Islam and the Black American part 1

welcome to Muslims and mental health with sister Heather a groundbreaking program looking at mental health issues through the biopsychosocial spiritual paradigm welcome to another episode of Muslims of mental health today we will be discussing the book Islam and the black American with dr. Sherman Jackson we an honor of African American History Month like to do episodes around the african-american Muslim community and their mental health issues affecting them and particularly we're going to delve into culture today a little bit and religion with dr. Sherman Jackson dr. Sherman Jackson is the king faisal chair of Islamic thought and culture and a professor of religion in American Studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California he was formerly the author F Thurnau professor of Near East Studies and visiting professor of law and professor of African American Studies at the University of Michigan he received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and has taught at institutions such as the University of Texas Austin Indiana University Wayne State University and again the University of Michigan from 1987 to 1989 he served as the executive director for the center of Arabic study abroad in Cairo Egypt and he's the author of several books including Islamic law in the state the constitutional jurisprudence of Shehab aldino clarify on the boundaries of theological tolerance in islam abu hamid al-ghazali faisal alte freaka islam in the black america i'm looking towards the third resurrection and islam in the problem of black suffering to name a few he's also been featured on the washington post newsweek blog on faith as well as the huffington post in 2009 and 2012 he was named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic strategies Studies Center in Amman Jordan and he has also been recognized by the religion news Writers Association religion link as among the top 10 experts on Islam in America his students include muhammad hassan halilov societal religious studies at michigan State University and he has many other works which we may discuss later but right now I'd like you to join me in welcoming dr. Sherman Jackson to our program welcome thank you so I want to talk to you today about Islam in the black American and one of the first question I have for you is why did Islam spread amongst African Americans and not whites and Latinos in the same way hmm well I think that any answer one gives would be subject to further analysis but I think that it is quite phenomenal that Islam does spread among black Americans in ways that it does not spread among white Americans or Latinos quite frankly I think that that has a lot to do with at these two things um one black Americans given their social cultural and political experience in America beginning with slavery and moving on through Jim Crow etc have always had an appetite have always been open to alternative locations for identity building and indeed self building the fact that the dominant white culture in America monopolized the power of definition always placed them in a position to put black Americans and places where they themselves did not feel that they could fully engage their own being so they always um as W EBD boys would say will always have to sort of measure themselves through the tape of another's measurements so standards of beauty understandings of intelligence what it meant to be an American all these things are or were and to some extent still are I'm defined by the dominant group so black Americans have always been open to finding ways from getting out from beneath the Gemini of of the dominant culture and that means that they've been open on to ways of thinking civilizational connections to other places and I think that this is partly where I mean we see this in back to Africa movements we see this imp and Africa movements in fact in the early part of the 20th century we even see it in terms of black intellectuals in their connection with even communism in Marxism so I think that's that's one of the factors the other factor has to do with some very imaginative and charismatic individuals who happen to be able to craft a identity um that both connected blacks to an alternative modality of being black in America a modality of being black that was not defined by the dominant white culture and secondly connected them to a civilizational anchor that happened to be islam and i think that those two factors um religion on the one hand Islam and the ability to escape the hegemonic deployment of the definition of reality as wielded by the dominant group I think that was really sort of the major factor that contributed to the spread of Islam among black Americans and I think that however we want to understand or try to explain the phenomenon of Islam among black Americans I think one of the things that we have to do is to understand that Islam among black Americans is unique in the Western Hemisphere in fact it's unique among all the major Western democracies in existence in as much as among black Americans Islam enjoys what I like to refer to as a communal conversion now that does not mean that all black Americans or even black or most black Americans even on mass convert to Islam that's not what we mean by a communal conversion but what we do mean is that the any perceived contradiction or dichotomy between being black and being Muslim have been pretty much erased such that blacks who come into Islam are not perceived as being either cultural or racial apostates from black cultural orthodoxy in fact there seem to be perfectly consistent with that orthodoxy and that facilitates avenues to conversion among black Americans to Islam and I think that when we compare that with the situation among whites or even Latinos you have any number of individual whites in a number of individual Latinos who convert to Islam but you don't have I don't think the phenomenon of communal conversion among whites or Latinos such that whites who do convert Latinos who do convert still tend to face from among their own sort of indigenous community sort of questions about how can you sort of be a Muslim like what what attracted you to Islam what and in the most hostile form um the question is you know how could you leave us to go and join them and I think this is simple like you're saying that to be an African American convert it's more legitimate oh absolutely it's more legitimate than it would be for a white convert with the white community or a Latino with the Latino community right I'm saying that the generality of black Americans look upon black American Muslims I'm far more favorably than the generality of white Americans look upon white American Muslims or Latino Americans among Latino American Muslims and I think that that's not an accident that is due to the efforts of you know some very imaginative personalities in the early part of the 20th century who succeeded in making that connection between Islam and black cultural orthodoxy and in some ways in doing so redefined black cultural orthodoxy or at least open up a space in it where Islam to find a home so that brings me to ask a question actually because I wanted to ask you what is black religion I want to be very careful in trying to define black religion black religion is a concept that I discuss in the book Islam on a black American and quite frankly I mean I'm not the originator of the concept I I picked up the concept there there are several scholars who who speak of it but I think that I was probably most informed by the concept of black religion as discussed by Joseph R Washington jr. in fact he wrote a whole book entitled black religion now black religion is not the equivalent of the black church or it's not even what one might call either sort of african-american religion it's not the mother set of all expressions of religion within the black community black religion essentially is a sort of holy protest against anti black racism it's fundamental key focus is on appealing to God as that power outside of this earthly existence so transcending yes it's an appeal to that transcendent power to intervene into the crucible of American race relations to straighten out this mess that perpetuates both white supremacy and the subjugation of blacks here in America and it is a thoroughly American phenomenon um it is not organic connected to religion as it was predominantly practiced in Africa in fact it is a thoroughly American phenomenon in fact see Erik Lincoln would make the statement that had it not been for slavery there would have been no black religion so black religion has been sort of the common sort of religious orientation or a common religious orientation among black Americans and we find that it informs how blacks practice not only Islam but Christianity as well so black religion is the basis for the the fact that blacks in America uh while engaging religion for reasons of spirituality having to do with salvation I mean otherworldly salvation having to do with purification of the self all of the reasons that other communities embrace religion in addition to that religion must be effective in addressing the crucible of anti-black racism in America and that's what the black religion element comes in and I think that I mean to get are you saying that it is to address this social constructivist is that what I'm hearing there's no it's not a matter of the social construct of race race in and of itself is not the problem the problem is racism and particularly racism as practiced by the dominant group in America um that sought to and in many ways still seeks to UM privilege whiteness not as a skin color but as a set of preferences presuppositions assumptions standards um to the point where those standards become normal and everybody else is judged in terms of whether they're normal or not in reference to those standards so white supremacy basically says that whereas whites are simply human beings in the sort of abstract universal sense um blacks are humans who are the product of a particular culture and particularly history and because of that Latinos as well and because of that whites can speak for humanity blacks can only speak for their group Latinos can only for their group because they are the product of and they represent a particular history a particular culture whereas the assumption is that um whites represent human culture period so in the title of the Islam in the black American looking toward the third resurrection the third resurrection part what does that mean and were the first and second Wow these are excellent questions by the way um this is a reference to the fact that in my view the spread of Islam among black Americans owes a huge debt um to the efforts of early what I considered to be proto Islamic movement and the most important among those is the Nation of Islam um I'm sorry my just / - Islamic I mean well movements that might be considered to be not fully Islamic in the sense that they have not embraced uh the essential doctrines of the orthodoxy of historical Islam but they could be presumed to be on their way to doing so so they are in the process of making their way to Islamic worth of oxi the Nation of Islam you know advocated all kinds of things that an Orthodox Muslim even in Orthodox African Muslim in Timbuktu or Sierra Leone or Senegal whatnot recognized as being a part of his land so the idea that the white man was the devil that Elijah Muhammad was a prophet after the Prophet Muhammad had been up the lot of Arabia of 1400 years ago and other doctrines uh none of these would have been accepted by Orthodox Muslims having said that much in terms of the sociological significance of of the movement Elijah Muhammad in my estimation and scholars by the way differ on this point of view but or just differ on this point Elijah Muhammad I think was perhaps the most effective individual and making the connection between black religion and Islam he is the one that made that connection and in so doing lay the groundwork for communal conversion among black Americans in fact I can remember many decades ago that the Nation of Islam was able to argue that the real authentic religion of blacks period is a slap and those blacks who are not Muslims are really not being true to themselves now of course not all blacks accepted that but that kind of Proclamation had quite a bit of resonance in in black communities um so it sounds empowering it was very empowering I want to pick this up but I have to actually take a break for our sponsors but this really important conversation so we're going to take a short break for our sponsors and we'll be right back hi welcome Donilon hey this is Otto want a recovery and my name is Yvette coolant and I'm part of the staff adelante recovery center has helped people in dual diagnosis for five years we accept most PPO insurances and provide luxury accommodations and 24-hour support to speak with an admissions counselor call one eight eight eight two four two four four five zero a lot of times we don't even know what's wrong with that'ss and sometimes we need to get away figure that out so if you want to go for a little retreat out and Corona del Mar which is a confidential location we're here to help so we're only phone call away thank you welcome back to Muslims and mental health today we are discussing the book Islam in the black American looking toward the third resurrection with dr. Sherman Jackson and I want to pick up with you just where we left off and talking about the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad well the point or the question I was trying to answer had to do with the whole notion of a third resurrection where that came from um the first in a second the first resurrection um Elijah Muhammad uh taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught that that blacks were in a state of mind that was a state of mind created by their slave masters and that they needed to be awakened from this state they needed to a mental resurrection and that mental resurrection entailed their recognizing their true place in the cosmos as Muslims and embracing Islam so the first resurrection was the resurrection of the black mind out of its slave mentality into its true Constitution as a Black Muslim that's really interesting because we actually have post-traumatic slave syndrome which we talked about a previous episode but you know this just you know brings a lot of that up for me because it's about the vestiges of what slavery cause you know African Americans around post-traumatic stress and it sort of shaped and molded certain personality characteristics and ways of being particularly for black women but also for black men and but you know this sounds like along the lines of what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad came to address in a part at least it's still an ongoing syndrome that we have in current times but yeah I would say two things about that first of all in terms of understanding this history we do have to understand its historical context out of which this emerged Americans in general tend to think of the experience of slavery as ancient ancient ancient history might as well be as old as you know you know Greek and Roman civilization but this is really a still very much a part of our recent modern history large Bahamut comes on the scene sometime around the 1930s he takes over the Nation of Islam around 1930 we have to remember slavery only ended in 1865 then you have that period of reconstruction which was horrific and then you get the mass migrations of blacks from the south to the north where they had very little education they were discriminated against I mean it was a really dislocated situation and Elijah Muhammad um you know attempts to bring some relief to this kind of situation to address this situation so one of the reasons why his message resonated so broadly among the people had to do with the existential realities that they were that they were that they were living the second thing that I would say about the impact of slavery I personally think that one of the missing links in contemporary discussions of racism the vestiges of slavery etc is that we are very quick to recognize the impact of slavery on blacks but we're not as quick to recognize the impact on whites and by that I mean that slavery must have affected the white psyche in such a way that these these feelings of superiority these feelings of being being entitled to define normal really took root and in some ways I suspect that we're still dealing with vestiges of that today and part of the challenge in American society is to become a truly pluralistic society where there's not one normal but there are several normals and they can all peacefully and effectively and even constructively coexist but but you're absolutely right and I jus Muhammad was addressing very specific horrific circumstances involving blacks and he was trying to to to wean them away from the psychological dependence on the very mentality that kept them subjugated and this was the meaning of the resurrection resurrecting the black mind so this was the first resurrection now under the first resurrection Elijah Muhammad was both the leader and the definer of what would constitute Islam as practiced by the Nation of Islam in 1975 he passed away and he was succeeded by his son Imam W Mohammed may he rest in peace now when Imam WD Muhammad became leader of the Nation of Islam he abandoned the unorthodox teachings of his father um and he was the son of Elijah Muhammad and he redirected the movement into Orthodox Sunni Islam and that abandonment of those unorthodox doctrines and the redirecting of the movement into Orthodox Sunni Islam that became known as the second resurrection so and and people who are affiliated with the movement actually identified you know the first resurrection and the second resurrection some people would say well I came into the movement during the first resurrection and followed it into the second resurrection um so that's the first in the second resurrection now still the second one still have to do with the mind well the second resurrection um was very interesting in in many ways it was the beginning of a shift from black religion to Orthodox Sunni Islam whereas black religion used to define the agenda of groups like the Nation of Islam once you make the move into Orthodox Sunni Islam black religion is no longer a defining element it may be an influencing element but not a defining element and Sunni Islam or the tradition the intellectual tradition of Sunni Islam becomes the basis of authority and how you define what is and what is not Islam now under the second resurrection um mmm WD Muhammad was still the charismatic figure um the idea of the third resurrection was based on my notion that following the death of mmw Muhammad um black American Muslims would have to enter into a third resurrection where religion was not or Islam was not defined exclusively by a charismatic leader but that religious literature literacy would be much more diffused among the masses of Muslims and you would have black American Muslims who became proficient in the religious sciences of Sunni tradition and they would be able to produce a conversation about Islam that enabled black American Muslims at large to navigate and negotiate their way to the kinds of solutions that they need it that would be both effective in an American context and dressing the ills of the black community and in fact addressing the opportunities confronted by the black community on one hand and yet thoroughly authentic from the standpoint of Sunni our tradition on the other so that's the first second and out the third resurrection so I'm going to go back to the second for just a second because I open it until I intend it but because it almost sounded like and maybe I'm wrong but when you move from black religion into classical Islam or traditional Islam is there any sort of loss happening there of authenticity or something because it sounds like I don't know it has a feel about it to me that you're giving up something yeah this is this is part of the challenge and this is the challenge that the third the third resurrection has the responsibility of addressing um Orthodox Sunni Islam had no real sensibilities about the challenges that went along with coming out of the black tradition in America going all the way back to slavery and it wasn't simply slavery per se it was again white supremacy as a dehumanizing element um that produced a permanently stigmatized slave class me on slavery and other civilizations including Muslim civilization but you could not tell who as a class as a general people if I were to ask you um which people constituted the majority of slaves and Muslim civilization what would you answer you think I have no idea that very that very hesitation makes my point so it did not produce a permanently stigmatized a permanently stigmatized people in the same way that American slavery did also in other words you could actually change the perception of people by just changing your clothes or changing yes and always I could be I could be I could potentially be a slave today and a businessman tomorrow and my slave passed but not necessarily stigmatize me as a member of a slave class in the same way that being a slave in America would if you were black right because I could have actually been from a family that was never a part of slavery but because you're black that's right that's right you're part of a slave class right right now I don't want to whitewash slavery in any in any civilization that that's not the point that I'm trying to make but in terms of discrete and insular classes that you know the very fact that you are black i can assume certain things about you based on these historical assumptions about you all right now so Sunni tradition didn't have any of that and so it was not very well attuned to addressing those kinds of or realities that came out of that kind of experience um black religion was that was part of the whole point of black religion to me remain focused on to address those kinds of issues and I personally believe it's true and this is what I talked about in the book I believe that the move to sunni islam did dislocate black american muslims ability to address the specific needs problems and opportunities effect in the black American community so this actually leads me into my next question which was how does not understanding the socially constructed classification of race in America cause issues between the indigenous Muslims and the immigrant Muslims I'm not really sure where to start let me let me try it out this way um one of the more difficult points to to make and gain acceptance for um is the fact that while America may have produced its own particular form of white supremacy white supremacy is not a strictly American phenomenon it is a global phenomenon and the same forces operating on the basis of that white supremacy that in a sense produce blacks as that discrete and insular class in America produce the phenomenon of the third world for example right we have British colonialism India we have the Egyptian right colonialism so now what what what that can produce um is is a predisposition towards viewing the world through the lens of a white supremacist psyche and of course the the the most immediately recognizable opposite of white is of course black um and especially when you take the fact that in America whiteness as a class as a as a category um has been open to expansion ever since America began so there are lots of people who are considered white today who are not white 200 years ago right like the Irish at a time right blackness on the other hand has pretty much stayed the same no new groups have sort of joined blackness as it were now what this can produce is that immigrants coming to America um from the Muslim world having experienced either consciously or unconsciously their own coming to terms with or being affected by white supremacy can come to America and view America or life in America through their prism and this can produce certain stereotypes about blacks and along with it certain impulses in terms of well how do i position myself in this society um to gain the maximum amount of respect social mobility comfort public glory etc and what we can find is that to the extent that immigrant Muslims are affected by the enticements sort of to join American whiteness that can put them on a on a on a course that sets them in the opposite direction of blacks because blacks are never be going to become white as a word and so this can this can cause quite a bit of quite a bit of tension that's on the one hand the other thing is that the very move from black religion to Orthodox Sunni Islam um produced a situation whereby under black religion blacks could be assumed to be the definers of the communal agenda under Sunni Islam blacks could no longer assume that they had the most authority to define community or criminal agenda rather Muslims from the Muslim world would be assumed to have that because after all they were I mean if they weren't Muslims who were and what this what this oftentimes led to was a situation where Islam is being interpreted in an American context but through the prism of people who don't necessarily understand the American context all right now let me imagine for African Americans that's very discombobulating because it is for white a conference as well mm-hmm well I mean look I'm sure that there was any number of instances where there was outright prejudice prejudice and bigotry and racism etc but I'm not convinced that that was always the case or that even has to be the case and I mean let me share with you an experience I actually had myself I talk about it in the book I was studying in Egypt many years ago decades ago um and I happen to be standing in a line to buy a soda um one very very hot day and it's very hot and very sweating and we just standing there the lines moving very slowly um out of nowhere comes a young white woman and she just prances right up to the front of the line and the guy behind the counter just picks up a soda pops off the cap and gives it to her now I'm standing there looking at that um um this is decades ago I was still in my 20s then and I looked at this and I I was outraged and I yelled up to the guy basically what the heck is this and the guy looked back at me with the most pathetic look on his face he said what's wrong with you this is a woman back then women in Egypt did not stand in all-male lines and it time there was an all-male line a woman had a cultural right as it were to proceed to the front of line now the point that I'm trying to make here is that I was simply looking at reality through the only prism I had prior applying her american i was i was apply i was looking at that egyptian in reality through an american lens and i wasn't trying to be disrespectful of egypt i wasn't trying to be racist or anything like that i was simply viewing the reality through the prism that I had as a black American the only understanding the only understanding I could possibly come up with for that kind of situation it turns out I was totally object me wrong um well Muslims coming from the Muslim world and it doesn't matter how educated you I was very educated when I went when I went to Egypt may oftentimes think they're looking at or think they're seeing certain things um but the phenomenon at play is totally different from what they think they may be looking at it from or through the prism of their own experience back home as it were and the American reality may be very very very different so lots of dislocation took place in this the shift from black religion to Orthodox Sunni Islam I think that much has changed in that regard however by the fact that over the last three decades or so um there have been rapidly increasing numbers of black American Muslims who have themselves gained facility if not in some instances mastery of that classical tradition and are now are beginning to try to to to deplore that classic addition classical tradition in the context of America for themselves and I think that this has been actually helped along by the UM by the reality of 911 because I think that 911 although it had a very negative impact on the Muslim community in obvious ways it really I mean Islamophobia sort of came into its its own subsequent to 9/11 but I think at the same time it did a lot to narrow the gap I won't say obliterate the gap but to narrow the gap between black American Muslims and immigrant Muslims because the phenomenon of Islamophobia really did empower immigrant Muslims to begin to see America from a perspective that are a lot more in common with the way that black Americans had experienced it so we're in a very interesting a very interesting period now and I think that the real advantage now of AB Sunni tradition is that contrary to what many might think I believe it to be a leveler it levels the playing field it says that if you want to argue that Muslims should do X or should not do Y then you have to authenticate that on the basis of sources that everyone has equal access to anyone can master those sources if you take that away what we end up trying to do is negotiate these issues on the basis of culture and the cultures from the Muslim world and American context will almost always be deemed to be more Islamic Leo thent ik than American culture American even American Muslim culture and in that way those who want to promote cultures on the Muslim world will always have a sort of undeserved and unearned upper hand um which is one of the reasons I why I personally advocate the grounding of the Muslim narrative in America in that classical tradition not because um you know I'm a romantic or anything like that but but because of two reasons one I see the power and the capacious sense of that tradition and two I think it really is important that we have a level playing field okay well this is a great place to break we're going to go do we're going to have a part two to this discussion but we like to end all episodes with fun questions and so I'd like to transition to those for this first part and the first questions I have for you are who is your favorite Muslim and why it was some hero if you have one eye why you know um I've watched your shows before and I knew this question I don't know about the other questions I knew this question was coming and I've actually thought about it but but my problem is that I don't tend to think in terms of favorites um you know I could say somebody else's alley um um but but then I'd find myself oh wait a minute I also I mean it Bente me is one of my favorites as well um but then even I lost a secondary and so you know it context mood the situation um the issue um I'm not sure I have a a favorite Muslim um to narrow that question though to an American context or just in general as you like see that's I don't I don't know if I can answer that question let me just say this um one of in an American context one of um the most important Muslim someone whose legacy um continues to inspire me um is Muhammad Ali I think that he has this combined capacity to represent um a religious personality because he celebrities a celebrity and he happens to be Muslim but at the same time he is a a cultural Authority and I think that Islam in America in order to find its footing firmly um will have to be more than just religion it will have to um it will have to carve its own cultural matrix it will have to field put on the field a culture that can carry the values and the virtues of Islam as a religion um without having to be didactic and preach to people every time you see them so Muhammad Ali is one of my um one of my secret um I'm a secret admirer oven and what about your favorite concept in Islam and why again favorites um I'll try and answer this question but I'm sure if you see me tomorrow you asked me the same question I'm not even sure that I give the same answer um but among the really important concepts arm to me um is humility because humility to me really does go a long way and staving off hypocrisy people become hypocritical when they're not humble enough just to acknowledge that I'm not all that on the scale of one to ten I'm just a four and maybe on a good damn I'm a five um and I humbly accept that fact and homely turn my my issue over to God and try to do the best that I can um if I'm not humble then I have to always be trying to be a ten um and that can take me into performance I'm performing religion I'm not really being religious um so I would think that um humility and what is your favorite word and why and Arabic or and whatever language you like if you're gonna if it's a foreign language you need to translate Oh my favorite word my favorite word Wow um Wow these are tough questions I mean they they sound simple but they're tough if I had to pick a favorite word a single word um how about repentance towba and why I thought um because again I mean it goes towba or repentance just goes along with the fact that one is able to accept one's reality of being human so um one does the best one can and when that is not good enough um one repents and keeps moving okay all right well thank you and again we're talking about Islam of the Black American looking at toward the third resurrection and we are going to continue this conversation in part two so please join us again if you have any comments questions concerns feedback you can send them to Neffs healer therapy at gmail.com that's n AFS h EA l ER therapy at gmail.com and you can also join us on our adjunctive website at WWF sealer therapy wordpress calm and we'll have a link to a dr. Jackson's book if you're interested in looking it up and we look forward to seeing you for part two next time thank you you

Channel: Muslims and Mental Health by: Dr. Heather Laird

Views: 11,580

Rating: 4.8039217 out of 5

Keywords: Dr. Sherman A. Jackson, USC, University of Southern California, Islam and the Black American, Islam and the Blackamerican, Muslims and Mental Health, American Muslims, Sr. Heather, Heather Laird, Islam, Islamic scholars

Id: O-lAHVcqSKU

Length: 48min 34sec (2914 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2016