AFAM 200

[rulaeid-blog]

http://rulaeid.tumblr.com/post/129149145089/the-growing-ties-between-blacklivesmatter-and-the

http://rulaeid.tumblr.com/post/129389182709/we-decided-to-choose-the-hashtag-notjustwhites-a

http://rulaeid.tumblr.com/post/130527779689/anti-black-racism-in-the-muslim-community-muslim

http://rulaeid.tumblr.com/post/132843387464/the-end-of-racism-shaykh-omar-suleiman

http://rulaeid.tumblr.com/post/133307579729/we-chose-a-racial-justice-project-that-is-not

Based on everything Tamia and I did with out racial justice project I think the most important thing we can do is continuing the conversation. Not many people in the African American community seem to know about anti blackness in the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. Opposite to that the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities know about it, but they don't want to talk about it. Conversations about race and and discrimination in religious centers is tough and it is especially tough in our community because we are also targeted minorities. The first thing that needs to be done is community need to be called out on the anti-blackness in order to address the problem. There also needs to be open discussions on the word abeed and how that is being thrown around the community. Once these topics are addressed it is essential to focus on MSA's on university campuses. Over all, I want to create change through safe spaces and discussion that are not readily available to the Middle Eastern and Muslim students when discussing the topic of anti-blackness. Religious centers don’t want to address the problem because they claim anti-blackness is not prevalent in our communities, but the reality is the opposite of these claims and the conversation cannot wait.

When we first started coming up with ideas for a project the first thing I thought of was the anti-blackness in my community. My entire life I have been taught not to discriminate or differentiate between any one regardless of where they are from or what they look like. The problem with all of that is when I would be present in social gatherings or attending talks at my local masques I began to notice the anti-blackness that is hidden by many. This project intended to get the ball rolling on Mason's campus in terms of anti-blackness in the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. The problem I began to run into as I discussed this project with my friends is they did not even want to discuss it because they did not think it was a thing. I have a hard time understanding why we as a community do not want to look in and focus on the problems we are creating. There is a huge divide in the community and you will find that those who preach the most about equality and quote the Prophet pbuh turn around and act suspicious when a fellow Muslim that happens to have darker skin or be of African decent walks into a Mosque or local community center. Tamia and I split of the work pretty evenly in relation to who are friends were and how the topic related to us. Reaching out the the Muslim Student Association and other Muslim and Middle Eastern students on campus turned out very difficult as I mentioned before. Overall I learned a lot about myself and my community and how there is a true lack of progress.

Unfortunately, our third group member did not contribute much to our overall project. She was included in all emails and contacted but she did not help in contacting anyone, making the presentation, doing research, or presenting.

I think the project would have turned out so much better if we had more cooperation between the Black, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities. When we held out discussion everyone that attended was black except for myself and two other people. Had more people showed up the conversation would have been taken a step deeper and we may have been able to come up with stronger solutions to the anti blackness that exists. The fact that hardly anyone I invited showed up confirmed what I had been learning as we worked on the project all semester: my community (at least a large part of it) does not care about the issue. We are always so quick to complain about being targeted and being minorities in a country that values whiteness but we do the same thing to not only Black Muslim and Arabs but black people in general. We have a lot to learn as a community and it was a bit disheartening at first but I think there is a lot of potential if people would just open their eyes and allow themselves to accept our wrongdoings.

[rulaeid-blog]

We chose a racial justice project that is not talked about much in every day life whether it is in the media, in black communities, or in the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. Anti-blackness is relevant not just amongst whites, but amongst minorities that are similarly oppressed for who they are. I knew from the start this issue is deeply rooted not only in history, but in the religious teachings of our community. I didn’t realize the magnitude of the problem until I really started to dig and because of that it became a little unclear how our group could address it in its entirety. First, it was essential that we focus on a small community because 3 students may not have the ability to change an entire race or religion (not that every Muslim carries anti-blackness, but many subconsciously do). We first have to address it on a small level thus leading us to focus just on the Mason community. Mason holds hundreds if not thousands of Muslim and Middle Eastern students that consciously and subconsciously hold anti-blackness while preaching the word of God and the Prophet pbuh. By focusing on a seemingly small number of people we will be able to sew a small seed that will surely spread as these students graduate, start families, and educate their own children on anti-blackness and racism. Our goal is to hold an open dialogue meeting with members of the African American and Black community as well as members of the Muslim community on campus so we can ask difficult questions like “what does abeed mean” and why do people refuse to recognize it as a somewhat equivalent to the N-word that slave owners used. Often times students do not have the opportunity to speak their minds and by creating a safe space we feel we can create a small change in the minds of those that have been raised to think anti-blackness is OK.

SO- what does this look like in a step-by-step process? Step 1: Look into the history of anti-blackness in the Middle East and how that relates to Islam Step 2: Focus our findings and efforts on a small community that will then snowball into changing generations to come (we chose Mason students) Step 3: Create a safe space for African American, Black, Muslim, and Middle Eastern students to come together and discuss anti-blackness, why it isn’t openly discussed in the Middle Eastern and Muslim community, and how that can be changed. -bring up questions such as: what does abeed mean, why is the word abeed still used, how does the word abeed relate to the N-word Step 4: Come up with ways as students to combat this in our religious centers, hang outs, and specifically to the Mason community the JC 3rd floor (Middle Eastern and Muslim students see this as a safe place for us to gather but now it has become somewhat exclusive

Over all, we hope to create change through safe spaces and discussion that are not readily available to the Middle Eastern and Muslim students when discussing the topic of anti-blackness. Religious centers don’t want to address the problem because they claim anti-blackness is not prevalent in our communities, but the reality is the opposite of these claims and the conversation cannot wait.

[rulaeid-blog]

The End of Racism [Shaykh Omar Suleiman]

East Plano Islamic Center [Plano, TX] Friday, March 30, 2012

I chose this video because Shaykh Omar Suleiman makes very strong claims about the Muslim community and is not afraid to call us out on our actions. He starts by blaiming the tragedies and murders of the world from Syria to Somalia to the USA on “the neglect of mankind.” He doesn't victim blame and he wipes away and notion of excuses for the way we carry ourselves as Muslims in our communities. What struck me the most is throughout his entire talk he continuosly repeats “I am not a racist but...” This is a phrase I hear all to often in the Middle Eastern and Muslim communties to excuse the terms people use to describe others such as ‘abeed’ which translates to slave to describe African Americans. Many Muslims make the claim that they are not racist, but in reality their actions speak otherwise. Having strong faith and character are outlined in the Quran as what parents should look for when allowing their children to marry, but many Middle Easterners and Muslims (although they will not admit it) deny a marriage because of a prospective spouses race or skin color. This not only goes against every teaching of the Quran and the Prophet pbuh, but it further perpetuates the problem. Shaykh Suleiman brings up Trayvon Martin twice in his speach to make the point that had that young man walked into a Masjid he would have been looked at in a specific way by some. This talk really examplified what the goal of our project is. We want to illuminate the problems that are covered up because we only focus on ourselves. 

[rulaeid-blog]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30533225/RERS_A_592594_Corrected.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1445829764&Signature=0U%2BEZcqKCano88BqRMp7FT00qN0%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DResisting_Blackness_Embracing_Rightness.pdf

Muslim, Arab, Sudanese Women and their Identity

Anti-blackness is not only prevalent in the Arab world of the Middle East and North Africa, but it is also wide spread amongst African countries that are associated with Islam and Arabs. This piece is very relevant because we are focusing on anti-blackness in Middle Eastern and Muslim communities, but this not only effects black people within our community, but within their own communities and homelands as well. Muslim, Arab, Sudanese women have been effected by anti-blackness not only in diasporas abroad, but within their original homelands through skin color, gender, and ethnicity. Light skin is associated with being Arab and being Arab is associated with being elite, so Sudanese women go through techniques such as skin bleaching to reach a level of “Arabness” that will allow them to be accepted. The sad reality is that even these extreme measures are not enough, because when these women immigrant to nations such is the United Kingdom, they are then put in to another box of being not only black, but Arab, Muslim, and a woman. The idea of anti-blackness is instilled in their minds from a young age amongst their own people and then reinforced in new communities that push back on every fiber of who they are. I think this topic is very essential to our work on anti-blackness within the Arab and Middle Eastern community here at GMU, because a lot of times we don’t realize that many of the ideals people hold are not new are brought about because they live in America but because their parents brought these ideas over with them from their homelands.

[rulaeid-blog]

Perceptions of Race in the Arab World 

Many times when we think scholarly articles we think of someone well-educated trying to prove their points based on their education level. A lot of times this comes across as an elite telling an everyday person what to do, but this piece really hit the nail on the head with racism and specifically anti blackness within the currently evolving world of the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of people move to diverse countries across the Middle East in search of economic opportunity and a new life, but many times they come in contact with a color prejudice that they didn't expect. The problem with these societies is that anti-blackness and color prejudice is based on ancient traditions of dividing groupings based on religion, ethnicity, and occupation. The problem we run in to with this conversation is the lack of research and work on the history of slavery and the plight of Africans in the Arab world. When you look at religion the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) preached against any sort of racial superiority. Mark Perry choses multiple points of Muslim history to highlight this in his work and does not point to religion as being the cause of the anti-blackness we are facing. Slavery has been practiced in the Arab world for 1300 years and even today it is still prevalent in many different ways. Perry makes the point that yes the Middle East is one of the most prosperous regions in the world and it is indeed filled with many different ethnicities and backgrounds, but that is not to say that there isn't anti-blackness amongst communities. It is there because of ancient practices and the spread and enforcement of slavery by elites and Europeans dating back centuries.

[rulaeid-blog]

Posts about anti-black racism in the Muslim community written by Mast Qalander

We chose to focus our social justice project on Anti-Blackness within the Muslim and Middle Eastern community, but it is important to note that many people within the community don’t even acknowledge the anti-blackness that is deeply rooted in our world. When the world got news of the Chapel Hill Muslims many people started using the hashtag MuslimLivesMatter, but when confronted with the fact that this co-opts the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag they got arrested. Religious leaders and Muslim members of the community run to defend themselves when confronted with anti blackness, because the Prophets (pbuh) most trusted companion and first reciter of the call to prayer was black. yet, when it comes to the way we refer to black people, treat them within our communities, and many times stand in solidarity with them the treatment is different. The Muslim and Middle Eastern community exploded when Deah, Yusor, and Razan were murdered in Chapel Hill, but we heard nothing of Mustafa Mattan and Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein who were also murdered in the same week. Why is that? In order for the Muslim and Arab communities to understand the critiques of MuslimLivesMatter and to better ourselves we need to accept and recognize that there is anti-blackness in our communities. I feel like this blog post focuses on this issues and deconstructs many of the ideas we need to use in our project and the community needs to think about. 

[rulaeid-blog]

Statement of Purpose. 

We chose the hashtag #NotJustWhites to not only call out white people, but to make it clear that anti-blackness it not only prevalent in the white community. The Middle Eastern and Muslim communities and just as guilty of anti blackness. The Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) preached peace and equality amongst all and yet many of us look past this and bring the anti blackness not only in to our communities, but in to our religious centers. By using this hashtag we hope people look at it and think “wait, what are they really trying to say” and maybe they will point the finger at themselves instead of others for once. We are hoping to work with the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education on campus to facilitate a discuss on anti blackness in the Middle Eastern and Muslim community that is often over looked or denied by many. By the end of the semester we are hoping students here at GMU will be one step closer to removing this anti blackness from a place it should have never somewhat flourished in the first place due to ignorance and baseless pride. 

[rulaeid-blog]

We decided to choose the hashtag #NotJustWhites

A lot of times we don’t think about anti blackness within specific races, religions, and communities other than the white community because they are the most privileged. The point of our hashtag is not to take the blame away from the white community, but to also open up a discussion about anti blackness in the Middle Eastern and Muslim community. There are many parallels to be drawn between the Middle Eastern, Muslim, and black communities in regards to profiling and the justice system, but if we dig deeper there is a large sense of anti blackness that needs heavy work. To put it bluntly white people may get offended because they are directly referenced in our hashtag, but we decided its important to call them and other communities out. The Middle Eastern and Muslim community may try to deny anti blackness amongst many of our members and many will probably we offended, but I personally don’t care how they feel. At the end of the day this is a conversation that needs to be had on George Mason’s campus and hopefully with the hashtag we will be able to raise awareness and eventually facilitate that conversation.

[rulaeid-blog]

The Growing ties between #BlackLivesMatter and the Middle Eastern and Muslim Community

After black teen Trayvon Martin was brutally shot and Murdered in 2012 a newly formed group called the Dream Defenders sprung into action. Today, the Dream Defenders remain focused on racism in America but they have also broadened their focus in recent months by joining U.S. Palestinian rights groups calling for an end to Israeli human rights abuses and Islamaphobia. We know that massacres against Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis show how brown people are not seen as human beings, especially if they are Muslim. In that same breath, we also cannot deny that when we talk about Islamaphobia, it is often centered on the experiences of Arab and South Asian men. African/black Muslim men and women are frequently left out of the narrative, marginalized in mosques, otherized and vilified by Arab, South Asian, white and other non-black Muslims. We hear about how Islam doesn’t tolerate racism, yet when it comes to the way we treat or talk about black people there is no denying that anti-black racism exists in the Middle Eastern and Muslim community. We still hear Arab, South Asian, white, and other non-black Muslims use the n-word or other derogatory words in Arabic such as “abeed” to refer to black people. Our Racial Justice Project is going to focus on anti-blackness within the Middle Eastern and Muslim community despite the fact that we are tied together in our struggles and how this can be combatted in our homes, community, centers, and social circles.