackness because its difficult to acknowledge the way in which you may play a role in perpetuating it within your own life and in our global society, let alone how you supposed connections to black people and black identity are probably extremely shallow and allow you to operate under the delusion that you “know enough” and anything else is just creme filling for the doughnut. 

and honestly, its strange and sad and mystifying how much anti-blackness i have picked up on after 7 months of being apart of the religion. i do sit around and wonder what say 10 years will have in store for me. especially with the hear no evil see no evil policy that seems to be enforced around issues of anti-blackness within the muslim community {outside of academia}. 

it was a good read, definitely could have been better in a lot of ways. i can seriously do without the marxist theory throw ins but i guess the author had an attachment to that framework of analysis.

i do think its an important thing to read for non-black Muslims who are working to dismantle their anti-blackness or don’t seem to know anything about the differences between Black Sunni Muslims and the Nation of Islam. i feel as though if more non-black Muslims read this book {or well anything on African American Muslims produced by us or other African Americans we trust, since the author is not Muslim herself} then i think it would be a step in the right direction of acknowledging that there is anti-blackness within the American Muslim community and in order to dismantle it you need to understand how African American muslims {specifically black women} have made Islam relevant for themselves from a religious, political, and socio-historical standpoint. 

so i was walking home from the metra after hanging out with fivelettered in chicago. i’m listening to music with my beats, which means i really can’t hear what’s going on past a certain point. an old black man comes up to me, wearing some aluminium foil looking dashiki and a black head wrap. he gives me the greeting, but i can’t really hear him so i take off my headphones and ask him to repeat himself. 

he tells me its nice to meet me and asks me what i’m doing in town

i tell him i’m visiting my parents from college

he asks me what i’m studying

i tell him religion

he says “oh islam?”

and i’m like “no judaism”

his face just drops like i pulled out a glock nine and shot his puppy. he says “can i give you something to consider?”

and my immediate response is “if its going to be anti-semitic then i’d rather you spare me” 

he then goes on to tell me how islam is the fastest growing religion, and its my duty as a muslim woman to go on, get married, be a good muslim woman and teach islam. teaching islam, according to this old black man, is the best thing i could be doing for muslims worldwide. that’s going to be my grand contribution to the world, being a good muslim woman and teaching islam to other muslims. 

i look at him as if to say “nigga r u srs?” 

and then i start chuckling.

i swear it wasn’t intentional at first, but as i’m thinking more and more about what he just said to me, i can’t help but laugh my ass off. its if not the patronizing tone of voice he said it in, its the amount of false concern for my well being, from the loaded sexism in him feeling as if he could dictate my role to me simply because i’m a younger woman in a headscarf. 

and thinking of all of this is making me cackle even harder. like had people not been packing up a street fair and cars weren’t zipping by, i’m sure the whole street would have heard me laughing .

finally, when i stop laughing, i manage to say “that’s really cute. sexist, but cute.”

and i walk away 

moral of the story: muslim men, y’all need to get it together. cause the foolishness some of you approach me with is so amusing i can’t help but castrate you with my laughter of disgust, contempt, and just sheer amusement at the gulliness of it all.  y’all need to start working a little bit harder to dismantle the patriarchy inside of yourselves that thinks you have the right to dictate what a woman should do with her education and career. y’all simple heauxes need to realize its not our job as women to teach you about dismantling sexism inside of yourselves. if you can read and recite a qu’ran verse, you better be able to pick up a book which will help you stop sipping the sexist kool aid. 

and if you don’t, then i’m going to keep laughing in your faces each time you present me with nothing with the simple minded sexism that i guess in theory is supposed to woo me and make me think you’re such a worthy and knowledgable muslim man. wwooohhooooo i feel my headscarf tingling at the thought of having my life decisions dictated by the likes of a man. ya allah you slay me! 

pppppppppppppssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………..no

PSA: if you’re sexist, you’re worth about as much as a Canadian penny at an U.S grocery store

aint.worth.shit!