Being Black and Muslim in the World

Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to on the square. I'm really, really excited for this episode. I'm actually kind of feeling at a ask work mood. Um, this film on Netflix just came out called the harder they fall. And, um, one of the things I noticed when I was looking at the film, both the actors in it, and even the soundtrack, right? There's like lots of folks from Africa and desperate. So I'm feeling in a real desperate mood. And, you know, one of the things that we do with apple squares really interested in this intersection of black and Muslim and because we are based in the U S that's kind of where our focus has been, but that's not the full story, right? Even that's not the full story for black Muslims in the United States. So today I'm excited to have a conversation that we're calling, being black and Muslim in the world. And I'm joined by three guests, jewelry, Masa, Machado, who was a community activist based in Canada. , who's a lecture based in South Africa and it's my Aliso. Who's a youth and community consultant based in the UK. So yes, you know, trying to be global here, Let me tell y'all how that was like trying to get everybody, everybody at the same time, but thankfully we were able to do that. So I'm really excited to just dig into this conversation. So my first question, and I'm going to actually ask smile. This question. Our first question is just to start us off. Really? What does being black and Muslim mean to you? Speaker 2 00:01:44 I haven't been alone. Lacking Muslim has been beautiful. And before I proceed the brother that directed that film that you're talking about, he used to live across the road from me, no way him and see him because he's the younger brother of seal, but I was better. I was bigger friends with his younger brother, so that they've got another younger brother. And that was, he was, we used to hang around together. It's nice to see a guy that you grew up with doing well. So being black and Muslim is beautiful. It's someone who is reconnected to their heritage, spiritually, physically, and metaphysically. And I will say being black and Muslim. And when I'm saying being black and Muslim, I'm not talking about being in a token or being a pseudo Asian or Arab slave. Okay. It's liberating is when you're aware of your culture, your heritage and your spirituality, all in one, it's a wonderful feeling. Speaker 1 00:02:46 Thank you for that. Speaker 3 00:02:49 You know, it's a, it's a really complicated question for me, I think as you know, so I, my family is originally from Panama and the question around our blackness. Although, you know, when you look at me, you, you know, that I have I'm black and I have African descendancy is not one that we talked a lot about while I was growing up. It was actually, I think my family intentionally distanced themselves from blackness. And we'll talk a little bit about what that looks like in Canada as well, uh, or in Muslim communities as well. But I think I, um, in my adulthood, I found it as an opportunity really to reclaim what it means to be Muslim, um, and how, you know, our connection to justice, our connection to land our connection to, um, our ancestors, all of that I think complicates or adds to our Muslim ness, um, in the ways that we have often been portrayed or, or thought about. And so I think for me, it's really, it has really been an opportunity to explore a dual identity, um, and not see it as necessarily separate from my Muslim this, but as intertwined and interchangeable almost. Hmm, Speaker 1 00:03:53 Cool. Call have, Speaker 4 00:03:57 Well, uh, as did already have said, it's quite a complex question. And perhaps to me being black, I would modify that by in setting African like African and Muslim is to use a Alamos. Roy is a description divvy, this dialectic of otherness, uh, to be doubly added w added either by fellow blacks and Africans added also by the core religion is your Muslim family. Um, and so, uh, your sort of occupy a space where you have to constantly negotiate, uh, a sense of who you are. And for me, that experience alone is very, it's an enriching, enriching experience. It enriches Muslimness. It also enriches Africa, unity of blackness. It adds a added layer of complexity to being black and African in the world. Speaker 1 00:05:24 Um, and that's great because that's another question I had. I was like, is black, even the right term here. Right? So like in terms of people who are sort of African descended or from Africa, like, is that what people call themselves? So the Muslims. So in your context, right in South Africa, some people call themselves black or do they call themselves Africans, or they call themselves by their like tribal, you know, like what, what have you referred to themselves? Speaker 4 00:05:47 It's highly contested in South Africa. And it also exposes your ideological location. If, for example, you are an adherent, um, of the black consciousness philosophy, then blackness is unproblematic. Blackness becomes an all inclusive term that also encapsulates being African within blackness. However, in terms of South Africa is racial politics and racial identities, especially if one considers the racial hierarchy is in South Africa. Um, if you were African in the old order, uh, during the apartheid system, you were in the lowest levels of the hierarchy, whereas being colored and being Indian and a black consciousness, you could say I'm black. However, in terms of apartheid's classifications, you were a degree better than Africans. And so black consciousness enabled those that were okay. Other seeds of blackness who were treated slightly better than Africans. And so it had nothing to do by the way about pigmentation. You, you could be lighter and be African. You could be darker and be colored or Indian and be classified better than the African. So there's that kind of station. Now, fast forward to the current post-apartheid moment, those who are proud of themselves in kindness, for example, or Indianness are now proud to be black, because blackness is now a privileged is in a privileged position. And so there are those kinds of stations, they know, cause those kinds of stations and to second van that, um, some of us tend to use double expression, black and African African black advocate. Speaker 1 00:08:20 And, and the UK are black people. What are people saying? Are we black, African Caribbean with, Speaker 2 00:08:27 From my experience, you get the debates. So you have some people who say that were black Muslims. Then you have some people who say no, we're African Muslims. And then you have some people who are of the Caribbean diaspora saying no way, African, Caribbean Muslims. And then the ones of African habit they say were African Muslims. So you get a mixture of all or three or four, I would say. Yeah. So black Muslims, African was in Africa, Speaker 3 00:08:55 Muslims. Yeah. And then in Canada jewelry, you were saying it's complicated. I mean, I think it is complicated in the, in very similar ways. I think there is a movement happening right now that has given license for folks to call themselves black. And that signals something about their politics or their understanding about how they move in society. There is an existing debate, I think, here in Canada, because we have black coming from everywhere from, uh, we have, uh, uh, indigenous black community, um, that came here through the loyalist movement from the states that were former former or freed slaves. Um, we have folks who came from the continent in more recent years to a Somali community, the Sudanese community you'll be in community. That for a very long time would not identify as black because identifying as black men, something about your class, it meant something about the type of activity that you were engaged in, uh, something about your criminality. Speaker 3 00:09:54 And so they, they were very intentional about distincts themselves, um, from, from blackness. And then you have folks who are black and Muslim, who I think claimed black and Muslim really strongly who came here from the Caribbean or from the states and converted to Islam during the civil rights movement because of the influence of Malcolm X and, um, Elijah Muhammad, and, you know, all of these great thinkers who will often criticize the ways in which communities that have come here recently as immigrant communities at one time, distanced themselves from blackness. And now as the conversation has shifted are, you know, connecting themselves with that, with the identity of blackness. So I think it is quite complicated. And similarly to other places, there's a debate about it. It signals a politic. And I think that it's, it's constantly shifting and some of us are kind of caught in the middle of it. Speaker 3 00:10:45 Right. You know, I, I am, you know, the descendant of slaves in north, south America, but we don't, I don't have the same relationship with the, the story that most, that many that come from Canada or the United States whose families have been here for generations because of slavery. That story doesn't necessarily resonate or sit with me. I come from a family that for a very long time rejected their black or African identity that didn't talk about it. I've made it, that they were darker skin, but would be, you know, first and point to their French ancestry and their indigenous ancestry. And the African Institute was always the last thing. So I think I say kind of in the middle of it and complicating, you know, what does it mean to have a history that's only acknowledged or an identity that is only, or often acknowledged only in the context of trauma, um, as opposed to thinking about how is our African ancestry, um, and our Canadian connection to our Muslimness, something that is, is about spirituality. It's about practice. It's about our relationship. As I said before, to ancestry to the land that looks distinct because of our cultural, that even when we don't, when it hasn't been passed on, passed down to us and kind of have a connection to, but there's just a little bit of an obsession in my mind about our connection to trauma through slavery or racism or systemic oppression. Speaker 1 00:12:06 It's not, I wanted to ask you, I thank you. Jewelry sort of gave us a little bit of a, kind of a demographic kind of layout, right. Kind of who are the black Muslims right. In Canada. And so similarly, it's, my I'm interested in that too, for, for the UK, like sort of who, what is this community? Or like kind of what piece has a little bit of its history. Speaker 2 00:12:25 Okay. So I would say, first of all, I agree with the sister mentioned the Eritrean Ethiopian. So the needs community, because what I noticed that a lot of the older generation would acknowledge their blackness. But when you speak to most of the younger generation, I would say 30 and under because of the experiences that they've gone through, which is very similar to Sub-Saharan African and Caribbean people, they consider themselves black. I remember I was doing a youth project, even though I knew that somebody from my experiences in the mosque and so forth, but what made it seem real to me, I was doing a youth work project and I was working with some Eritreans and they were asking me when they filling the form, they don't know what to put down, if they're black, African or not. And they said, they've asked their parents and their parents told them you choose. So when they told me they were asking me, what should I put down? I said, oh, black African . Speaker 2 00:13:24 So that made me see that reality, which is very prevalent. So, yes. So I would say over the past 10, 15 years, you get more Eritrean, Sudanese, and Somalis stating they have black and proving their blackness. And I would say that like, I'm sure that the same as in Canada, the black communities are not monolithic. So you have a lot of the AF the Afro-Caribbean communities. They hang out in a particular circle, the Senegalese hang out in a particular circle, the Nigerians hanging out in a circle. That's the elders, of course, the ones who are 40 or maybe 50 plus, but then what's happened now the younger generation, which would be under 30, then we'll mix. So you're seeing more black, Muslim circles, more black Muslims gatherings in the UK. I would say I'm more black Muslims taking ownership and not relying with begging bowls for other communities, which is interesting and very refreshing to see, Speaker 1 00:14:26 Um, Ty here in South Africa, the black African Muslims, I'm interested in sort of what is this story or is it similar or different to some of the things that we've been hearing so far? Speaker 4 00:14:37 I think there are some similarities as well as, uh, some differences, but again, it depends what historical periods one is looking at. Let me use the apartheid period as a marker, as a historical marker before South Africa entered its open democratic phase, when one was called black Muslim, it instantly referred to African. Those from African communities would come to Islam, say for example, through conversion. However, when South Africa became a quote unquote free democracy, it's porous began to open up. And then there was, um, what, uh, quali Amato show has referred to a citizen of migration to the south many Africans from predominantly historically Muslim contexts, such as the Senegalese that you are referring to. And others such as from Nigeria and other places who historically have been Muslims for many years, began to flock to South Africa. And they began to problematize who is black, African, and Muslim. They came not as converts. They came as proud Muslims with a long history of belonging in his lab. And so they added another dimension to who is black, African and Muslim in South Africa. So it was no longer the so-called converts Gordon code who are Muslims. Then there were these other Muslims from elsewhere in Africa. Speaker 1 00:16:26 Okay. So I get it. So you have, so now you have some, some black, African and Muslim and south African means folks who are like, sort of natives of South Africa, right? Some of them who might be converts, or maybe the children or grandchildren or conference at this point, and then migrants from other parts of Africa who are now settled in South Africa, right. Who are also Muslim. And so this is kind of sort of making the terrain a little more complicated, that kind of thing. So I'm interested. And this is for anyone that whoever wants to take this first to, um, so how does the wider non Muslim black community see or engage with right black Muslims? You know, where you're at Speaker 3 00:17:10 The truth? Speaker 1 00:17:12 Yes. Speaker 3 00:17:14 I mean, I think that there's the illusion of OMA of one OMA, but I read in that rhetoric, there is erasure of black Muslim history. And I think that often what's got what gets lost is that kind of indigenous way that black and African or African communities have been Muslim and own Muslimness in the same ways that our brothers and sisters, some south Asia or the middle east have owned their Muslimness, I think very much in Canada, in north America, but in Canada, which is where I'm based. It's, it's always positioned as a convert story. It's always positioned as, you know, the nation of Islam to Sydney Islam, and then maybe to some, some other kind of sect of Islam. And that's the trajectory as opposed to kind of an indigenous way of knowing and being in a way that is intertwined and deeply rooted within the African or, or the black context. Speaker 3 00:18:08 So I think in doing that, there is an eraser that leads to anti-black racism in most spaces and more tangibly. What that looks like is that we don't learn about black Muslim histories in madrasa dresses. We don't hear from scholarship that is black. Um, often I think that there's a bit of a Renaissance happening. There's a shift happening, but for a very long time, it was rare to see any man that was black. And if he did, they have their own experiences of anti-black racism from the, that they experience from the position of a pulpit for young people. There's a story of marriage and the difficulty that they experience when they try to find a spouse and the racism that they face when they're trying to join a family that is not black. And so I think, yeah, I think most black Muslims in Canada would say that their experience of blackness in Muslim communities is one that is filled with, uh, experiences of microaggressions and racism. Speaker 3 00:18:58 Anti-black racism that then gets tossed aside under the guise of a while. You know, as a Muslim, we don't see race and we don't see color. And to allow that there is no, there is no difference. Um, and then therefore it absolves the people from the individual actions that they have because you know, our texts say something, uh, although it's contradicted and behavior where you indigenous, when you use that of what do you mean? I'm not speaking to like a native Canadian and native American experience. I'm speaking to the ways in which Islam is seen as inherently part of Arab or south Asian culture, that's historical and deeply rooted. And somehow that, that definition is not offered to black communities. Even though we know that there are many black communities that there's stories, even of the first black person to come to Canada was a slave who freed himself and made the journey from Brazil to Canada and who was Muslim. Speaker 3 00:19:57 But that's not a story that we get. We get told, we hear about the first Arab community, the first Pakistani community, the ones that established their MOS. But we, but you know, if you actually look and seeing you see who was coming through the transatlantic slave trade, but many of those folks had a connection to Islam, um, that gets untold or unheard. The consequence of that is that even as black communities, as black young people, we don't know that experience. We know the experience of immigration. We know the experience of fighting anti-black racism, but we don't, like I said, I think that our story is often linked to trauma, as opposed to also being linked to a history of, of resistance, of scholarship, of, you know, a real kind of embedded presence within Muslim history or Islamic history. Speaker 2 00:20:41 Also, I want to say to your question about how the black Muslim so-called communities are engaging with the black community in the mainstream, I would say that pre Trump, it was a big challenge. There was a scholar called Dr. Benya Kennan. He used to buy a lot of books talking about Arab slavery. So many of the Pan-Africanist brothers, they used to be when they used to hear about Islam and Muslims, they look down on wasn't with this thing. It was hard for engagement, not all the time, but I would say 70% of the time. But when president Trump came in, for some reason, it became easier to engage with way with black organizations, with Pan-Africanist leanings or with other socialist leanings and so forth. It kind of made it easier. So we could say Trump and this days he made it more positive. Whereby black Muslims were more engaging with black mainstream organizations before Trump. Speaker 2 00:21:49 I never really see this happening now with this so-called black lives matter phase, we're seeing more engagement between black Muslim communities within black communities in various issues, but also have the shout-out shake up the Lockean quick from Canada who was living in South Africa. He is a very big part of empowering black Muslims here in the UK. And what was lovely about him. I have to shout to my cause when I had the sister speak and I'm seeing the brother from South Africa, I'm thinking, oh my God, this is going to shake up quick. What was beautiful is when he used to get booked by other communities to give a talk, he would try his utmost to outreach, to black Muslims and say, look, I'm getting booked for this at this hotel. Can you connect something up at your house and bring all the black Muslims along? Speaker 2 00:22:41 I got something to show them and no one ever forced them. This is something that he'd done himself. He popped so many on many occasions when he came to the UK, whether it was London, Birmingham, Manchester, whatever, he would either call me or call the quite a few other brothers, Islam alaikum. I'm getting booked. I'm free this time. Can you set something up? I've got some nice presentation about Islam in Africa, some in Islam, African centric, knowledge and information. And he always made an effort. Unfortunately, we've got a lot of our brothers from north America when they get fucked by other communities, they don't want to know the black community here. So they just want to be lap dogs for other communities and try and hustle the money. So that's why the show after the checkup of the king Creek. Speaker 1 00:23:25 Hm. Your second point about I'm shake up the hacking quick. Does that mean that on the ground then in terms of relationship between black Muslims and non-black Muslims, people there's they're separate communities, they kind of do their own thing. Speaker 2 00:23:38 Yes. Yeah. I would say that they are separate, but since Trump came on the scene, it became unison that the whole, there was a bit of a hostility because as we know there was a big, um, how can I say there's good and bad in all denominations and understandings of Islam. We all know that, but we had some of our brothers who followed the selfie creed from Brixton, which I could describe it as the equivalent of Brooklyn and New York. And what happened is some of them, some of our brothers there, because they came from a kind of ghetto gangster mentality. They kind of mix that with their Salafism. So, because some of them were indulging in certain things, as I said, I'm far from perfect myself. I'm still learning. I'm trying to become a better, but I'm not here to condemn. I'm just saying, because some of our brothers from this place and certain other places in Birmingham, we're doing some certain things to us that have been seen as obscure in the black community. Speaker 2 00:24:37 This brought a lot of apprehension from the mainstream black community when dealing with Muslims. So for example, I would contact, uh, in the, in the UK, I would say the equivalent of Al Sharpton is a person called Lee Jasper in the UK. So when I reached to him, actually, it's one of his assistants contacted me a few years prior, but I was too busy. So I reached him when I met him. He assumed I was like that way. Cause he's income is come across such an extreme behavior. So, so he would never used to engage with black Muslims. But when, since Trump came on the scene and he's more liberal-minded, open-minded Muslims and many of those guys who were kind of get into a fight with respect and gangster fight a lot of them after a few years of praying, remember the law, we didn't come on. They've now realized, oh, that's not as long. And he's seen them change. He's now more easygoing, more outreach with the black Muslim communities, if that makes any sense. So I would say it's drastically improved in the nineties and the early two thousands. It wasn't good. Speaker 1 00:25:47 Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Cause I mean, cause you know, coming from a U S like context, right. For me, like when I think like when I like talk about Brooklyn, right? I grew up in Brooklyn, the larger black community typically held how black Muslims in a lot of esteem. But even if they weren't like going to be Muslim, right. Because of the impact of movements, like the nation of Islam and different sort of all these other kind of movements, right. That we had in our communities, you know, people respected me. So like as a little girl, you know, I always tell this story. I was like 13. And um, I was in bedside as my friend, we had a Chinese restaurant. Right. And we had the Chinese restaurant ordering some food and this older black, but he's older than us. Right. It's a black guy comes in and he's in skins or some kind of argument with the gospel's restaurant. And he turns to us and he's kind of like, excuse me, I'm about to cuss this guy out. And we're like, we're like 13 and he was an adult. Right. But he saw us in our head scars and he was like, okay, I have to be respectful. Speaker 1 00:26:51 So that's, so my experience jelly has been of one where the broader black community looks kindly at black Muslims. Um, particularly in places like the Northeast, I think in the south of the U S is different. Right. But in places where there's this like these urban centers where there were a lot of black Muslims, people tend to is always, it was never an issue. Right. It was like, oh, you're Muslim. And then some people are off this. It's like, we'll do this. And you know, we got some Jews, we got this, we got that, you know, like in that kind of way. Um, I wanna turn to taught her to ask you this question about, and then I want to come back to the non non-black Muslims to an anti-blackness and the Muslim community. But in terms of like just the broader black Africans, south African community, like how Muslim seen or engaged with, Speaker 4 00:27:40 And interestingly in South Africa, there's a, both then open the respect for black Muslims on the one hand, but also on the other, because of the public face of Islam in South Africa has been associated with the so-called communities of the Asian diaspora and therefore being black and being associated with Islam was regarded as a misnomer. Uh, uh, it was regarded as if one has taken a mistaken identity, uh, are even pejorative, uh, negative terms that are associated with being black and Muslim inside Africa. Um, if you were in the Cape for example, and you are seen to be black and Muslim, they would pejoratively say, but Zen Muslims, meaning you're pretending to be something that you are not. In other words, in other words, you have taken on a mistaken cultural, religious identity that is supposed to belong to those that are of Asian the ground. Speaker 4 00:28:57 However, with the coming of Africans from elsewhere, it has become gradually the black community has come to accept that one can be black. One can be black and Muslim without any sense of contradiction, but also over the years, local indigenous native, if you will, black African Muslims have been asserting and affirming their Muslimness without the patronage of the so-called Asian Muslim communities, the south African Muslim conference of 2019. For example, that we refer to earlier was a turning point and it received lots of publicity from the general sort of good public, the main television stations, for example, gave it a lot of coverage. And for the first time, at least at the public level, Islam was being seen through different lenses through the visible open presence of black Muslims, taking ownership, taking ownership of Islam and articulating what it means to be black, African and Muslim in South Africa that has made the community general black African community to look at black Muslims slightly differently. Speaker 1 00:30:33 Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, you know, I first actually kind of encountered you, right? Because I was invited to be part of this critical Muslim studies decolonial school. And so this was in right before this was, I call it the before times, right. This is right before COVID and I, um, I was able to come for the first time to South Africa, I was in Cape town. And you know, at the same time I've been thinking a lot about indigeneity, which is why I asked that question. So, um, jewelry, I've been thinking about indigeneity in terms of like, what does my relationship to that as descendant of enslaved Africans right. In the United States. And so of course, when you, when you come to South Africa, the indigenous people are Africans, right. And the Muslims, right. Or the Muslims were not Africans. Right. Who wants the Asian diaspora as you call it. Speaker 1 00:31:19 Right. They are there they're part of the South Africa. And they've been there for a long time, but they're not indigenous to South Africa. Right. Okay. So I'm thinking about that. And then I meet some black African Muslims and the stories they told about anti-blackness that they experience because you know, also the other thing is like, as an American, the U S American, you always have to be careful that you don't go someplace else and like map your, your reality on other people. Right. So I'm, I'm paying, I'm trying to be very attentive to that. But when I'm talking to these black African Muslims in South Africa, I'm like, am I in Cape town? Or I'm in Brooklyn because the kinds of blackness they're experiencing is very familiar to me. Right. It's not actually very different. So I wonder whether you can speak a little bit to that. So I'll hear like, what is it like, what does anti-blackness look like in the Muslim community in South Africa? Speaker 4 00:32:07 Well, I like to make a personal example and say that, um, I used to see myself as a Muslim period. Um, but Muslims in South Africa have made me to see myself as different and to have pushed me to use Steve because words and say black many audio and with a modification, black Muslim Yani. Oh. And they reminded me that I was different through being conscripted and described as a convert at all times, even if you've been a Muslim for over a number of years, and you constantly being confined to the zone space of being a convert, which Dan said to me, in as much as you want to be part of this community, you are not. And so I began to wear, embrace the, my black Muslim identity with a sense of pride, if you will, to the extent that I would even, uh, refuse to enthusiastically. See, I said, when I say Muslims in the streets. Um, because when I, if I were to reach out to them, I might be embarrassed or disappointed because who are you? Where do you come from? And so Speaker 1 00:33:53 That's fine. This thing of being forever, I convert, or like people not returning your songs like in the UK, are these, these similar things happening? Is it different? Like, Speaker 2 00:34:07 No, it does happen here. I never forget. Um, there was a sister, um, who was working with a sister from New York. Her name is misunderstood, AK sister Tasha. And we went somewhere and every time she would system see a Muslim sister with hijab, um, went with, it was a predominantly Asian Pakistani. And she would say, Hey, come sister, walk, pass them to another sister, sister walk past. And then it was funny is the fed says the poor, I think was the fifth one. She walked up to the sister's face and said, I still am a lay come sister. And this is when she went off, went away. So that was very funny to see. But yeah, it happens here. It happens continually refer to as a Weaver convert. And what's funny is sometimes when you're telling to tell someone that someone's black, the way they were, people refer to black Muslim. Speaker 2 00:35:04 Oh, the, I said, he's a born Muslim, but that shows the serious ignorance of peoples. Not understanding that Islam has been in various countries over the years, but off, but I'm just being real. A lot of my peers disagree with me because I do meet a lot of black brothers. Who've been Muslims for 20, 30 years. And they refer to themselves as convert and Vivex. So sometimes when I'm talking to someone to make them understand, I say comfort Weaver, because you have some of our brothers, they're black Muslims, but they feel by calling themselves black Muslims. I'm not sure if this is in South Africa or Canada, they're making a racial statement that can be seen as them being a nationalist. So they prefer to call themselves a Weaver convert because that's more palatable with other Muslim communities. So sometimes even when I'm trying to promote something, my wife has a light means my wife hates the word. Speaker 2 00:36:08 My wife, she's a born Muslim of Nigerian parentage. So she hates the word because she's a born Muslim and people call her when someone calls her a Weaver, oh my gosh, I have to run away. I can't be there, but she gets a militant. So the sad reality is sometimes when you're engaging with people and because some people of our people have been brainwashed. Sometimes some of our people prefer to be called Levi in combat, even though their parents are converts. And even though, and they're born Muslims, even though they've been converted for 20, 30 years, they prefer it's very strange. And yes, you do that. Play go place where people don't Salaam you it's a reality. Um, but cause people, cause as we know, within every community, you have some people who've embraced Islam for the wrong reasons. So because of some of those actions by certain people, some communities I never forget. Speaker 2 00:37:03 There was a sister who was working with, I tell not to go on too long. She was working with her because she's at the preschool. So she wanted us to do some projects with her. So she was trying to introduce us to different people. And then we went away and my friend overhead and took it to another bank, only heritage. I said, yes, they Muslims. And they're black and Malcolm X were black. And then the Bengali said, yeah, that was below. That was below. That was Malcolm X like insinuating that only Bella is the only good Muslim. And because they're black Muslims, you better be careful. So these are realities that we put up with, but I'm honored that the brothers that I hang with are very, um, conscious that Muslim brothers were very positive. So they wound me when I first in places don't they always told me, don't worry about the racism you're going to get from the ages and Arabs. That's how they are, let them do them. And we do, we, we do us. So because I had those people around me, I think that kind of helped me not to take them people too seriously. I think Speaker 3 00:38:13 A big jewelry in and taught her when to jump in. I was just going to say that, you know, that I think that experience of perpetual convert is one that is also seen here in Canada. And to me, I just, you know, I draw parallels to the experience of being the perpetual immigrant. You can be here for generations, but will also always be seen as part of an immigrant community and other community. Um, and the same thing, you know, my, my mother converted to Islam. I was four. Um, and so it's all that I've known. I've grown up, grown up in the Muslim community, but still I, you know, feel the need to, or get labeled as, um, the convert Muslim. Although I would say, you know, I was practically born Muslim and I think that's the experiences of many of my mom's friends whose children were born Muslim, but are still seen as conference. Speaker 3 00:39:00 So I think that that, to me, it always astonishes me how our community, even though we experienced discrimination, even though we experienced othering as being quote unquote immigrant communities to Canada, we replicate those similar systems within the, within the Mohs basis. I would say though, at least in Toronto, where I live, where a very diverse community and a very diverse community with Muslims, a very established community of Muslims. So the anti-black racism isn't as overt. It happens in the way you get disproportionately corrected in prayer or in the ways in which we don't see our history reflected Shane Kwik, who is my neighbor and happens to be my sister's father-in-law is very instrumental to maintaining the black Muslim history and that knowledge and that transfer of knowledge here, but it's only does delegated to black communities to do. It's not something that we, you hear from leadership of other communities, uh, or that they, I don't even know if they really know the history of, of black Muslims or black Islamic history, if you want to call it that. Speaker 3 00:40:04 So, yeah, I think, you know, that the way, the ways in which anti-black racism show up is really subtle. It's very present. If you're black, you understand that it exists, but it's very subtle here. I think it's only in Panama where I've interacted with Muslims from south Asia, from, from the middle east that you agreed them in hijab and they will greet you back. I don't think that I've ever experienced that here in Canada. It's a very kind of subtle form of anti-black racism that we experience. And two brother smells point around our current political moment. I think even here the current political moment, whether we want to, um, you know, give credit to Donald Trump or whether it's BLM or a combination of every kind of the perfect storm, it has given license for black communities to speak about their experiences, their experiences, abroad society, their experiences within the Muslim community. It has softened, I think the broader Muslim community to stop and listen and create spaces for the conversations. I still think we're very early on in, in the work, but at the very least, people are acknowledging, you know, with things like what's, what's it like to be black in the MSA? What's it like to be black, a black scholar? What's it like to be black, a black Muslim wanting to marry into a non black Muslim family? Those conversations are allowed to happen in a way that they have never been allowed to happen before. Speaker 4 00:41:24 Yeah, I think generally has preempted my response because I was beginning to worry that the conversation as where was more skewed to being a conversation where we speak as if, uh, victims without any sense of agency to change our situation. And I was wondering at what point do we also began without a pause, sanitizing the conversation at one point, we also began to celebrate being black, African, and Muslim, um, and talk about instances and moments, um, of celebration. Um, and I think the instances where Guillory has referred to, for example, where conversations that are censored within the so-called historical Muslim communities, there's more openness within black Muslim communities where subjects that might be taboo elsewhere are not terrible. And therefore there's a sense in which black African Muslims, at least in our context, uh, redefining what being Muslim is in their own terms, so to speak. And for me, cause for celebration, um, but also Islam in the black African Muslim community, art will relate to this, especially through her work Muslim. Cool. If I were to borrow from ad and say Muslim, cool try within black African Muslim spaces without any fear of censorship. For me, that is very much, um, liberating. Speaker 4 00:43:30 So I'd also has touched on something very, very deep, deep, deep, deep, when I had an opportunity to PIP on Sapelo square and see what is happening when she introduced me and said, just have a look. One of the things that captured me and thank you for this ad was the call to prayer for the ancestors. When she, I think so, I can relate this better when she referred an existential moment inside a mosque, should I stay remain in the mosque or should I go outside and join the March? Because the mosque experience it spirituality, uh, was not resonating with me. And that call, um, to own our, to borrow your words. Spiritual agency is very, very much, uh, liberating. Um, and so there are moments of celebration. We're constant victims, uh, at a messy and seeking affirmation from someone else, uh, black African Muslims in different contexts have taken ownership of their spirituality and sense of being Muslim. Speaker 4 00:44:46 And lastly, let me dive a little bit earlier on there was referenced to the nation of Islam. Uh, some years back, uh, in mom's rights were Hodge. I'm sure you all know him, uh, visited South Africa. And he was rather embraced very coldly initially by the black Muslim community, uh, because he was not part of the nation of Islam. And yet Siraj did not make any rep in mumps arrives. You don't make any references to the nation of Islam. Local, the Muslim community identified more with the nation of Islam because the nation of Islam was articulating Islam in their own terms. We're not talking about whether a kid is right or wrong. That's a different conversation altogether, but at least, uh, they were taking ownership obviously anyway, to cut a long story. One father got very furious with him, I'm Siraj. And, um, he wanted to know his position on minister Louis, Farrakhan. Um, any mom survived through his pocket book and say, this is minister Farrakhan number. I called him all the time and I press on him to correct his, a kid. Any moms would, I said, Farrakhan would always say to me, you don't understand. Speaker 4 00:46:12 You don't understand. Now I say, as I understand why minister Farrakhan 30 months arrived, Siraz you don't understand. Speaker 1 00:46:25 That's great. Um, thank you so much taught here for that, that important point around celebration and for the article. So the article, just for those who don't know, it's an article that I wrote for sapele square, where I talk about, um, when the African burial grounds were discovered in lower Manhattan, I was working in lower Manhattan at the time, and there was a procession right to celebrate. So it's to honor, you know, commemorate the burial grounds and the, and the enslaved Africans who had just been deceased. And I knew there were Muslims that were part of the people, you know, um, that were very in that battle ground. And I was working in lower Manhattan and I went to Juma at this meshed in lower Manhattan. And there's at the same time that this burial thing was happening. And I was, you know, I knew it wasn't going to happen, but a small part of me anticipated that there might be some recognition, you know, in the hook bar or in the, you know, the, the, you know, the job you do right before you make this too, in our thought. And of course nothing happened. I just said something I was in because it was like a woman's area. So I was the one was area. And I was like, don't forget ancestor. I should've said something. And after that point later, I decided to write this prayer for our enslaved ancestors and actually jewelry Speaker 3 00:47:38 Helped me in my house. Speaker 1 00:47:42 She helped me with my Spanish translation. My father was talking Jewish shopping to put, make sure the Spanish was right. And then last year, my friend Mona mana, she helped me do an Arabic translation prayer as well. Speaker 3 00:47:55 It's so beautiful. So, and it has actually opened up con like I, when you asked me to translate, I naturally went to my mom to help me translate. And she was like, I've never thought to pray like this. I've never thought to it just really opened up a beautiful, beautiful intergenerational conversation with myself and my, and my mom about how we practice, how we pray, how we think about those who came before us, how we think about our histories in prayer. Like, yeah. So it's mashallah. Thank you for that. That's true. It's in my house. It's like quite a conversation cause we have it in Spanish. So that also messes with people's minds about, you know, saying a lot in a Spanish sentence and all of that. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:48:38 But I wanted to invite you jewelry to add on, because I know you wanted to add to what Tanya was talking about. The celebration part. I know you want to bring, Speaker 3 00:48:45 I have, I mean, I have so many thoughts cause I, as I was mentioning before offline, that I've been really kind of struggling and challenged with this idea that the ways in which we learn about our, about our identities are first and foremost, from a place of trauma and you know, not to whitewash or sanitize, um, the history, which I think is important. I also feel as though it's taught as it's our history when it's not, it's a history of our colonizers. Um, and you know, I have, uh, I have two young children and one is in grade one and here in Canada, we're having like a national reckoning around our relationship. The state's relationship with indigenous communities and individuals are having a reckoning, um, around the relationship as settlers to indigenous communities. And my husband is half black on his mother's side. He's half black, half indigenous from the McMahon tribe from the east coast of Canada. Speaker 3 00:49:43 So my daughter knows this. She knows that she's part indigenous. She looked at her, she looks part indigenous and the day of national reconciliation, the national before she's reconciliation and a remembrance around these mass graves that have been found at residential schools of indigenous children in Canada, across Canada and the last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. So it's quite present history. My daughter comes home after having learned about this in school, crying, like really upset thinking that they're going to take her away because she's indigenous. And in that moment I thought, wow, like, you know, it's really great that the schools are engaging in this conversation in a way that they never did. When I was young, we never talked about indigeneity or indigenous communities in Canada at all. I was in public school. So it's great that they're learning this on one hand, but on the other hand, I think what damage do you do to young racialized children, young, black, and indigenous children when the first inter action or interruption you have as a system is one that only speaks about their trauma story. Speaker 3 00:50:42 And so I'm glad that we're moving into a conversation about celebration because I think for many communities, black Muslim communities in redefining or re-imagining what Muslim was smells like. It is about a celebration for me. I interpret black Muslim, this as vibrant as one that loves music that loves the one that loves gathering. One that interprets Islam in a way, you know, growing up in a mostly south south Asian Muslim community, I felt that Islam was always taught from a place of fear, but, you know, through my reconnection, to my Africaness, to my blackness it's it's, to me, Islam is coming from a place of love and celebration. You see the images from west Africa where they're bringing in Ramadan with drums and dancing on the streets, something that felt for a very long time. So in contradiction with one another. Um, so I think that, that, you know, that is for me how, how we celebrate this identity and I've seen how our celebration and our reclamation of our spirituality and relationship with a law from our perspective has given license to those who are Muslim that are not black to also reimagine what most spaces look like, what their, what their Islam looks like, how to be Muslim in the west, which I think a lot of young people who are born here being raised as Muslims or growing up to embrace re-embrace Islam after having left it, even after being born into a Muslim family, often look to black communities to understand how do I, how do I have these two kind of identities together? Speaker 3 00:52:12 How do I get myself licensed to explore Muslimness? Not from necessarily a, uh, one cultural perspective. Correct. Speaker 1 00:52:20 So on the celebration tip, then they ordered some of your favorite things about being black and Muslim experience in Canada. Like, for example, for me, like one of, one of the things that I always, you know, I like I'm like being PI, right? Like we, like, I was like, I'm like, oh, like, I'm like, there's like this actually only one Muslim food on the planet. And I'm like, you know, Arabs aren't, this is what they eat kebabs, you know, they, you know, grill everybody's grill right. Emerges from a purely Muslim experience, right beach. So what's some of your favorite things about being black and Muslim and Canada Speaker 3 00:53:04 It's. I mean, again, I think it's a difficult question to ask because of my complicated relationship with blackness and the way in which it shows up in Canadian context. But I also think, you know, for me, I was surrounded by black Muslim women growing up and their influence on my life, their influence and how they mothered each other's children, how they grew up together and learn together and had a very present. They had a big presence in our Muslim spaces, um, which I kind of felt in contrast to some of the more traditional Muslim spaces. So I think that might be one of my favorite things the way in which, you know, black women had take up space, um, in Muslim spaces. Speaker 1 00:53:41 Cool. If Maya was some of your favorite, Speaker 2 00:53:45 Um, I would say it might sound a bit selfish, but, um, myself rather Rakeem NAS system and never sister Amina, raccoons wife, and a few others once a year, pre COVID for the past six, seven years, we've been organizing black Muslim awards for UK black Muslim awards. So it's a thing. It's an event that we organize where we celebrate black Muslims in business, it activism, um, human relief. And this is where we are now, academics are authors and this is where we celebrate our own from our community. And what we always try to do is we bring people from different sects denominations understanding when we first tried to do it before, know what? This might turn into a bit of a arguing first, but humbled in LA, when everyone came together, it's a beautiful thing. Cause I know, you know, system and name of well she's attended. Speaker 2 00:54:48 And it's one of the nicest things I could say. Now. It sounds selfish. Some that we organize, but when you're seeing African Afro-Caribbean Muslims, Somali, Sudanese, everyone, Afro-Caribbean south Africans, some Canadians Daya sporrans was his studying when they attend. And this is something everyone's just celebrating and just lovely. And what's nice. You see people from other communities, we don't shut anyone out. We see some people from the Asian community and come into our community. Sometimes they come into look what we're doing, but what's nice is that they feel at home and they don't try to take over. They just chill out. So I said, that's best. That's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say about being a black Muslim in the UK is festivals are eat festivals. There's a wonderful sisters from Leicester and they organize a blackout eat. I know they were inspired by some about puppets and systems in America. So they organized something called a blackout eat in Lester. So, and it's just like a hangout spot. People just chill out. We used to eat our way spoken word poetry plays some hip hop, of course, positive hip hop plays some reggae as positive and just hang out on ease with the family. So yeah, I would say those two things. Speaker 1 00:56:02 Thank you and tire. Well, there's some things you celebrate about the black African Muslim experience in South Africa. Speaker 4 00:56:11 Well, I celebrate what, uh, the African novelist query Arma as said, I want to rephrase Arma. I'm sure you're all familiar with some of his works. He has written a novel where he bemoans the African condition and says that, um, when he looks at the African condition, post-clinical Africa, independent African states and the conditions they're in, he has kind of this phrase that has resonated for many of us that says the beautiful ones are not yet born with the sort of grand black Muslim conference of printing 19. It showed us that the beautiful ones, uh, being born that conference expose the reach talent that exists within what was perceived thought to be a marginal community. It expose the richness. That is the in terms of art professionals from born African Muslims period. And some, for me, that was a moment of celebration. And the hope is that that initiative can Venetia. Unfortunately COVID moment disrupted the momentum, but hopefully we can build on that momentum and began to nurture black African Muslim institutions. Uh, we have started in a small way, but the challenge is, uh, to soldier on, and I'm very delighted with this conversation. It might appear small and I want to echo Giller his words. It demonstrates that in many ways, our shared experience is similar. Uh, and so we need to build on these connections that we're making and celebrate what it means to be black, African, and Muslim in the world. Speaker 1 00:58:30 So if my second last question I want to ask is about the future. I think the points everyone's made about our past and trauma, but then celebration, but looking forward, like forecasting into the future, right? What does the future look like for black Muslims, whether in the UK or in the world, like, what do you think the future holds for us? Speaker 2 00:58:53 I could say hopefully the future in the UK, from a UK perspective, that we could build more black, Muslim business networks of people, of different denominations on the spending, but building a network that can benefit our children and our inner economy. What I hope to see, we do have it to a little extent, but I hope it can be improved is where our scholars of African Afro-Caribbean heritage and find ways to come together at least once a year. Cause we've got quite a few scholars of African Afro-Caribbean heritage here in the UK of different denominations. I'm hoping that they could find ways of working together to benefit us as a community as a whole, even though we're not one community where communities and on a worldwide level, I'm hoping that black Muslim from the UK can connect more with our African-American and African Canadian and African brothers on the continent more and find a way of working together to benefit our individual communities and benefit us as a whole where we can build our own networks, whether in scholarship, business, and economics, spiritual understanding, and publishing and so forth, because I think for too long, I'm not sure, but I can't see, I think it's in America from when I went there, my short stays in America by knowing the UK for too long, black Muslim communities have been relying on other communities to do things for them. Speaker 2 01:00:34 But with wonderful people like Harvey McCann, they blessed him shake Abrahim, Jose shake, bailout shake, Rebecca made, and a few others black Muslim communities here in the UK are maturing more and taking ownership to bring things forward. Speaker 3 01:00:56 I think similarly to brother his smile, I hope that we have a more global response or global understanding of experiences. Um, and the ways in which black communities, um, exist across the world and even sitting in this conversation, it's very evident that many of the struggles are similar, but also that many of the ways that communities are reclaiming, um, identity is, um, is similar. So I think, you know, to have my children and to have a global perspective and to have a connection to ancestry, to, to Africa, to the continent and in a way that feels a little bit more authentic would be great. I would also enjoy that our leadership and our scholarship help us acquire the kind of knowledge and history that I think has been lost about our communities, you know, to, to know more than just the story of in terms of a story of how black culture or Africanness has influenced or been influenced by, by Islam would be I think a really kind of important turning point in our growth as a community. Speaker 3 01:02:02 And I don't know, I, you know, I just, I would like for, for myself and, uh, and my children, I think to begin to sit more comfortably in an expression of Islam that doesn't mirror expressions of Islam that are from other communities think particularly here in CA from a teen experience, it is an immigrant experience. And often that comes with a holding onto a cultural identity, whether it's south Asian or Arab and an interpretation of Islam that then gets performed as if it is the only way. And that, you know, as I had said in the, in, uh, earlier, you know, to, to see through the magic of social media, the ways in which African Muslim communities celebrate the coming of, of Ramadan with music and dancing on the streets, and that's not seen as taboo or haraam, although in some, in, you know, in, I was taught by the south Asian Muslims that I learned Islam from that dancing and music was her. Um, absolutely. It doesn't happen. Um, but what I, you know, I think in my adults what's learned to realize is that they're only talking about black bodies not talking about their own necessarily because Bollywood is fine. Right. Um, so I think, you know, just, I would like to first and foremost for myself, but then for my children have a comfort level and a confidence in the ways in which we practice Islam culturally, and the ways in which our, all our cultural identity intertwines and interprets Islamic texts and law. Speaker 1 01:03:30 Thank you. And tire. What does he think the future? Speaker 4 01:03:34 I think the future is bright. It's bright in the sense that that African Muslims are bringing on another layer, another texture of what it means to be Muslim in the world. In some ways they are cleaning up the, let me say it, the baggage that was settled with, from the so-called historical Muslim communities that have given Islam, every negative, that image. And so on it, infant note, not Trump is note triumphant note to Hanford note but to value, I think so I can translate better than I can. Speaker 1 01:04:29 Let's translate that Speaker 4 01:04:32 Islam began as a strange phenomenon. There's an old saying Islam began as a strange for many of a phenomenon and when it returns, it will returns as some things strange again, and that's strange. And as obvious lamb is located in prep, Muslim expressions of Islam, they appear to be strange. They do not fit with the so-called normative, conventional understanding, and yet, yeah. As authentic as anything that is Islam and Muslim. Speaker 1 01:05:12 Thank you so much. This has been such a fantastic conversation. And my very last question for each of you is a question we ask all of our guests, right? It's like, what is your black Muslim theme saw? Okay. So I'm going to let whoever go, wants to go. Speaker 2 01:05:30 Okay. I'll make it quick. And swift minds is Mohammed walks by loopy fiasco. I do want to say one little thing, more inspired by what the shakes said. When I went out with a group of brothers that I was with, when I first embraced his mom, we went to Sudan and a few years later, we went to Nigeria, Northern Nigeria, and while being in those two countries. And I personally believe that all black Muslims in the diaspora, I America, Canada, the UK Europe, I think it should be made compulsory that we go to African Muslim communities for us to get a sense of empowerment, a sense of identity. And it's good for us to see communities of African Muslims in the, in the, in the motherland, I think is very important because it meant a lot for me, but a lot for the brothers that I traveled with and met, even now, we still talk about it. I just want you to mention it on this podcast, but I think it's very important for African people in the diaspora to visit and to stay even as for a week in African Muslim communities. Speaker 1 01:06:45 Thank you for that. So, and Mohammed walks, Lupe fiasco is your black lists and themes. Okay. Um, taught her, you were going say you were for breakfast and things on Speaker 4 01:06:56 There's quite a few, but, um, there's one by Abdullah Raheem. And I'm sure you're familiar with theme is a third African born, but where the claimed pianist, uh, he has a track that is called Zucker and I play that in Ramadan and seeing and dance to his tunes taker. Did I ever hear Speaker 1 01:07:24 Nice. Thank you. I believe Raheem and jewelry. What is your black? So, Speaker 3 01:07:32 Uh, interesting question. Cause I'm like not, not a hip hop head, not like I must have stayed at heart, but I'm, uh, Speaker 1 01:07:40 I mean, I would say if I was to pick a song and that was, and that was my genre. My song would totally be at a total, um, by high level. That would be my song. Speaker 3 01:07:55 Yeah. There's also a Guan LA, which is originally from Malique alone, which is really great and brings in kind of that, uh, African mysticism pieces, which I might be controversial for some, but I, in an English, I think she's a good friend of mine and artists from Toronto. Her name is Tim Ash grog and she is Hariri Ethiopian. And she has a song called black gold. And it's just a really beautiful celebratory song that she released last year. So check her out Speaker 1 01:08:24 Black. All right. So we got Muhammad walks, the vicar and blackouts. I mean, I don't make me make a phone based off that Speaker 2 01:08:35 And I'm going to be notes. I want to add one more song as well. It's a song called Ramadan by a hundred in class. I've got to pick up my UK people. So med E-Class, he's a dub poet, reggae poet, and he's got a song called grab my done that one when my family has that, when my kids had that we go, we go crazy. Speaker 1 01:08:55 Okay. So, all right. But having walks a big girl robbed my bat and black gold. All right. If that's not a great way to end this step, I don't know what is the podcast. Yes, I will. For sure. Thank you all. Thank you, Tara. Thank you, jewelry. Thank you. Smile for joining me. Joining us on the square to talk about being black and Muslim in the world.