I plan to return to the Inner Sanctuary series soon. But before doing so, I'd like to make some final observations about the blog discussion I referenced in the most recent post.
Well . . . as of today (10/29/08), the immigrant Muslim has returned to the blog A Singular Voice to tell us complaining, ungrateful Black folks the following:
"The 'immigrant' community cares a lot for the African-American brothers and sisters and has given millions of dollars for the spread of Islam in your community. I don't think African-Americans have a better friend than 'immigrant' Muslims and I don't think that you can find a single Muslim leader that would disagree with that notion. We want to protect your communities and make sure they flourish, but it is complainers like yourself [referring to the blog host, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad] that hold things back. The anger shown by people like you make you look very ungrateful for all the help provided to your community and it makes the relationship worse."
A few final thoughts about this episode:
The fact that this individual feels comfortable coming to a Black Muslim blog with this message demonstrates the servile nature of many orthodox Black Muslim men. Very, very few Muslim Black men responded to this individual's original insulting comment. Their cringing silence is what emboldened him to return to say the above. In a way, I'm happy that he said this out loud. It brings several things out into the open.
First, it's very important to note that this immigrant Muslim carefully avoided responding to the points raised by several REAL MEN like Victor "Ensayn" Amenta, blog host of Ensayn Reality - Journal (which is listed on my sidebar). The immigrant Muslim scurried away from Mr. Amenta's comment. This is what happens when human roaches encounter a REAL MAN. A real man is a quality man who protects and provides for his family.
What the Muslim-named, Black eunuchs don't understand (or never knew) is that there is POWER inherent in righteous masculinity. There is POWER in a REAL MAN firmly speaking the truth. He doesn't have to raise his voice, or get physical, etc. Human roaches know that it's best for them not to confront a real man firmly speaking the truth. It's really that simple. I've seen this fact demonstrated many times over by the real men that I've been blessed to have in my life.
This is why it's so important for Black women to start choosing REAL, QUALITY MEN, and stop grading Black men on a curve. Even the "passive" benefits that accrue from choosing a Quality Man to be one's husband and the father of one's children are priceless.
Second, this illustrates that as a people, African-Americans must learn to do a better job of screening so-called allies. We are much too quick to let other people (especially other so-called people of color) latch on to our civil right infrastructure for their own benefit. This episode illustrates the point I hoped to make with the Charity Begins at Home series.
We better wake up and start looking our for our own interests.
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9 comments:
Fascinating, isn't it???
I find it remarkable that so many would be blind to the true historical and cultural realities.
The people whom they follow have no problems with them rejecting their black identities, because in this country, race is irrelevant to them (only their religion matters), and in the places where they come from, ethniticy and religion matters most. So in South Asia, they will kill each other over religion, even though they are of the same (or similar) ethnic heritage!
They live some realities which to an American, might seem odd. Whites in this country (in the latter half of the 20th century at least) have boiled everything down to race, not ethnicity, and not religion (even though ethnicity mattered in the 19th c., that was rejected after the Holocaust). Thus, the wars of religion were not happening here.
But these Muslims, as you are arguing, are trying to conflate an ethnic argument with a racial one, when there is no correct fit, and the religious one is purely tangential, from the perspective of African American history.
For African Americans, race always mattered more, and they were never fighting other black people over religion. If anything, the good white Christians didn't care that black folks were Christians too!
In the communities, people knew those of other religions, but it did not matter in the scheme of things. Yes, one might think those holy rollers were out of control or think the Muslims ones were wierd, but who cared?
So now black folks are supposed to reject that tradition of focusing upon their race for someone else's perspective? And for people who don't experience racial/ethnic prejudice, and who themselves can harbor racial prejudices against their co-religionist blacks?
I'm with you, Hmph!
Welcome, Pioneer Valley Woman!
Guurrl....{slowly shaking my head}
Yes, others routinely expect us to place their needs above our own! And part of the reason why they expect this, is because too many of us are dumb & weak-minded enough to do this.
I'm all for reaching out to others who treat me with mutual respect and show mutual concern for my needs. DEMAND RECIPROCITY NOW! No more lopsided interactions!
I put this mess front & center so people can see several things:
1-There are many different types of Muslim Blacks; and not to assume the "Muslim Black" = "self-respecting Black person." The are many "Black Muslim" Uncle Toms who have petitioned their masters for a spot at the "back of the camel."
2-An example of the what I'm reacting to when I question the motives of some of the non-AAs who come around us, and want things from us. Sometimes, people don't believe what I and others are saying when we describe how so many non-AAs mistreat & disrespect us (with our collaboration). With this little episode, nobody has to take my word for it. Doubters can see for themselves.
3-The contempt & hatred that's not far from the surface with many other so-called "people of color" (including foreign Black folks) when it comes to AAs.
4-The arrogance of so many non-AAs when talking to AAs. Notice that this Arab/Pakistani has placed himself in the role of the paternalistic, fake "good White person of conscience." This is the sort of dialogue Black folks had with fake White "liberals" in 1955.
Talking to other "people of color" about their bigotry against AAs is often like a dialogue from the 1950s where Black folks are trying to communicate with arrogant, bigoted, fake-liberal Whites.
5-A warning to other AAs. People like this Arab/Pakistani trade on our innocent & naive desire to join hands with other "people of color" and other Black folks.
Consider the following: If this is what this Arab/Pakistani says when he needs something from us--i.e., help with his brand-new racial profiling problem--what do you think he'll say & do when he no longer needs anything from us?
And the same applies to far too many of these other folks. After participating in the anti-apartheid struggle in college, I was bitterly disappointed to see that once he got free, AAs didn't hear from Nelson Mandela anymore. I didn't hear of any joint South African/AA business ventures. NELSON MANDELA & OTHERS TOOK ADVANTAGE OF AAs' NAIVE DESIRE TO CONNECT WITH THE SO-CALLED "MOTHERLAND"! WE WERE USED.
I have vowed that this will never happen again on my watch!
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
If this is what this Arab/Pakistani says when he needs something from us--i.e., help with his brand-new racial profiling problem--what do you think he'll say & do when he no longer needs anything from us?
My reply:
The Dinesh D'Souza's et al. (South Asians, primarily non-Muslims who share their sentiment regarding blacks) say it loud and clear: any problems AAs experience are due to their fixation on race and bad cultural values. They will most likely argue that racial profiling that affects blacks who are not Muslim is justified. This, of course, will affect black Muslims too, because blacks are already targets, non-black Muslims notwithstanding.
They might even find a way to justify the racial profiling of black Muslims, notwithstanding their claims of allegiance.
I'm thinking--argue the black Muslims are terrorist black nationalists (Lackawanna) or that they are the ones who are truly linked to terrorism overseas, while the non-black Muslims are not...
This will be the case if more and more black Muslims go overseas to fight their battles. They only have to fund their servant-fighters and act as though they are innocent of it all.
I'm sure we can think up other arguments they might make on their way to framing their perspective in the eyes of mainstream society.
Khadija
You WOULD be mistaken as a North African ESPECIALLY if you wear hijab.
My adoptive mother is bi-racial and has been mistaken for a North African not only in France but also in Germany.
P&B
Pioneer Valleywoman
Read these links if you have time
http://www.homeedmag.com/seelhoffvs.welch/interview.html
http://www.homeedmag.com/seelhoffvs.welch/news.html
Look at how authortian cults operate. I'm afraid this is exactly whats going to happen to all of us who won't submit to the IMM agenda.
Your thoughts would be most appreciated.
Welcome, Sister Seeking/Miriam!
So you think I would be mistaken for North African, especially if I was running around in a scarf. {long sigh} Then I suppose that it's a very good thing that I only flap on the scarf, etc. when praying, or going to the mosque to pray.
Like I said earlier, I wasn't in France long enough to run this experiment. And, while there, I was often in the midst of tourist hordes (WITHOUT scarf).
Oh, dear...Why can't I get over like everybody else? That's all I really want with some situations: my turn to get over. {very long sigh} Hmmph.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Sister seeking, it does seem cultish, doesn't it?
Khadijah: With foreign Blacks, up to now they have had the tenuous privilege of having somebody lower on the totem pole to look down upon. White folks used to give them an "exotic mascot" card, and make a distinction between them & us.
Over the years, I watched how Whites' reactions would often brighten when they heard a French, British, West Indian, African-accented voice coming from a Black person's mouth. The reaction was often like, "Whew! An tame, exotic mascot! Thank God. For a second, I thought this was one of those unmanageable American Negroes."
It was similar to what I heard of racist French people's reactions to AAs in France: Apparently, they loooved us. In France, AAs were the ones who were "exotic mascots." Unlike the negative reactions the French have for the Black folks (and North Africans)that they had a colonial relationship with.
Khadijah preah on this preach. And I'm of Jamaican descent, not AA.
White people would pit black people from diferent nationalities against each other all the time.
I've heard how 'People from the Caribbean have a strong work ethic and work hard' said to my face at a job interview with a ww.
I have heard from a Latino guy how he didn't like AA blacks and had an African friend who felt the same way, and he said his friend says that 'AAs are lazy, never work hard, and just complain'.
I'm a Brit and I come across people from the US usually whites, but even in countries like Turkey where I visited, and actually Africans based in Britain convinced that I'm not British and just straight-up Jamaican because my parents were born there. Good Lord!
I find the divide and conquering and pitting black people against each other thing offensive and I know why they do it, and I never looked down on AAs. And not every non-AA looks down on AAs anyway.
People go on like there has never been a successful, intelligent, and productive AA ever in the history of the USA and of course that would be offensive to any AA and to non-AA blacks that would be offensive by proxy and fishy. People who come out and say these negative things or show they think that way about AAs covertly, will never be genuine, are still hate-filled, and never liked blacks with their little rating system. I can't trust them, whoever they are and I never did.
BUT....With that being said some AAs do look down on non-AA blacks because they willingly pit themselves against non-AA blacks, or buy into whites trying to get us to disrespect each other.
I know from being raised in Florida too where a long time ago some AAs hated all West Indian/Caribbean blacks. I heard that from some AAs lips saying they knew AAs who felt that way, usually Florida-based AAs.
Well it seems over time AAs eased up on disliking Jamaicans and Trinidadians and such but to this DAY some ridiculous AAs have a ridiculous distaste and sometimes strong hatred for people from Haiti to this day. To this DAY. Florida AAs even have Haitian jokes sometimes.
I used to date Haitian guys in Florida and I was disgusted with the narrow minded view of some azz-backwards AAs.
There are now more second generation blacks born or raised in the US of Haitian descent so they are more Americanised but still proud to be Haitian as they should be.
Don't forget the racist brainwashing from the 80s that said that 'AIDS came from Haitian immigrants coming to the US on boats'.
All groups should look out for their own but black people who do not desire an alliance or dialog with black people from other nations may find they're shortchanging themselves.
Why do all these blacks from different places keep looking down on AAs or the next group of blacks that they don't like either?
They need to ask themselves that question? Who told them that which ever group of people in question is so inferior to everybody else? And why do they need to listen to, or trust the opinion of the person who says those kinds of damning things?
I personally don't get it or have never gotten it.
Welcome, AK!
You've touched on a very important point: The non-Blacks who praise non-AA Blacks in contrast to the open disdain they have for AAs don't like or respect any type of Black folks. Period. It's a trick.
With that said, I will also say the following: When discussing these issues, there are often several overlapping things going on. For example: Immigrants DO tend to "have a strong work ethic and be hard workers." However, what people overlook is that comparing people with the energy to pull up stakes & move to ANOTHER COUNTRY with native-born folks is NOT a valid comparison. It's comparing apples to oranges.
Immigrants are NOT a random cross-section of the cultures that they come from. For example, there are plenty of trifling "Delroys" sitting back home in the Caribbean islands. Americans and Brits generally don't get to see these fools because they're sitting back home in their slums where tourists never venture.
By contrast, AA fools are on open display. "Ray-Ray" is on open display. AND, AAs are foolish enough to broadcast images of AA fools like "Ray-Ray" across the entire planet in hip-hop videos.
Yes, I was in high school/college when AIDS started. I remember Haitians being stigmatized (slandered) as a "risk group." That was foul.
In general, Black people across the board need to learn to use more discernment when it comes to evaluating other folks' motives.
Peace, blessings, and solidarity.
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