By My mom has a friend named Mildred. She slept at our house for two days this week, and I’ll be honest, she’s not my favorite.
She’s blunt, always parks behind my garage and traps me in the house, and has a strange set of habits that dominate and stomp all over my family’s regular routine. It’s infuriating. When Mildred is over (which she never has a real reason for, by the way), we must supply her with clothes while she washes her long black coat, and have vegetables ready for the Sunday stew she takes back home.
And I was laughing too. Look at me, a brown-skinned girl shawled in a scarf with stars and stripes, fitting in right here with the boys and their beers and the girls in bright sundresses.
A few months ago, we were prepared to throw away a loaf of bread infested with mold when Mildred cried foul and made us stop. Couldn’t we just eat around the mold?
That day also happened to be the Fourth of July. And as I cruised the streets of my town passing out pens for my district’s ultra-conservative state representative, I couldn’t help but marvel at the idyllic scene in front of me.
Hundreds of families sat on the side of the street: laughing at the men on stilts, laughing at their kids scrambling for candy, laughing at how the fake Revolutionary cannons made them jump and scream. And I was laughing too. Look at me, a brown-skinned girl shawled in a scarf with stars and stripes, fitting in right here with the boys and their beers and the girls in bright sundresses.
After the parade, I went home to slog away for an annual Fourth of July iftar I throw for my Muslim friends in Ramadan. There was a whole aesthetic to keep in mind: patriotic popsicles, burgers, little flags poking out of the French fry bowl, and a mason jar drink dispenser. The party is always a hit.
Our dates dipped in red, white, and blue melting chocolate affirm that this holiday is ours to celebrate. That we, the daughters of immigrants, have just as much a right to mini Uncle Sam hats and the national anthem as anyone else. And while I definitely wasn’t as confident in the direction of my country as years past this time around (Donald Trump had just announced his candidacy), the party went on. I mean, there were sparklers and fireworks and these Snapchat stories weren’t going to post themselves, were they?
As my family sat around the dinner table after cleaning up, I fumed and ranted. She dared question the sanctity of the holiday? To rain on my star spangled parade?
Ever the intrusion, Mildred emerged later that night with questions. What did the Fourth mean to me? Why so much effort? Very pointedly she frowned, “We never used to celebrate like this when I was a little girl.”
Immediately, I went on the defensive. This is the one day to be proud of our country! I live here! We the people — that’s us, the people — celebrating our home!
Mildred quickly retreated.
“I really just wanted to know,” she shrugged. “Just curious.”
As my family sat around the dinner table after cleaning up, I fumed and ranted. She dared question the sanctity of the holiday? To rain on my star spangled parade?
My mom tried to put out the fire. She urged me to put myself in Mildred’s shoes. “I think she really was wondering why we were so patriotic,” she mused. “They probably feel like they have nothing to celebrate.”
Her assumption of “they” requires some clarifications.
Mildred is Black. Born and raised in the South Side of Chicago. Poor — or at least nowhere near the upper echelon of luxury I have the privilege of residing in. Black and poor. Poor and Black. Poor because she’s Black? I wrestled with a sick feeling in my stomach the rest of the night.
Mildred began to make sense. Moreover, she made me uncomfortable, because I knew I was wrong. I had no right to bemoan her lack of patriotism without context, and actually, I had no right to justify my own.
For more than the 240 years the Fourth celebrates, her people have been pillaged and plundered by the government and its emissaries. Really, what does she have to cheer?
But isn’t America still her home?
Aren’t black men and women treated, beaten, and killed like second-class citizens in their home?
But what about hope? Doesn’t she, like me, have a place in this country’s narrative, in this grand experiment in democracy?
Whose experiment is it?
And whose bodies and minds have been exploited as the lab rats?
But–
Mildred began to make sense. Moreover, she made me uncomfortable, because I knew I was wrong. I had no right to bemoan her lack of patriotism without context, and actually, I had no right to justify my own.
Fourth of July festivities probably looked to her like a nation desperate to cement another narrative — one in which we tout our Black president under the banner of post-racial harmony. And a family of immigrants throwing away a package of bread with two moldy slices, through Mildred’s eyes, clearly never had to worry about where the next loaf was coming from.
This time last year, my masjid drove three buses over capacity to a protest downtown for Gaza. Sandra Bland went to high school across the street from the mosque, and we can’t even organize a handful of mourners.
Now, this is not to say that all immigrant Muslims are rich and racist, or that all Black Muslims are poor and victimized. There is, though, a divide that we need to acknowledge.
See, I started cracking open my cocoon and took my first steps into Black Twitter and Coates, Baldwin, and Morrison. And I arrived at a primitive conclusion that, in light of our divine command to stand up for justice, #BlackLivesMatter is a cause — the cause, not necessarily the organization — I’m obligated to support. Yet when I informed my mom, who first urged me to consider Mildred’s point of view, of an upcoming protest against police brutality, she bristled after the umpteenth time I asked to go.
“Why do you need to go?” she frowned. “You’re not Black, are you?”
This. This is the problem. This is the divide between us that’s decades long and generations deep.
Gaza is of utmost importance. As is Syria, as is Burma, and as is all aid to Muslims suffering overseas. But these causes so quickly grab hold of our emotions and wallets that it seems we turn our back on the brutality in our backyard.
Our mothers and fathers came from India and Lebanon, Somalia and Bangladesh, and they often arrived with close to nothing. They stood on the shoulders of the civil rights movement and the rights their Black Muslim brothers and sisters worked to secure. Now that our communities are (relatively) safe and affluent, we are content to live with tunnel vision. (Islamophobia! is! THE! problem!)
This time last year, my masjid drove three buses over capacity to a protest downtown for Gaza. Sandra Bland went to high school across the street from the mosque, and we can’t even organize a handful of mourners. It’s not a matter of overt racial animosity. Rather, the divide is one sown with deep-seated lethargy.
Gaza is of utmost importance. As is Syria, as is Burma, and as is all aid to Muslims suffering overseas. But these causes so quickly grab hold of our emotions and wallets that it seems we turn our back on the brutality in our backyard. It makes sense that this happens — our hearts are still fiercely connected to back “home.” We sequester ourselves from accountability.
Or sometimes, like my freedom iftar party, we become taken by the comfort of rooting for God and country. Too eager to become part of a tainted fabric, to join a parade marching in a deluded fog. Both sides of the spectrum are faulty.
Joining this struggle will require an internal reckoning, and perhaps even an admission of guilt, much like what Mildred forced me to reflect on.
I do think there’s hope. Our leadership is beginning to speak on racism inside and outside of the Muslim community, and social media has sparked a newfound consciousness among my peers.
But we must be careful of our efforts being temporary or self-congratulatory. Of showing up to the front lines of one protest for a dozen Facebook statuses and photo ops. This struggle cannot be ours to co-opt or glamorize, nor can we call for reform without rectifying our own spaces.
Joining this struggle will require an internal reckoning, and perhaps even an admission of guilt, much like what Mildred forced me to reflect on.
At a Friday prayer service at Masjid Wali Mohammed in Detroit, formerly Temple No. 1 of the Nation of Islam, I sat with community elders reminiscing on serving Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali their coffee on visits to the mosque, on the dynamic fluidity of their conversion to Sunni orthodox Islam, and on the dire economic straits the building is in today.
Racial myopia will get American Muslims nowhere. It will take more than a protest, more than a token invocation of Bilal (RA), more than the status quo to get us to the promised land.
This collective memory is, in large part, lost to most first and second generation immigrant Muslims. Black Islam — in its fifth century on these shores — should be re-centered as the soul of the American Muslim narrative. If we are to agree on that, then standing for Black lives in this country while centering Black voices is imperative.
Racial myopia will get American Muslims nowhere. It will take more than a protest, more than a token invocation of Bilal (RA), more than the status quo to get us to the promised land. Calling out the racism inherent in brown spaces is a practical starting point.
The shooter in Virginia last year, he left a suicide note,
“You want a race war??…BRING IT THEN!!!” he wrote.
There has to be a sense of urgency about this. Justice is a divine command, and we must work to serve it before it’s too late. If we are to light sparklers and fireworks next year with any shred of our collective conscience remaining, we cry foul.
We fight harder for our right, for our Black brothers and sisters’ rights, to a better place to call home.
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Written by Riyah Basha
Great piece! Well-written and poignant, and from a perspective not heard from often enough.