“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group: ....Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part...”
UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide
Paris, 9 December, 1948
October 31, 2010
Baltimore, MD–It was the perfect day to break some chains. Hundreds of people rallied outside Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School, in the heart of black community and just blocks away from Baltimore’s infamous Central Booking detention facility. They were protesting the building of a new youth prison. If construction goes on as planned, this would be the city’s ninth prison, built absent any mandate from the majority black population. But Baltimore’s prison building rampage would not end there. Plans are underway for the subsequent building of a tenth prison, this one for women.
Under a fluttering red, black, and green Afrocentric flag, religious, student and community leaders condemned the city’s plan to jail the youth instead of educating them. The event began with the singing of the Black Anthem “Lift Every Voice.” Then Deverick Murray, a Towson University student, popularly known as the Political Poet, took the stage. Stating the rally’s goals in verse, he said:
"I greet you today and bring you our purpose,
Assuring you that under this alliance not one thing can hurt us.
With steadfast hearts, and no distractions may divert us.
We are here today not only to stop this youth jail,
But to convince us, to construct plans
Knowing that if God, Allah, and the elders are here,
Then the world can be against us.
We are here to let the state know we have ran out of fear
And showing that we will stand together to protect what we hold dear.
We are here because they had enough money for jails,
But they had no interest in making sure that we don't fail....”
Youth energies fueled the protest. Leamon Harris, of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, which organized the protest along with the Kinetics Faith and Justice Network, the Baltimore Algebra Project, and other groups, said that even the best inner city schools were a continuum of institutionalized racism. Speaking of black student athletes, he said “They become slaves to the brands at a young age because they are mentally colonized, helping a government that doesn’t support them or their people unless they play the game. What if they stopped playing football or basketball until construction of the youth jail was stopped, or the police officers taken out of the schools, or classes that offered a real discussion of black history put in place?”
Deverick Murray wrote a powerful rap in support of the event, entitled “ I’ll be Damned” (referring to the resolve of the protest organizers against the locking up of the youth). It circulated broadly on Facebook and elsewhere leading up to the event. Murray, Harris, and Towson University student leader Adam Jackson successfully mobilized large numbers of high school and college students for the protest.
The event was emce'ed by its chief organizer, Afrocentric pastor and community leader Heber Brown. Brown is known for his courageous and outspoken stance on many issues, and has spoken at rallies against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
A few days prior to Youth Justice Sunday, Pastor Brown and two companions stood with megaphones outside an endorsement party hosted by a local chapter of AFSME [a major U.S. labor union —editor] for Mayor O'Malley. As O'Malley passed, they called out: "Gov. O'Malley, what about the $104 million dollar youth jail? Can you speak to that sir? Yeah back to slavery for black children?" An AFSME representative approached the pastor, and wagging his finger at him, told Brown he was being “tacky” by challenging the governor. Since the pastor and his companions had officially been invited to the endorsement party, they went inside. Once inside, they were cornered by the AFSME director and his assistants, and threateningly ordered to leave the building.
At the rally, it was clear that the Pastor was not fazed by such gestapo tactics. Youth Justice Sunday, he proclaimed, was about self-determination for black people.
Delegate Jill Carter, the rare local politician who’d accepted Pastor Brown’s invitation to speak, took her turn at the mic. Jared Ball, of Voxunion—a D.C.-based independent media collective—spoke. In the audience were Maria Allwine, Green Party candidate for Maryland governor; Jack Young, City Council president; and Dr. Ray Winbush of Morgan State University, internationally acclaimed reparations activist and author.
Then Min. Carlos Muhammad came to the stage.
He is Louis Farrakhan’s Baltimore representative, based out of Muhammad Mosque No. 1. The mosque is located on the 3200 block of Garrison Boulevard. Much of the boulevard is impoverished, a showcase of slums (Indians and Pakistanis are amongst the biggest slum lords), liquor stores (frequently Arab owned), and cheesy corner markets (Korean owners, with their exorbitantly priced goods, hidden behind protective bars). The mosque has worked to uplift area youth for years, ridding the neighborhood of much of its vice. But a mile or so down the road from the mosque, drugs, alcohol, and prostitution are rampant.
The minister accompanied on stage by his wife and two FOI (Fruit of Islam), greeted the people with “As-salaam alaikom.” He asked for a show of hands by those who had a family member, close friend, or loved one in prison. Easily two-thirds of the crowd raised their hands. With the air of a battle-hardened warrior, he offered words of encouragement to the crowd before leaving the stage.
Six Baltimore Algebra Project youth took the stage.
The Algebra Project is a youth advocacy group which provides highly effective peer-to-peer tutoring for inner city youth. But BAP doesn’t only tutor. When I moved back to Baltimore around 2002, I was astonished to find very young students from the organization blocking the streets to call attention to the glaring disparities within the education system and racism in the schools. They are articulate, organized, disciplined, and unrelenting in their demands.
The youth began with solemn speeches, holding the complete attention of the crowd. Then, three of them broke into melodic chants: "Don't build it, don't build it, O’ Malley check the rally." Red “X”s, plastered on the jackets of Algebra Project members and supporters, swayed gently to the rthymn. One of BAP’s talented young hiphop artists performed. It was dusk, and the crowd seemed energized.
Adam Jackson, Towson University student and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle activist, spoke briefly. Then Rev. Kinji Scott told the crowd, "We tired of being shoved around! Are you ready? You ain't ready! If you're ready, follow me!"
Scott, Jackson, Murray, and others led the march to the site of the proposed youth prison, chanting “Educate, don’t incarcerate!” The procession stretched for several blocks, finally arriving at a vacant lot, encircled by a fence—the site of the proposed youth prison. A sign read “State Property.”
In a dramatic action, reminiscent of the Storming of the Bastille, student activists pushed with their bodies against the entry gate. To the crowd chants of, “Break that lock,” they used the wire cutters to weaken and finally break the padlock holding the gate shut.
A small number of protesters flooded through the gate. March organizers blared a warning over the megaphone: no one was to enter the fenced area without having completed civil disobedience training. The activists inside the fence joined hands in a solemn prayer. They intended to be arrested to call attention to the city’s funding of prison building over education. It was Sunday, and the civil disobedience action was taking place directly across from an existing prison facility. The protestors committed to engage in civil disobedience waited. And waited. And waited. For once, the police were nowhere in sight.
Realizing the civil disobedience was not to materialize, the organizers gathered up the signs carried by the procession. Determined their message be heard, they symbolically scattered books across the property, and with some effort, hammered placards bearing the words “Educate, don’t incarcerate!” into the rocky ground. Then, against the backdrop of Central Booking’s fading red brick and barbwire, they held a brief press conference before departing.
On the empty lot slated to cage the children of the poor, the pages of books fluttered in the wind.
Epilogue
Islam says, “Free the slave.” References to “freeing captives” abound in the Qur’an. To me, Islam is synonymous with justice, and it is not justice to jail a man because he is hungry and stole a loaf of bread. Or lock up a youth who delivers a few ounces of marijuana across town to pay his mother’s rent. I know of grocery stores located near the projects where armed security officers guard the exits. This country hates poor people, and is willing to kill or at least jail them for stealing food. Islam, known for its stringent justice, exempts exactly one category of person from sharia penalties for theft: the person who is hungry or starving. Prisons were unknown during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Ditto during the reign of the four rightly guided caliphs—Abu Bakr (RA), Umar (RA), Uthman (RA), and Ali (RA)—which followed immediately after. A person who violated social norms was banished from society, ostracized for a limited time, or in the case of a very serious crime, subjected to a one-time harsh punishment. He was not indefinitely placed in a tiny, insect-infested, filthy, overcrowded, freezing cell, to be sodomized, treated like an animal, or forced to urinate and defecate in front of others. Nor was his labor used to profit big business. Of the vast number of hadith (narrations of Prophetic tradition) in circulation, virtually none talk about locking up or harshly punishing children.
The U.S. boasts 7.3 million people in jail, on probation, or on parole at year end—one in every 31 adults. 2.3 million people are held in adult prison or jail (including some children). In addition, 92,800 children are held in juvenile detention centers. The rate of Black incarceration is 2,468 per 100,000 persons. For Whites, that rate is 409 per 100,000. So, Black youth are far more likely to be locked up than Whites. And unless one subscribes to some incredibly antiquated, racist, and scientifically invalid theory, it can’t be because one group is inherently more criminal than the other.
Imperial AmeriKKKa, which sends its armadas throughout the world teaching others how to live, needs desperately to rethink a system which is clearly unjust, for injustice cannot be indefinitely sustained. Just as Gaza is one vast prison camp for Palestinians, Baltimore [substitute virtually any major U.S. city here] through its School-to-Prison pipeline, is the slave labor pool for the Prison-Industrial complex. But not, inshallah, if Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, Kinetics Faith and Justice Network, and the Baltimore Algebra Project have their way.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
An Interview with Karima Al-Amin (Part 2 of 2)
In the second of this two part interview, Karima Al-Amin, Atlanta-based activist, attorney, and wife of Imam Jamil Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown), speaks about her and her husband’s conversion to Islam, the effects of Imam Jamil’s incarceration on their family, and the many legal actions undertaken by the imam since his incarceration. Some of these he initiated without the aid of an attorney. Others were vigorously pursued by a legal team at a prominent Atlanta law firm, the imam’s first truly competent and committed legal representation, which appeared on the scene a few years after his conviction.
As I listened to Ms. Al-Amin, I was stunned by the resilience and resolve of the Al-Amins, undaunted by the challenges before them. Against all odds, they’d patiently continued a dignified and peaceful resistance. Most amazingly, they had not restricted themselves to the challenge of wrongs done to Imam Jamil, although this was, in itself, a huge litany. They were tackling the very constitutionality of laws which violated the rights of inmates, political prisoners, and other victims of the prison-industrial complex. In other words, from behind bars, the Imam, his wife at his “side,” was fighting to “free the slave”—while many seemingly free imams and others on the outside cowered in fear and silence.
Q: Tell me about Imam Jamil’s transition from black radical to mainstream Muslim imam. Did you feel you had to influence him to repudiate or reconstruct that image into a more moderate one?
A: My sister’s first husband was a Muslim from the Republic of Guinea. I remember they had a Qur’an on a stand, and they gave us a prayer rug before we were Muslim that we hung on our wall; consequently, that was one of our early exposures to Islam.
My husband took his shahada in December 1971, while he was incarcerated in New York City. Brothers from the Dar-ul-Islam in Brooklyn entered the jails as chaplains and volunteers to hold classes on Islam. The transition to Islam was very natural for my husband because it did not compromise any of his positions.
I took my shahada a few months later, in February 1972, when Imam Jamil gave it to me. I still was reading about Islam after he became Muslim because I wanted to make sure I was becoming Muslim based on my belief. It was a natural flow for us to become Muslim. We never felt we had to explain the transition from his past as H. Rap Brown to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, although the transition was confusing for those who did not understand my husband. After El Hajj Malik Shabazz, my husband was the next public figure in the Movement to become Muslim. We then saw other black liberators in the 1970s and 1980s become Muslims.
Q: What made you decide to attend law school?
A: Law was my third profession. Here in Atlanta, I worked for a 15-year period with two foundations giving money to grassroots organizations and working on desegregating public higher education and enhancing the traditionally black colleges and universities. I did not go to law school until 1992, while I was teaching English. When I was in high school, I considered law as a career. My mother worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund when Thurgood Marshall was the Executive Director, and lawyers were dispatched to the South to represent students and local people who were being arrested, brutalized, and killed. This certainly influenced my early thoughts on considering law. Also, once I married my husband, I was constantly with William Kunstler and at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, as he and the organization represented my husband. And lastly, the fact that the government was continuing its efforts, COINTELPRO-style, to incarcerate my husband, was another factor that moved me finally to attend.
Q: What did you see as your role in the Al-Amin household?
A: I saw my role as a stabilizing one. I was not making speeches, and I wasn’t out there in the public with my husband. I saw my role as maintaining peace at home. I was a teacher during our early years of marriage. My concentration was making sure we could eat together and be together as a family. It always amazed me when we heard people gasp and say, “I saw H. Rap Brown, and he was holding a child,” or “I saw the Rap and he was holding a cat.” Ordinary things he did shocked people because the media had dehumanized him. When things are moving wildly, it’s necessary to have normalcy at home, so I would try to maintain a sense of normalcy in an abnormal world.
Q: What attitude or outlook to life did you adapt after you realized that your husband would be locked up for a long time? What has been your biggest challenge since his railroading?
A: Naturally to be stripped of a husband, a companion, is devastating. Because I came up through the struggle with him, I understood the challenges. Many people refer to my husband as the “last man standing.” He was a COINTELPRO target and he has remained one. I understand his innocence, and the governmental efforts to silence him throughout a 43-year period. This gives me the strength to remain strong and by his side.
My biggest challenge was ensuring that I could provide for my family in my husband’s absence. I was doing so many pro bono cases that I realized that I had to begin charging for my legal services. I was faced with raising a 12-year old son, who was very close to his father, and I had to monitor the psychological impact on him. He was a basketball son, and accustomed to seeing his father at all of his games since he was five years old. I had to move quickly to maintain his life as a youngster, and I could not miss a basketball game or school activity. My overarching challenge naturally was—and continues to be—to work to free my husband.
Q: Has Imam Jamil’s incarceration influenced the career choices of your children? Do you think they will go to law school?
A: We have two children: Kairi and Ali. Kairi is 22 and Ali is 31. Kairi is in law school. He is in his second year, but wants to practice, perhaps, entertainment/sport or international contractual law. He graduated from high school when he was 16, and went to three universities before graduating, still on time. Kairi was in the eighth grade when his father was arrested, and during the trial he would come to court carrying his backpack. He was a trooper.
Q: Have the children visited their father in Florence, CO? Tell me about that visit.
A: Kairi and I visit Imam Jamil in Florence, Colorado. He is being held in the Supermax prison, 1400 miles away, which makes traveling very costly. It essentially takes a full day to travel there and another day to return home. It’s really been a struggle, and we haven’t been able to visit as often as we’d like.
Florence is seen by many as a concentration camp for Muslim inmates. Imam Jamil is handcuffed at the waist behind a glass when we see him in one of the legal rooms. On the days we are with him, we are able to visit for approximately six hours. If he receives food during the visit, he has to hold his hands chained in front of him in order to eat. It is a very difficult position, and his wrists begin to swell.
The law firm now representing Imam Jamil pro bono also worked on suits for Guantanamo prisoners. One of their lead attorneys said that if he had to choose between Gitmo and Florence, he would choose Gitmo. Imam Jamil is held in solitary confinement, and Florence is a “no contact” institution, so the conditions are punitive and deplorable.
Q: Imam Jamil’s projects to rid the West End community of drugs are well known, as was his mentoring of the youth. Have these projects continued, and what is the extent of your involvement with them?
A: I’m still involved with the community. It’s a community I helped start with Imam Jamil and it is dear to me. Many of our children now are active in the community, and taking leadership roles, and it’s wonderful to see and feel their energy. We have continued with classes, youth activities, and the Riyaadah that we started in 1982.
Our community under the leadership of my husband always included the youth in our family-oriented activities; therefore, mentoring the youth continues to be a focus.
Q: Do you feel that things have gotten worse in the city since Imam Jamil was locked up?
A: When he was around, there was some vibrancy in the neighborhood. We all miss his presence and his hard work to keep the ills from consuming our community. We can all agree these are drastic times for people, and this is reflected throughout the inner cities. My husband always reminded people that Islam is the medicine for the sick; it is the cure for all society’s ailments.
Q: Unfortunately, the number of political prisoners has increased exponentially since your husband went to prison. What is your advice to the current generation of Muslim law students, as to how they should operate within the U.S. justice system? What should be their contribution to the Muslim community?
A: Imam Jamil was instrumental in getting a Muslim lawyer’s group started. This was similar to what SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee –editor] had, where attorneys represented civil rights workers on a pro bono basis. We have to get more attorneys who would be able to take on cases. Many Muslims who are arrested now have not committed criminal activities, but are arrested for “thought crimes.” We need a band of attorneys to be able to represent Muslims who are being entrapped by informants. Family members of those arrested are draining their resources and are receiving minimal assistance from the Muslim community. We need to recognize that the divide-and-conquer strategy is working very well within the Muslim community, with the result that dissent is crushed and support for political prisoners is diminishing. We need activist attorneys to challenge constitutional violations and the unjust arrests so that families will not have to go to court with attorneys who are concerned only with billable hours.
Q: What is the current state of Imam Jamil’s case?
A: Imam Jamil was convicted in 2002 on Georgia state charges. He immediately was transferred to the maximum state prison in Reidsville, Georgia, where he was held in administrative lockdown. Despite his physical isolation, his presence in the prison for other inmates had an electrical charge. While visiting him, we would see other inmates, passing by on their visits, raising their fists or giving salaams, and—their visitors would do the same.
In 2006, the FBI released a report called “The Radicalization of Muslim Inmates in the Georgia Prison System.” The report focused on the effort by Muslim inmates in the Georgia prison system to have Imam Jamil serve as imam over all Muslim Georgia inmates. Georgia officials realized that Imam Jamil did not initiate the effort, and although he agreed to stop the effort, the FBI launched its own investigation. We believe the report by the FBI was the final step in getting him moved out of Georgia, to the federal supermax prison where so many high profile Muslims are being held.
The Georgia conviction is still being challenged through a habeas corpus action to prove my husband’s innocence. [A writ of habeas corpus is a request for a reversal of a conviction. Imam Jamil’s habeas lists fourteen very compelling reasons why his conviction should be reversed. –editor]. That was filed in 2005. We are at the end of that state process, and attempting to move forward, and hopefully will have a ruling next year.
Q: So even though Imam Jamil was not convicted on any federal charges, he was moved from state to federal custody?
A: Yes, Imam Jamil was moved out of Reidsville without notification to his family or attorneys. The move was based on an agreement between the State of Georgia and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to take on state prisoners. Georgia pays the Federal Bureau of Prisons every month to house him. They whisked him away in a hot van, and had him sit for hours in 90-degree temperature until he developed chest pains, and had to be taken to an Atlanta hospital. We knew nothing about this. They kept him overnight, and then returned him to the airport for a flight to the Oklahoma City Federal Penitentiary. From there, he was taken to Florence, CO. The move alone violates the Bureau of Prisons’ rule that an inmate must be housed within 500 miles of his home.
Q: Tell me about some of the lawsuits initiated by Imam Jamil.
A: Imam Jamil filed numerous grievances while in Reidsville and Florence, Colorado, that ultimately ended in his filing various lawsuits:
Legal Mail Lawsuit
This lawsuit was filed because the Reidsville prison staff continued to open legal mail from me to my husband. The Department of Corrections in Atlanta was notified that opening his legal mail in his absence was a violation of the department’s standard operating procedure, and a First Amendment violation. The Southern District Court, in which the lawsuit was filed, ruled in his favor, and Georgia appealed. The case then went to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for argument. At that point, the 11th Circuit appointed a prominent Atlanta-based attorney and his firm to represent my husband on a pro bono basis. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the action of the staff in opening legal mail from me to my husband was a First Amendment violation. Georgia appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court; that Court refused to hear Georgia’s appeal.
Retaliation Lawsuit
From the day he entered the Reidsville Georgia prison, he was held in administrative 23-hour lockdown. He’s never done a juma’a since he was incarcerated—from 2002 until now. So, we do have fundamental constitutional issues. We will continue to challenge the inhumane and punitive actions of the Georgia Prison system to prevent Imam Jamil’s contact with other prisoners and the right to practice his religion during his incarceration. Additionally, we will challenge the retaliatory transfer from Georgia to a supermax “no contact” prison without his having a federal charge, conviction or sentence. We are very concerned about the impact solitary confinement has on the physical and mental condition of an inmate. [So, specific factors being challenged in the retaliation lawsuit include the imam’s 23-hour per day lockdown in Reidsville, the violation of his religion rights within the Georgia prison system, and the gratuitous transfer to the Florence Supermax. –editor]
Challenge to the Prison Litigation Reform Act
The State has refused to settle our legal mail case; therefore, we are preparing for trial. In doing so, we first are challenging the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Our position is that a constitutional violation is sufficient to win punitive damages, just as a physical injury entitles one to punitive damages. Courts are divided on this issue. [The PLRA, as it stands, prevents Imam Jamil—and others in his position—from receiving punitive damages for violations such as the opening of his legal mail in his absence, on the grounds that the damage inflicted was not physical. –editor]. Our case will give the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals an opportunity to rule on this issue.
Q: What is the situation with Otis Jackson, the self-confessed shooter in the crime for which Imam Jamil was convicted?
A: Our attorneys have deposed Otis Jackson. His testimony, that he committed the actions for which Imam Jamil was convicted, has been consistent. So, we’ve made some headway, but it’s taken a long time. One of the reasons the State said Otis couldn’t have done it, is that he was wearing an electronic monitor. We talked to the maker of the monitor and learned that it is possible to beat the monitor. And in fact, he had a faulty electronic monitor.
Part of the habeas has been that Otis was not investigated. The prosecutor told our attorneys “Oh, he’s crazy, like the other ones,” and the attorneys froze and did nothing to investigate the confession or the monitoring device.
Q: Any final words for New Trend readers?
A: Imam Jamil was previously incarcerated [under the COINTELPRO era prosecutions of Black, Native American, and other leaders and activists –editor] for five years. He got out in 1976. Right after the 2002 conviction, the prosecuting attorney for the State said, “After 24 years, we finally got him.” This confirmed Imam Jamil’s position that it was a government conspiracy. Our immediate short-term goal is to have the Imam transferred back to Georgia, or to a federal prison within a 500-mile radius of his home. Our ultimate goal, naturally, is to exonerate Imam Jamil.
---
Donations for Imam Jamil’s defense may be sent to:
The Justice Fund
P.O. Box 115363
Atlanta, GA 30310
Write to Imam Jamil Al-Amin:
Reg. No. 99974-555
USP Florence ADMAX
P.O. Box 8500
Florence, CO 81226
For more information, contact:
thejusticefund@aol.com
As I listened to Ms. Al-Amin, I was stunned by the resilience and resolve of the Al-Amins, undaunted by the challenges before them. Against all odds, they’d patiently continued a dignified and peaceful resistance. Most amazingly, they had not restricted themselves to the challenge of wrongs done to Imam Jamil, although this was, in itself, a huge litany. They were tackling the very constitutionality of laws which violated the rights of inmates, political prisoners, and other victims of the prison-industrial complex. In other words, from behind bars, the Imam, his wife at his “side,” was fighting to “free the slave”—while many seemingly free imams and others on the outside cowered in fear and silence.
Q: Tell me about Imam Jamil’s transition from black radical to mainstream Muslim imam. Did you feel you had to influence him to repudiate or reconstruct that image into a more moderate one?
A: My sister’s first husband was a Muslim from the Republic of Guinea. I remember they had a Qur’an on a stand, and they gave us a prayer rug before we were Muslim that we hung on our wall; consequently, that was one of our early exposures to Islam.
My husband took his shahada in December 1971, while he was incarcerated in New York City. Brothers from the Dar-ul-Islam in Brooklyn entered the jails as chaplains and volunteers to hold classes on Islam. The transition to Islam was very natural for my husband because it did not compromise any of his positions.
I took my shahada a few months later, in February 1972, when Imam Jamil gave it to me. I still was reading about Islam after he became Muslim because I wanted to make sure I was becoming Muslim based on my belief. It was a natural flow for us to become Muslim. We never felt we had to explain the transition from his past as H. Rap Brown to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, although the transition was confusing for those who did not understand my husband. After El Hajj Malik Shabazz, my husband was the next public figure in the Movement to become Muslim. We then saw other black liberators in the 1970s and 1980s become Muslims.
Q: What made you decide to attend law school?
A: Law was my third profession. Here in Atlanta, I worked for a 15-year period with two foundations giving money to grassroots organizations and working on desegregating public higher education and enhancing the traditionally black colleges and universities. I did not go to law school until 1992, while I was teaching English. When I was in high school, I considered law as a career. My mother worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund when Thurgood Marshall was the Executive Director, and lawyers were dispatched to the South to represent students and local people who were being arrested, brutalized, and killed. This certainly influenced my early thoughts on considering law. Also, once I married my husband, I was constantly with William Kunstler and at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, as he and the organization represented my husband. And lastly, the fact that the government was continuing its efforts, COINTELPRO-style, to incarcerate my husband, was another factor that moved me finally to attend.
Q: What did you see as your role in the Al-Amin household?
A: I saw my role as a stabilizing one. I was not making speeches, and I wasn’t out there in the public with my husband. I saw my role as maintaining peace at home. I was a teacher during our early years of marriage. My concentration was making sure we could eat together and be together as a family. It always amazed me when we heard people gasp and say, “I saw H. Rap Brown, and he was holding a child,” or “I saw the Rap and he was holding a cat.” Ordinary things he did shocked people because the media had dehumanized him. When things are moving wildly, it’s necessary to have normalcy at home, so I would try to maintain a sense of normalcy in an abnormal world.
Q: What attitude or outlook to life did you adapt after you realized that your husband would be locked up for a long time? What has been your biggest challenge since his railroading?
A: Naturally to be stripped of a husband, a companion, is devastating. Because I came up through the struggle with him, I understood the challenges. Many people refer to my husband as the “last man standing.” He was a COINTELPRO target and he has remained one. I understand his innocence, and the governmental efforts to silence him throughout a 43-year period. This gives me the strength to remain strong and by his side.
My biggest challenge was ensuring that I could provide for my family in my husband’s absence. I was doing so many pro bono cases that I realized that I had to begin charging for my legal services. I was faced with raising a 12-year old son, who was very close to his father, and I had to monitor the psychological impact on him. He was a basketball son, and accustomed to seeing his father at all of his games since he was five years old. I had to move quickly to maintain his life as a youngster, and I could not miss a basketball game or school activity. My overarching challenge naturally was—and continues to be—to work to free my husband.
Q: Has Imam Jamil’s incarceration influenced the career choices of your children? Do you think they will go to law school?
A: We have two children: Kairi and Ali. Kairi is 22 and Ali is 31. Kairi is in law school. He is in his second year, but wants to practice, perhaps, entertainment/sport or international contractual law. He graduated from high school when he was 16, and went to three universities before graduating, still on time. Kairi was in the eighth grade when his father was arrested, and during the trial he would come to court carrying his backpack. He was a trooper.
Q: Have the children visited their father in Florence, CO? Tell me about that visit.
A: Kairi and I visit Imam Jamil in Florence, Colorado. He is being held in the Supermax prison, 1400 miles away, which makes traveling very costly. It essentially takes a full day to travel there and another day to return home. It’s really been a struggle, and we haven’t been able to visit as often as we’d like.
Florence is seen by many as a concentration camp for Muslim inmates. Imam Jamil is handcuffed at the waist behind a glass when we see him in one of the legal rooms. On the days we are with him, we are able to visit for approximately six hours. If he receives food during the visit, he has to hold his hands chained in front of him in order to eat. It is a very difficult position, and his wrists begin to swell.
The law firm now representing Imam Jamil pro bono also worked on suits for Guantanamo prisoners. One of their lead attorneys said that if he had to choose between Gitmo and Florence, he would choose Gitmo. Imam Jamil is held in solitary confinement, and Florence is a “no contact” institution, so the conditions are punitive and deplorable.
Q: Imam Jamil’s projects to rid the West End community of drugs are well known, as was his mentoring of the youth. Have these projects continued, and what is the extent of your involvement with them?
A: I’m still involved with the community. It’s a community I helped start with Imam Jamil and it is dear to me. Many of our children now are active in the community, and taking leadership roles, and it’s wonderful to see and feel their energy. We have continued with classes, youth activities, and the Riyaadah that we started in 1982.
Our community under the leadership of my husband always included the youth in our family-oriented activities; therefore, mentoring the youth continues to be a focus.
Q: Do you feel that things have gotten worse in the city since Imam Jamil was locked up?
A: When he was around, there was some vibrancy in the neighborhood. We all miss his presence and his hard work to keep the ills from consuming our community. We can all agree these are drastic times for people, and this is reflected throughout the inner cities. My husband always reminded people that Islam is the medicine for the sick; it is the cure for all society’s ailments.
Q: Unfortunately, the number of political prisoners has increased exponentially since your husband went to prison. What is your advice to the current generation of Muslim law students, as to how they should operate within the U.S. justice system? What should be their contribution to the Muslim community?
A: Imam Jamil was instrumental in getting a Muslim lawyer’s group started. This was similar to what SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee –editor] had, where attorneys represented civil rights workers on a pro bono basis. We have to get more attorneys who would be able to take on cases. Many Muslims who are arrested now have not committed criminal activities, but are arrested for “thought crimes.” We need a band of attorneys to be able to represent Muslims who are being entrapped by informants. Family members of those arrested are draining their resources and are receiving minimal assistance from the Muslim community. We need to recognize that the divide-and-conquer strategy is working very well within the Muslim community, with the result that dissent is crushed and support for political prisoners is diminishing. We need activist attorneys to challenge constitutional violations and the unjust arrests so that families will not have to go to court with attorneys who are concerned only with billable hours.
Q: What is the current state of Imam Jamil’s case?
A: Imam Jamil was convicted in 2002 on Georgia state charges. He immediately was transferred to the maximum state prison in Reidsville, Georgia, where he was held in administrative lockdown. Despite his physical isolation, his presence in the prison for other inmates had an electrical charge. While visiting him, we would see other inmates, passing by on their visits, raising their fists or giving salaams, and—their visitors would do the same.
In 2006, the FBI released a report called “The Radicalization of Muslim Inmates in the Georgia Prison System.” The report focused on the effort by Muslim inmates in the Georgia prison system to have Imam Jamil serve as imam over all Muslim Georgia inmates. Georgia officials realized that Imam Jamil did not initiate the effort, and although he agreed to stop the effort, the FBI launched its own investigation. We believe the report by the FBI was the final step in getting him moved out of Georgia, to the federal supermax prison where so many high profile Muslims are being held.
The Georgia conviction is still being challenged through a habeas corpus action to prove my husband’s innocence. [A writ of habeas corpus is a request for a reversal of a conviction. Imam Jamil’s habeas lists fourteen very compelling reasons why his conviction should be reversed. –editor]. That was filed in 2005. We are at the end of that state process, and attempting to move forward, and hopefully will have a ruling next year.
Q: So even though Imam Jamil was not convicted on any federal charges, he was moved from state to federal custody?
A: Yes, Imam Jamil was moved out of Reidsville without notification to his family or attorneys. The move was based on an agreement between the State of Georgia and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to take on state prisoners. Georgia pays the Federal Bureau of Prisons every month to house him. They whisked him away in a hot van, and had him sit for hours in 90-degree temperature until he developed chest pains, and had to be taken to an Atlanta hospital. We knew nothing about this. They kept him overnight, and then returned him to the airport for a flight to the Oklahoma City Federal Penitentiary. From there, he was taken to Florence, CO. The move alone violates the Bureau of Prisons’ rule that an inmate must be housed within 500 miles of his home.
Q: Tell me about some of the lawsuits initiated by Imam Jamil.
A: Imam Jamil filed numerous grievances while in Reidsville and Florence, Colorado, that ultimately ended in his filing various lawsuits:
Legal Mail Lawsuit
This lawsuit was filed because the Reidsville prison staff continued to open legal mail from me to my husband. The Department of Corrections in Atlanta was notified that opening his legal mail in his absence was a violation of the department’s standard operating procedure, and a First Amendment violation. The Southern District Court, in which the lawsuit was filed, ruled in his favor, and Georgia appealed. The case then went to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for argument. At that point, the 11th Circuit appointed a prominent Atlanta-based attorney and his firm to represent my husband on a pro bono basis. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the action of the staff in opening legal mail from me to my husband was a First Amendment violation. Georgia appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court; that Court refused to hear Georgia’s appeal.
Retaliation Lawsuit
From the day he entered the Reidsville Georgia prison, he was held in administrative 23-hour lockdown. He’s never done a juma’a since he was incarcerated—from 2002 until now. So, we do have fundamental constitutional issues. We will continue to challenge the inhumane and punitive actions of the Georgia Prison system to prevent Imam Jamil’s contact with other prisoners and the right to practice his religion during his incarceration. Additionally, we will challenge the retaliatory transfer from Georgia to a supermax “no contact” prison without his having a federal charge, conviction or sentence. We are very concerned about the impact solitary confinement has on the physical and mental condition of an inmate. [So, specific factors being challenged in the retaliation lawsuit include the imam’s 23-hour per day lockdown in Reidsville, the violation of his religion rights within the Georgia prison system, and the gratuitous transfer to the Florence Supermax. –editor]
Challenge to the Prison Litigation Reform Act
The State has refused to settle our legal mail case; therefore, we are preparing for trial. In doing so, we first are challenging the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Our position is that a constitutional violation is sufficient to win punitive damages, just as a physical injury entitles one to punitive damages. Courts are divided on this issue. [The PLRA, as it stands, prevents Imam Jamil—and others in his position—from receiving punitive damages for violations such as the opening of his legal mail in his absence, on the grounds that the damage inflicted was not physical. –editor]. Our case will give the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals an opportunity to rule on this issue.
Q: What is the situation with Otis Jackson, the self-confessed shooter in the crime for which Imam Jamil was convicted?
A: Our attorneys have deposed Otis Jackson. His testimony, that he committed the actions for which Imam Jamil was convicted, has been consistent. So, we’ve made some headway, but it’s taken a long time. One of the reasons the State said Otis couldn’t have done it, is that he was wearing an electronic monitor. We talked to the maker of the monitor and learned that it is possible to beat the monitor. And in fact, he had a faulty electronic monitor.
Part of the habeas has been that Otis was not investigated. The prosecutor told our attorneys “Oh, he’s crazy, like the other ones,” and the attorneys froze and did nothing to investigate the confession or the monitoring device.
Q: Any final words for New Trend readers?
A: Imam Jamil was previously incarcerated [under the COINTELPRO era prosecutions of Black, Native American, and other leaders and activists –editor] for five years. He got out in 1976. Right after the 2002 conviction, the prosecuting attorney for the State said, “After 24 years, we finally got him.” This confirmed Imam Jamil’s position that it was a government conspiracy. Our immediate short-term goal is to have the Imam transferred back to Georgia, or to a federal prison within a 500-mile radius of his home. Our ultimate goal, naturally, is to exonerate Imam Jamil.
---
Donations for Imam Jamil’s defense may be sent to:
The Justice Fund
P.O. Box 115363
Atlanta, GA 30310
Write to Imam Jamil Al-Amin:
Reg. No. 99974-555
USP Florence ADMAX
P.O. Box 8500
Florence, CO 81226
For more information, contact:
thejusticefund@aol.com
Monday, September 13, 2010
Eid Fun at ISB (Islamic Society of Baltimore)
On Eid morning, I was distributing New Trend at the ISB, located on Baltimore’s West side. It is Baltimore’s largest and possibly most “controlled” mosque. The mood of the mosque-goers was upbeat, and nearly everyone I approached took the NT (unlike some mosques, where worshippers run away from a sista trying to hand them of a copy of the anti-imperialist Islamic paper). I was more than halfway into the distribution when a balding gent in grey shalwar-kameez approached me. He was unremarkable in appearance, somewhat slender (lacking the characteristic middle class Paki pot belly), clean-shaven, and bespectacled.
“What is this, sister?” he asked rhetorically.
I gave him my standard, This-is-an-Islamic-paper, it-talks-about-the-issues-affecting-the-Muslim-world speal. I expected him to take the NT and walk away, but instead he faced me with a dark look on his face.
“You need permission to distribute anything here,” he said.
“Really?” I breathed, surprised. “Is this something new? We have always distributed our newsletter here and it was never a problem.”
What I told him was nothing short of the truth. Spineless mosque staffers had initially threatened to call the cops on the NT editor as he stood distributing the vanguard Islamic paper. He told them to go ahead, please do. After that, the mosque administration had stopped harassing him and other volunteers when they distributed the NT.
“Yes, we have a new policy in place as of last year. Everything has to be approved by the board,” he said, his slight Paki accent emerging. “We had to do this because we were getting a lot of complaints about literature which was unIslamic or anti-American. Law enforcement was also concerned.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, I can certainly understand you have a policy. Can you please look this over, and make sure it’s not unIslamic,” I proffered a copy of the NT to him.
He said, “No, I can’t. It has to go before the board.”
“Well you’re on the board, right?”
Yes, but this is not a dictatorship. I can’t simply okay it without consulting the other members of the board.”
“Well, what if there is no time to consult the other members of the board?” I asked. “This is the Eid prayer. Time is of the essence.” I was getting irritated because people were walking by, without receiving information I thought invaluable, while Mr. Unremarkable waylaid me.
“This is the policy,” he was adamant, as only a toady can be.
“Look I’m a visitor. I’m don’t usually come here, and I wasn’t aware of the new policy, because, as I said, in the past there was never any problem with distributing Islamic literature. I’m asking you to please check it, and okay it,” I was clutching at straws.
“As I said it’s not a dictatorship,” he said.
“Okay, I understand you have a policy. Excuse me while I....” I headed toward the road, but it seemed to concern him that I was going to distribute the NTs even there.
“This is private property. You need permission to distribute anything here.”
“The masjid belongs to Allah,” I said.
“Let’s not go there,” he said.
“Why not go there?” I countered. “Do you see anyone else talking about these issues?” I indicated the NT articles on Afghanistan and Iraq. That is why I’m distributing this paper. No one else is talking about it.” Despite the residual Ramadan sabr, exasperation was setting in.
“We do talk about the issues,” he said. “I talk about the issues. In fact I’ll be on NPR tonight, talking about anti-terrorism.”
NPR. This joker was going to be on airwaves where independent-minded Muslim leaders were persona non grata. I relinquished all hope of him “permitting” a NT distribution.
“Really?” I feigned interest. “What’s your name? I asked.
“I’m ---,” he said proudly.
“I’ll make it a point to listen. And I understand you have a policy. I won’t be distributing anything on your property,” I told him. “Thank you for standing up for Haq. I hope you do great on NPR tonight,” I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm.
I’d been retreating toward the property line all the while, and he’d followed me, as if to intimidate, with the same dark look on his face. When I got to the road, I immediately resumed distribution of the NT, and he walked off, pretending to check the mailbox. I found that this was actually a much more effective vantage point from which to hand out papers, eliminating duplicate copies of the paper going to the same family, and in fact, conferring a degree of officiousness on the distributor, as I greeted the brothers and sisters just outside the mosque entrance. Nearly all the cars exiting the mosque took the NT, some of them honking their horns to get my attention if I missed them.
The interlude raised a number of issues:
1) The mosque administration seems more concerned with the sensitivities of law enforcement, than either the genocide being enacted upon the Muslim world, or, the interests of its congregation. Additionally, intrusion of law enforcement into mosques may violate the U.S.’s own laws mandating strict Separation of Church and State (or Mosque and State, in this case).
2) The mosque appears to forfeit First Amendment Freedoms in disallowing the distribution of items with the tenuous label of “anti-American” (ie, which dare question U.S. foreign policy). So, Muslims have fewer rights to speak out on issues at their own mosque than non-Muslim Americans who criticize U.S. foreign policy (whether at a religious institution or elsewhere). On the other hand, Madeleine Albright, instrumental in the mass extermination of Iraqi children, was infamously permitted to use this very mosque, the ISB, as a mouthpiece. Similarly, U.S. politicians are welcome to canvass there, and distribution of literature, such as that disseminated after Eid salat, entitled “Islam on Capitol Hill presents Jummah Prayer on Capitol Hill,” is permitted. So, only pro-government views—and not others—may be heard at the mosque, a clear contradiction of democratic (and Muslim) ideals.
3) The extent of government control of this mosque is troubling. Surveillance cameras, reportedly supplied by DHS, are in place, on and around the property, ostensibly for the protection of the mosque. Exactly who has access to the surveillance garnered by the cameras is unclear. If the property is under surveillance, are the khutbas also approved, monitored, or otherwise scrutinized by the authorities, as, for example, under the Egyptian or Saudi dictatorships? If so, would this not constitute a clear violation of First Amendment freedoms?
“What is this, sister?” he asked rhetorically.
I gave him my standard, This-is-an-Islamic-paper, it-talks-about-the-issues-affecting-the-Muslim-world speal. I expected him to take the NT and walk away, but instead he faced me with a dark look on his face.
“You need permission to distribute anything here,” he said.
“Really?” I breathed, surprised. “Is this something new? We have always distributed our newsletter here and it was never a problem.”
What I told him was nothing short of the truth. Spineless mosque staffers had initially threatened to call the cops on the NT editor as he stood distributing the vanguard Islamic paper. He told them to go ahead, please do. After that, the mosque administration had stopped harassing him and other volunteers when they distributed the NT.
“Yes, we have a new policy in place as of last year. Everything has to be approved by the board,” he said, his slight Paki accent emerging. “We had to do this because we were getting a lot of complaints about literature which was unIslamic or anti-American. Law enforcement was also concerned.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, I can certainly understand you have a policy. Can you please look this over, and make sure it’s not unIslamic,” I proffered a copy of the NT to him.
He said, “No, I can’t. It has to go before the board.”
“Well you’re on the board, right?”
Yes, but this is not a dictatorship. I can’t simply okay it without consulting the other members of the board.”
“Well, what if there is no time to consult the other members of the board?” I asked. “This is the Eid prayer. Time is of the essence.” I was getting irritated because people were walking by, without receiving information I thought invaluable, while Mr. Unremarkable waylaid me.
“This is the policy,” he was adamant, as only a toady can be.
“Look I’m a visitor. I’m don’t usually come here, and I wasn’t aware of the new policy, because, as I said, in the past there was never any problem with distributing Islamic literature. I’m asking you to please check it, and okay it,” I was clutching at straws.
“As I said it’s not a dictatorship,” he said.
“Okay, I understand you have a policy. Excuse me while I....” I headed toward the road, but it seemed to concern him that I was going to distribute the NTs even there.
“This is private property. You need permission to distribute anything here.”
“The masjid belongs to Allah,” I said.
“Let’s not go there,” he said.
“Why not go there?” I countered. “Do you see anyone else talking about these issues?” I indicated the NT articles on Afghanistan and Iraq. That is why I’m distributing this paper. No one else is talking about it.” Despite the residual Ramadan sabr, exasperation was setting in.
“We do talk about the issues,” he said. “I talk about the issues. In fact I’ll be on NPR tonight, talking about anti-terrorism.”
NPR. This joker was going to be on airwaves where independent-minded Muslim leaders were persona non grata. I relinquished all hope of him “permitting” a NT distribution.
“Really?” I feigned interest. “What’s your name? I asked.
“I’m ---,” he said proudly.
“I’ll make it a point to listen. And I understand you have a policy. I won’t be distributing anything on your property,” I told him. “Thank you for standing up for Haq. I hope you do great on NPR tonight,” I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm.
I’d been retreating toward the property line all the while, and he’d followed me, as if to intimidate, with the same dark look on his face. When I got to the road, I immediately resumed distribution of the NT, and he walked off, pretending to check the mailbox. I found that this was actually a much more effective vantage point from which to hand out papers, eliminating duplicate copies of the paper going to the same family, and in fact, conferring a degree of officiousness on the distributor, as I greeted the brothers and sisters just outside the mosque entrance. Nearly all the cars exiting the mosque took the NT, some of them honking their horns to get my attention if I missed them.
The interlude raised a number of issues:
1) The mosque administration seems more concerned with the sensitivities of law enforcement, than either the genocide being enacted upon the Muslim world, or, the interests of its congregation. Additionally, intrusion of law enforcement into mosques may violate the U.S.’s own laws mandating strict Separation of Church and State (or Mosque and State, in this case).
2) The mosque appears to forfeit First Amendment Freedoms in disallowing the distribution of items with the tenuous label of “anti-American” (ie, which dare question U.S. foreign policy). So, Muslims have fewer rights to speak out on issues at their own mosque than non-Muslim Americans who criticize U.S. foreign policy (whether at a religious institution or elsewhere). On the other hand, Madeleine Albright, instrumental in the mass extermination of Iraqi children, was infamously permitted to use this very mosque, the ISB, as a mouthpiece. Similarly, U.S. politicians are welcome to canvass there, and distribution of literature, such as that disseminated after Eid salat, entitled “Islam on Capitol Hill presents Jummah Prayer on Capitol Hill,” is permitted. So, only pro-government views—and not others—may be heard at the mosque, a clear contradiction of democratic (and Muslim) ideals.
3) The extent of government control of this mosque is troubling. Surveillance cameras, reportedly supplied by DHS, are in place, on and around the property, ostensibly for the protection of the mosque. Exactly who has access to the surveillance garnered by the cameras is unclear. If the property is under surveillance, are the khutbas also approved, monitored, or otherwise scrutinized by the authorities, as, for example, under the Egyptian or Saudi dictatorships? If so, would this not constitute a clear violation of First Amendment freedoms?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
An Interview with Karima Al-Amin (Part 1 of 2)
The Fourth of July is my birthday. Each year, I seek an activity which expounds on Frederick Douglass’ renowned musing “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” and my social consciousness as a Muslim. This Fourth, I visited Atlanta to run the Peachtree 10K race, the nation’s largest 10K (it boasts 50,000 participants) and to interview Karima Al-Amin, wife of Imam Jamil Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown).
Imam Jamil Al-Amin is one of America’s foremost political prisoners, currently being held at the infamous high security prison in Florence, Colorado. I felt his case had received a degree of exposure, at least by independent Islamic media, but that far less was known about his wife and partner in the struggle, an activist in her own right.
Karima Al-Amin graciously granted me an interview at short notice, even though it meant according me her scant leisure time (the holiday was one of those rare occasions on which she closed her law office). I was to meet her soon after my race. When I called to confirm the details of our meeting, she expressed concern for my condition. Was I too tired and dehydrated after the race, being unaccustomed to Atlanta weather? And did I require more time to rest before our meeting? I was reminded of Imam Jamil, whose self-less concern for his visitors to the prison—even while he himself was being subjected to daily humiliation at the hands of prison guards—was fabled. And—she insisted she would drive to my hotel so that I would not have to attempt to navigate unfamiliar territory. We agreed to hold the interview in my hotel room.
She entered the room, a slender, bespectacled woman, with quiet manner and majestic bearing, dressed modestly in light green hijab. But, as she began to speak, I realized this was easily the most eloquent, self-confident, and politically aware Muslim woman I’d encountered. She was clearly very seeped in Islamic faith; indeed, it may have been what allowed her (and hence her family) to survive the incredible trials they’d experienced; yet she was not ostentatious with her Arabic, nor haughty or judgmental of me or others.
Q: How did you meet Imam Jamil, and what attracted you to him initially?
A: I met him July 31, 1967. I remember that day because it was the first day I had a job. I had just graduated from the State University of Oswego. I was there four years. I majored in English with the aim of teaching K - 9th grades.
Imam Jamil walked into the job. He was staying with my supervisor. The job was on 135th Street, in Harlem. It was with Job Corps. I thought I’d keep the job a while.
The Imam walked in. At the time, he had a cadre of bodyguards. He was meeting Minister Farrakhan, so he asked the supervisor “See if she’ll go to lunch with us.” I was the only female at a big table of only brothers. I remember it was a big, big table, and we got back to the job at 5 PM.
That evening, Nina Simone was performing. She had invited Imam Jamil. In later years, he kept in touch with her. She autographed a photo for him that night, which I still have.
Q: Tell me about yourself and your background.
A: My grandmother and mother were Canadian. In 1929, my grandmother brought my mother, her sister, and one of her brothers to the U.S. after divorcing my grandfather. They were deported, and then returned. Then, in 1938, my grandmother went before a judge to ask for her citizenship. In 1942, while my grandmother was living in Los Angeles, Immigration denied her case. By 1942, my mother’s sister had married. Her husband was in the entertainment business, and his father wrote “Dark Town Strutters Ball.” She was a little activist and traveled broadly.
My mother lived in the building where La Guardia, Duke Ellington, and other musicians lived on Fifth Avenue in New York. My father was from the U.S. (from Virginia), and was in the navy. He and my mother married in 1942, and I was born years later in New York.
We moved to Riverton, built and owned by Metropolitan Life Assurance, in Harlem on Fifth Avenue. It was built mainly for African Americans so that we would not reside in the company’s other private developments built for Europeans. In fact, my mother and father were considering being part of a class action suit to challenge the discriminatory practices of the company. Nevertheless, my parents moved to Riverton where I went to school in Harlem. and my mother was involved in the PTA.
My mother was involved in the PTA fighting zoning issues, and that was the first time the FBI came to the house. They thought the communists must be behind this, and we thought they were going to take our mother away.
My mother is from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We would go back and forth to Canada to visit our grandfather, our aunts and uncles, and cousins. My father didn’t want to tell a fib, so when they asked him is everyone in the car a U.S. citizen, he would just nod his head.
We’re actually the descendants of runaway slaves. My sister and cousins are being tested to determine where we are from, but so far Spain, Portugal, and Europe are coming up, and not Africa. So, my family members still are exploring further testing.
My mother, after 30 years of being a housewife, went for a job with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Thurgood Marshall was the head of it. He wanted her to be in charge of payroll. To do this, she had to be bonded. Thurgood Marshall sponsored my mother to this end. I became the baby sitter for Thurgood Marshall and various African American judges and attorneys of the Legal Defense Fund.
I remember that my mother would tell my friends to put their dresses on so we could go to the Apollo. During the intermission, she had us walk around with buckets to collect money for whichever case was being fought in the South at the time.
Q: What led to your personal involvement in the Black Liberation struggle?
A: In college, I helped organize the Friends of SNCC. That should have told me I’d wind up with the chair of SNCC. I graduated in June and met Imam Jamil in July. My sister and her husband got arrested. They were with RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement). This was the first case in which middle class African Americans were involved in supporting the Black Liberation struggle. RAM is mentioned in the original COINTELPRO papers along with SNCC, Stokely, H. Rap Brown, etc. My husband went to a rally for RAM before I met him.
By August 1967, the FBI had contacted me. They said, “You know your sister was framed. If you help us, we’ll clear her.” I told them I knew she’d be cleared because she was framed. The FBI wanted me to work for them to provide reports on Imam Jamil.
My parents were very involved with the community. We were a close knit family. I had a non-traumatic childhood (other than the fact that I was almost electrocuted). We did not go without anything. We traveled a lot. My father helped form an organization for African American city workers in transit.
My first trip to the South was in 1959 when a girlfriend of mine invited me to travel with her to visit her relatives. One day, we went shopping to look at earrings. I went to hand money to one of the workers, and she threw the money on the floor. Later, I was trying to buy a hotdog, and they would not sell it to me, because the hot dog stand was “Whites Only.” Up in New York, we protested White Castle (fast food establishment).
My mother was very proper. When my husband’s book came out, she would not say the name of the book, because it was called Die Nigger Die!
The FBI hounded my parents. They went to my father’s job repeatedly. Despite this, my parents continued to be very supportive. I came from very smart, compassionate parents. They both died young (at age 51). One day, we went to the grocery store. When we came out, we found our car had a flat tire. We said, “Oh FBI.”
Not long after, my father stopped at a gas station to fix a flat tire. He collapsed and died. Imam Jamil’s mother died the week after that. Then, my mother went into the hospital. They discovered an aneurism on the right side of her brain. Then, they located another on the left, and she died two months later, in June. Then, in October, Imam Jamil was shot and went to the same hospital where my mother died. In fact, he was in the room next to where my mother spent two months before she died. All this happened in one year. We just didn’t have time for grieving.
To be continued
Imam Jamil Al-Amin is one of America’s foremost political prisoners, currently being held at the infamous high security prison in Florence, Colorado. I felt his case had received a degree of exposure, at least by independent Islamic media, but that far less was known about his wife and partner in the struggle, an activist in her own right.
Karima Al-Amin graciously granted me an interview at short notice, even though it meant according me her scant leisure time (the holiday was one of those rare occasions on which she closed her law office). I was to meet her soon after my race. When I called to confirm the details of our meeting, she expressed concern for my condition. Was I too tired and dehydrated after the race, being unaccustomed to Atlanta weather? And did I require more time to rest before our meeting? I was reminded of Imam Jamil, whose self-less concern for his visitors to the prison—even while he himself was being subjected to daily humiliation at the hands of prison guards—was fabled. And—she insisted she would drive to my hotel so that I would not have to attempt to navigate unfamiliar territory. We agreed to hold the interview in my hotel room.
She entered the room, a slender, bespectacled woman, with quiet manner and majestic bearing, dressed modestly in light green hijab. But, as she began to speak, I realized this was easily the most eloquent, self-confident, and politically aware Muslim woman I’d encountered. She was clearly very seeped in Islamic faith; indeed, it may have been what allowed her (and hence her family) to survive the incredible trials they’d experienced; yet she was not ostentatious with her Arabic, nor haughty or judgmental of me or others.
Q: How did you meet Imam Jamil, and what attracted you to him initially?
A: I met him July 31, 1967. I remember that day because it was the first day I had a job. I had just graduated from the State University of Oswego. I was there four years. I majored in English with the aim of teaching K - 9th grades.
Imam Jamil walked into the job. He was staying with my supervisor. The job was on 135th Street, in Harlem. It was with Job Corps. I thought I’d keep the job a while.
The Imam walked in. At the time, he had a cadre of bodyguards. He was meeting Minister Farrakhan, so he asked the supervisor “See if she’ll go to lunch with us.” I was the only female at a big table of only brothers. I remember it was a big, big table, and we got back to the job at 5 PM.
That evening, Nina Simone was performing. She had invited Imam Jamil. In later years, he kept in touch with her. She autographed a photo for him that night, which I still have.
Q: Tell me about yourself and your background.
A: My grandmother and mother were Canadian. In 1929, my grandmother brought my mother, her sister, and one of her brothers to the U.S. after divorcing my grandfather. They were deported, and then returned. Then, in 1938, my grandmother went before a judge to ask for her citizenship. In 1942, while my grandmother was living in Los Angeles, Immigration denied her case. By 1942, my mother’s sister had married. Her husband was in the entertainment business, and his father wrote “Dark Town Strutters Ball.” She was a little activist and traveled broadly.
My mother lived in the building where La Guardia, Duke Ellington, and other musicians lived on Fifth Avenue in New York. My father was from the U.S. (from Virginia), and was in the navy. He and my mother married in 1942, and I was born years later in New York.
We moved to Riverton, built and owned by Metropolitan Life Assurance, in Harlem on Fifth Avenue. It was built mainly for African Americans so that we would not reside in the company’s other private developments built for Europeans. In fact, my mother and father were considering being part of a class action suit to challenge the discriminatory practices of the company. Nevertheless, my parents moved to Riverton where I went to school in Harlem. and my mother was involved in the PTA.
My mother was involved in the PTA fighting zoning issues, and that was the first time the FBI came to the house. They thought the communists must be behind this, and we thought they were going to take our mother away.
My mother is from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We would go back and forth to Canada to visit our grandfather, our aunts and uncles, and cousins. My father didn’t want to tell a fib, so when they asked him is everyone in the car a U.S. citizen, he would just nod his head.
We’re actually the descendants of runaway slaves. My sister and cousins are being tested to determine where we are from, but so far Spain, Portugal, and Europe are coming up, and not Africa. So, my family members still are exploring further testing.
My mother, after 30 years of being a housewife, went for a job with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Thurgood Marshall was the head of it. He wanted her to be in charge of payroll. To do this, she had to be bonded. Thurgood Marshall sponsored my mother to this end. I became the baby sitter for Thurgood Marshall and various African American judges and attorneys of the Legal Defense Fund.
I remember that my mother would tell my friends to put their dresses on so we could go to the Apollo. During the intermission, she had us walk around with buckets to collect money for whichever case was being fought in the South at the time.
Q: What led to your personal involvement in the Black Liberation struggle?
A: In college, I helped organize the Friends of SNCC. That should have told me I’d wind up with the chair of SNCC. I graduated in June and met Imam Jamil in July. My sister and her husband got arrested. They were with RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement). This was the first case in which middle class African Americans were involved in supporting the Black Liberation struggle. RAM is mentioned in the original COINTELPRO papers along with SNCC, Stokely, H. Rap Brown, etc. My husband went to a rally for RAM before I met him.
By August 1967, the FBI had contacted me. They said, “You know your sister was framed. If you help us, we’ll clear her.” I told them I knew she’d be cleared because she was framed. The FBI wanted me to work for them to provide reports on Imam Jamil.
My parents were very involved with the community. We were a close knit family. I had a non-traumatic childhood (other than the fact that I was almost electrocuted). We did not go without anything. We traveled a lot. My father helped form an organization for African American city workers in transit.
My first trip to the South was in 1959 when a girlfriend of mine invited me to travel with her to visit her relatives. One day, we went shopping to look at earrings. I went to hand money to one of the workers, and she threw the money on the floor. Later, I was trying to buy a hotdog, and they would not sell it to me, because the hot dog stand was “Whites Only.” Up in New York, we protested White Castle (fast food establishment).
My mother was very proper. When my husband’s book came out, she would not say the name of the book, because it was called Die Nigger Die!
The FBI hounded my parents. They went to my father’s job repeatedly. Despite this, my parents continued to be very supportive. I came from very smart, compassionate parents. They both died young (at age 51). One day, we went to the grocery store. When we came out, we found our car had a flat tire. We said, “Oh FBI.”
Not long after, my father stopped at a gas station to fix a flat tire. He collapsed and died. Imam Jamil’s mother died the week after that. Then, my mother went into the hospital. They discovered an aneurism on the right side of her brain. Then, they located another on the left, and she died two months later, in June. Then, in October, Imam Jamil was shot and went to the same hospital where my mother died. In fact, he was in the room next to where my mother spent two months before she died. All this happened in one year. We just didn’t have time for grieving.
To be continued
Friday, March 26, 2010
Notes on March 20 Protest
The energy of Saturday’s anti-war march proved yet again that questioning and anti-war sentiment is not dead among the youth. The crowd was overwhelmingly youthful, creative, and colorful in their modes of protest. Young Muslim women in hijab were out in force. Student activists, acting on ANSWER’s (ie, the organizer’s) suggestion to bring drums, pots, and pans (“anything to make noise against the war”) to the march, banged away just feet from the White House gates. The hugely talented Korean and Palestinian drum troupes, in particular, drew attention to the protest.
The commitment of the protesters was inspiring. Many had traveled all night or spent long hours on buses and trains to get to the protest. One young Caucasian man I met had driven from Chicago by himself. Evidently not of means, he’d intended to camp out while waiting for the protest to begin. He went to one campsite and then another, each time greeted by a sign “Closed Until April.” Undeterred, he slept in his car until the morning of the protest.
I am always surprised at the diversity of kaffiya-wearers at such events: there were the usual Palestinians, Arabs, Pakistanis, and Kanye West-ers. But then there were the kaffiya-wearing Caucasian males, whom, encountered elsewhere, I’d easily mistake for a redneck. That’ll teach me to stereotype.
Many leading voices in the struggle for justice were present: Ramsey Clark, Dick Gregory, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Hodari Abdul-Ali, Cindy Sheehan, and others. The local peoples’ radio station, WPFW (89.3 FM), which has told the truth about the war since its inception, was well represented. Representatives of D.R.U.M. (South Asian immigrant rights group) were there, as were Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Military Families for Peace. Representatives of the campaign to impeach Bush, as well as those from ArrestBlair.com, a group which challenges U.K. citizens to arrest Blair on war crimes (http://arrestblair.org/), made their presence felt.
Most striking was the line of pallbearers leading the march. In a mock funeral procession, they carried symbolic coffins bearing the flags of Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and other countries invaded and occupied by the U.S. or its henchmen. There were also coffins draped with American flags, a reminder that predominantly poor, black, brown and Latino people have been the cannon fodder of America’s illegal wars. I noted the green and white flag covering the coffin of my native Pakistan, and immediately thought of Abdur Rasheed Ghazi (shaheed) of Red Mosque fame, lying there bleeding to death, forever changing the legacy of that centuries old Islamabad mosque, assaulted by Paki mercenaries in U.S.-supplied tanks.
Theatrics abounded at the protest. An American flag was burned on stage, by a former U.S. Army machine gunner and her youthful companion from the IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War). At one point, as the march proceeded past the offices of Halliburton, an effigy of Dick Cheney was squeezed, stomped, and finally trampled “to death.” At the end of the march, the coffins were delivered to the White House gate. Cindy Sheehan called Barack Obama a war criminal as she was led away in handcuffs (part of a civil disobedience action in which eight people were arrested), her supporters emotionally responding with shouts of “Let her go!” The Muslim American Society’s Mahdi Bray spouted anti-war rhetoric reminescent of pre-election Obama, into a megaphone tenderly held for him by Brian Becker, but carefully avoided mentioning a single Islamic resistance movement (even though without these, the war would be passé). A spacewoman, in intergalactic helmet, swayed to the drums of peace, while a short distance away, a hula-hooper kept rhythm to the beat.
Among the most insightful and relevant signs carried by the protesters:
• “Myth No. 1: This Time War will help Afghan Women” (carried by an older Caucasian woman)
• “End drone attacks” and “Northrup Grumen + One Drone = 35 Mil” (both carried by representatives of Code Pink, which did a particularly excellent job of calling attention to the inhumanity of the U.S. use of drones in killing)
• “Stop Israeli War Crimes, Stop Billions of Tax Dollars to Israel” (this was one of the largest banners)
• “US troops out of the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, and everywhere” (this was a beautiful, colorful sign, carried by members of Alliance-Phillipines USA)
• “Shariah law for a peaceful Iraq and Afghanistan” and “Is it terrorism to defend one’s land?” carried by brothers from the Islamic Thinkers Society, an independent group from Comstock, NY, which seems to have broken from the limited thinking of the big money Moozlem groups which take their queque from Riyadh/Cairo/Washington (more on this at a later date)
• “We need jobs and schools, not war” (preprinted, unfortunately, on hundreds of signs by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, but still helpful in drawing the interest of many bystanders)
(The march proceeded from Lafayette Park through downtown, past the corporate offices of Morgan Stanley, the Washington Post, Halliburton, and the National Bankers Association. Unfortunately, I missed the procession, as I came to the protest directly from the National Marathon, which I ran that morning, in dedication to Leonard Peltier, Native American political prisoner, whose case first made me personally aware of the many political prisoners held in U.S. prisons. So, alhamdulillah, I ran the 26.2 in a shirt calling for his freedom. I finished the marathon close to 11:00 AM, and left soon after, since I knew the anti-war actions would begin at 12:00 noon. Unfortunately, the many road closures that morning delayed me, until famished and dehydrated, I took a break to grab some Thai noodles, slurped these down, then abandoned my car, and hopped on the metro to catch up to the protesters.)
Alhamdulillah, we were able to distribute some JAMI literature. At one point, I was speaking to an older Caucasian woman who held a sign that said “Free Gaza.” She asked for a copy of the flier I was distributing. When I gave it to her, she looked it over and immediately asked for additional copies to pass along to others. This scene replayed itself throughout the day, as many people were pleased to receive JAMI’s now old, famous “Boycott Major Supporters of Zionism” flier, and wanted additional copies for their friends.
As I was about to leave the protest, I spotted a young man in a tee that read “I fund international terrorism.” I grinned and offered to buy the shirt from him. He grinned back and said rhetorically “Yup, I pay taxes to the U.S. government.” It was a heartening last view of the protest, the thinking youth, who are this country’s hope for the future.
The commitment of the protesters was inspiring. Many had traveled all night or spent long hours on buses and trains to get to the protest. One young Caucasian man I met had driven from Chicago by himself. Evidently not of means, he’d intended to camp out while waiting for the protest to begin. He went to one campsite and then another, each time greeted by a sign “Closed Until April.” Undeterred, he slept in his car until the morning of the protest.
I am always surprised at the diversity of kaffiya-wearers at such events: there were the usual Palestinians, Arabs, Pakistanis, and Kanye West-ers. But then there were the kaffiya-wearing Caucasian males, whom, encountered elsewhere, I’d easily mistake for a redneck. That’ll teach me to stereotype.
Many leading voices in the struggle for justice were present: Ramsey Clark, Dick Gregory, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Hodari Abdul-Ali, Cindy Sheehan, and others. The local peoples’ radio station, WPFW (89.3 FM), which has told the truth about the war since its inception, was well represented. Representatives of D.R.U.M. (South Asian immigrant rights group) were there, as were Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Military Families for Peace. Representatives of the campaign to impeach Bush, as well as those from ArrestBlair.com, a group which challenges U.K. citizens to arrest Blair on war crimes (http://arrestblair.org/), made their presence felt.
Most striking was the line of pallbearers leading the march. In a mock funeral procession, they carried symbolic coffins bearing the flags of Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and other countries invaded and occupied by the U.S. or its henchmen. There were also coffins draped with American flags, a reminder that predominantly poor, black, brown and Latino people have been the cannon fodder of America’s illegal wars. I noted the green and white flag covering the coffin of my native Pakistan, and immediately thought of Abdur Rasheed Ghazi (shaheed) of Red Mosque fame, lying there bleeding to death, forever changing the legacy of that centuries old Islamabad mosque, assaulted by Paki mercenaries in U.S.-supplied tanks.
Theatrics abounded at the protest. An American flag was burned on stage, by a former U.S. Army machine gunner and her youthful companion from the IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War). At one point, as the march proceeded past the offices of Halliburton, an effigy of Dick Cheney was squeezed, stomped, and finally trampled “to death.” At the end of the march, the coffins were delivered to the White House gate. Cindy Sheehan called Barack Obama a war criminal as she was led away in handcuffs (part of a civil disobedience action in which eight people were arrested), her supporters emotionally responding with shouts of “Let her go!” The Muslim American Society’s Mahdi Bray spouted anti-war rhetoric reminescent of pre-election Obama, into a megaphone tenderly held for him by Brian Becker, but carefully avoided mentioning a single Islamic resistance movement (even though without these, the war would be passé). A spacewoman, in intergalactic helmet, swayed to the drums of peace, while a short distance away, a hula-hooper kept rhythm to the beat.
Among the most insightful and relevant signs carried by the protesters:
• “Myth No. 1: This Time War will help Afghan Women” (carried by an older Caucasian woman)
• “End drone attacks” and “Northrup Grumen + One Drone = 35 Mil” (both carried by representatives of Code Pink, which did a particularly excellent job of calling attention to the inhumanity of the U.S. use of drones in killing)
• “Stop Israeli War Crimes, Stop Billions of Tax Dollars to Israel” (this was one of the largest banners)
• “US troops out of the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, and everywhere” (this was a beautiful, colorful sign, carried by members of Alliance-Phillipines USA)
• “Shariah law for a peaceful Iraq and Afghanistan” and “Is it terrorism to defend one’s land?” carried by brothers from the Islamic Thinkers Society, an independent group from Comstock, NY, which seems to have broken from the limited thinking of the big money Moozlem groups which take their queque from Riyadh/Cairo/Washington (more on this at a later date)
• “We need jobs and schools, not war” (preprinted, unfortunately, on hundreds of signs by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, but still helpful in drawing the interest of many bystanders)
(The march proceeded from Lafayette Park through downtown, past the corporate offices of Morgan Stanley, the Washington Post, Halliburton, and the National Bankers Association. Unfortunately, I missed the procession, as I came to the protest directly from the National Marathon, which I ran that morning, in dedication to Leonard Peltier, Native American political prisoner, whose case first made me personally aware of the many political prisoners held in U.S. prisons. So, alhamdulillah, I ran the 26.2 in a shirt calling for his freedom. I finished the marathon close to 11:00 AM, and left soon after, since I knew the anti-war actions would begin at 12:00 noon. Unfortunately, the many road closures that morning delayed me, until famished and dehydrated, I took a break to grab some Thai noodles, slurped these down, then abandoned my car, and hopped on the metro to catch up to the protesters.)
Alhamdulillah, we were able to distribute some JAMI literature. At one point, I was speaking to an older Caucasian woman who held a sign that said “Free Gaza.” She asked for a copy of the flier I was distributing. When I gave it to her, she looked it over and immediately asked for additional copies to pass along to others. This scene replayed itself throughout the day, as many people were pleased to receive JAMI’s now old, famous “Boycott Major Supporters of Zionism” flier, and wanted additional copies for their friends.
As I was about to leave the protest, I spotted a young man in a tee that read “I fund international terrorism.” I grinned and offered to buy the shirt from him. He grinned back and said rhetorically “Yup, I pay taxes to the U.S. government.” It was a heartening last view of the protest, the thinking youth, who are this country’s hope for the future.
Monday, November 17, 2008
An Exchange with the Hillel Director
Last Thursday I had an interesting exchange with the Towson University (Baltimore) Hillel director, following an on-campus lecture by Imam Muhammad Al-Asi.
Hillel seems to carry some clout at Towson, as it does at UMBC, and other U.S. universities. At the University of Maryland College Park, the "flagship university of the University of Maryland system, the organization has its own student center, providing kosher meals for Jewish students. In years past, I watched Hillel and other zionist groups place a gargantuan Israeli flag just outside the Adele H. Stamp Union on Israeli "Independence Day," wondering how UMCP's Palestinian students might feel upon encountering the reminder of zionist power atop their student union. The lecture, organized by the Towson MSA, was by Imam Muhammad Al-Asi. For once, I was there to attend--and they were there to protest.
Here is the exchange (as close to verbatim as memory would allow):
Me: Is it true that Hillel offers students all expense paid tours of "Israel"?
Hillel Director: Yes, that's correct.
Me: Can Muslim students participate in such tours?
Hillel Director: No.
Me: I understand that Hillel's tours offer Jewish students an opportunity to visit or stay in a kibbutz. Does the tour also include a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp?
Hillel Director: No.
Me: What is the primary aim of Hillel's tours to Israel?
Hillel Director: Propaganda.
I was rather amazed that the man was as blunt as he was. To be honest, he didn't seem like the brightest bulb in the.... so he could have conceded more than is typical for men of his position. Or not. Whatever the case, the dialogue revealed an overtly racist, exclusionary policy, meant to benefit only a select group.
Muslim students groups and their supporters need to consider organizing tours/exchange programs to Palestine for Muslim youth and students who are interested in going. It will make the Palestinian issue more relevant to the community.
Hillel seems to carry some clout at Towson, as it does at UMBC, and other U.S. universities. At the University of Maryland College Park, the "flagship university of the University of Maryland system, the organization has its own student center, providing kosher meals for Jewish students. In years past, I watched Hillel and other zionist groups place a gargantuan Israeli flag just outside the Adele H. Stamp Union on Israeli "Independence Day," wondering how UMCP's Palestinian students might feel upon encountering the reminder of zionist power atop their student union. The lecture, organized by the Towson MSA, was by Imam Muhammad Al-Asi. For once, I was there to attend--and they were there to protest.
Here is the exchange (as close to verbatim as memory would allow):
Me: Is it true that Hillel offers students all expense paid tours of "Israel"?
Hillel Director: Yes, that's correct.
Me: Can Muslim students participate in such tours?
Hillel Director: No.
Me: I understand that Hillel's tours offer Jewish students an opportunity to visit or stay in a kibbutz. Does the tour also include a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp?
Hillel Director: No.
Me: What is the primary aim of Hillel's tours to Israel?
Hillel Director: Propaganda.
I was rather amazed that the man was as blunt as he was. To be honest, he didn't seem like the brightest bulb in the.... so he could have conceded more than is typical for men of his position. Or not. Whatever the case, the dialogue revealed an overtly racist, exclusionary policy, meant to benefit only a select group.
Muslim students groups and their supporters need to consider organizing tours/exchange programs to Palestine for Muslim youth and students who are interested in going. It will make the Palestinian issue more relevant to the community.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Daily Racism on Baltimore's MTA
Ask virtually any Black person in the U.S., and he or she will tell you the police abuse Black people with impunity. Acts of police brutality are largely unreported for a variety of reasons, ranging from fear of reprisal and lack of faith in the System, to illiteracy and lack of awareness of legal options. Except within the Black community, the issue is rarely acknowledged or discussed. The notion that 9/11 was the first act of terrorism on U.S. soil is indicative of such tunnel vision. Centuries of lynchings, executions, rapes, and pseudo-scientific experimentation on Black people are somehow excluded from the rubric of terrorist acts on American soil.
I've discussed the issue of police brutality with a broad spectrum of Blacks and Whites. The difference in reaction is stark, and strictly divided along racial lines.
The reaction of Whites generally falls in one of four categories:
1. Don't you realize the predicament the poor cop is in? He doesn't know which suspect has a gun, and which one doesn't. If you were in that situation, you'd probably shoot first and ask questions later, too.
2. You deride them now, but I'll bet you'd call them in an instant if someone breaks into your house.
3. Oh, they pulled him over, searched his car, and held him for three hours? It happened to me, too.
4. He's in jail/dead/etc.? He must have done it.
Unfortunately, these reactions do not reflect the reality on the ground. The reaction of Black people is formulated through first hand experience. Nothing brings home reality quicker than being at the end of a police baton or stun gun. And judging from the number of Black men spreadeagled outside Jaguars and Lexuses in police stops, class offers little protection.
I'm not evidently Black, and am generally exempt from police harassment. As a Muslim, however, I feel strongly that I must speak out on this issue for three reasons:
1. Everyone living in the U.S. has profited from forced Black labor. We owe a debt to Black people. At the very least, we must oppose police brutality against the very people without whom this country's very infrastructure would not exist.
2. To remain silent against the racist power structure is to acquiesce--indeed profit from--that power structure.
3. The Qur'an commands opposition to injustice. And racism (with all its economic implications) is the leading form of injustice in the U.S.
Only the most blatant acts of police terror--such as those involving Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, or Sean Bell--garner corporate media attention, and that too, usually after massive public outcry. But terrorism of the U.S. Black population occurs daily, and at many levels. Some are immediately life-threatening, such as the dragging of James Byrd, Jr., behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas, or the deliberate ramming of Black suspects with police cruisers in South Carolina. Others are not immediately life-threatening, but rather confer long-range mental and physical health problems on the victims.
Take for example, the case of a close friend, who is Black. He was accosted by MTA police on the Baltimore light rail enroute to work. The events as he related them:
Between commuting by public transportation and time spent at work, he is away from home at least 14 hours a day. Since he is very strapped for time, he occasionally pays bills via cell phone during his long commute. Recently, he boarded the train, sat down, and was paying a utility bill, when three hulking MTA cops approached him. My friend is 5'4," slender and slight, with a very quiet manner. He does not engage in illegal or threatening behaviors in public. The approach by three cops seemed grossly misplaced.
They demanded to see my friend's boarding pass (checking of boarding passes is standard procedure on light rail, but generally conducted by a regular MTA employee). He took a few seconds too long to hang up the cell and produce it, so they verbally assaulted him.
He challenged their rudeness. They removed him from the train without warning. Then, they wrote him a citation for "disorderly conduct". Since he was forced to miss his train and had to wait for a later one, he was late for work--a very serious matter, since he is the only breadwinner for his family, and could be suspended or fired for tardiness. And he was saddled with the added burden of going to court to contest the bogus citation.
My friend said what he'd experienced was not at all unusual. Poor and working class Black people riding Baltimore's light rail are routinely accosted by cops. He'd witnessed an incident involving an elderly Black woman with dreadlocks. Probably hungry after a hard day's work and facing a long commute on the slow moving train, she committed the mortal sin of eating a piece of bread on the light rail (eating on the train is technically prohibited by MTA rules). "MTA police jacked her up," said my friend. "They put her in a choke hold, and took her off the train."
He relayed another such incident involving a young Black woman with her child. She was quietly sitting on the train, talking to her mate on her cell, when she was accosted by two MTA cops. It was not clear what "crime" she'd committed. MTA police demanded her ID, frisked and verbally assaulted her--all in front of her child. Then, the cops forcefully removed her and the child from the train. When her mate arrived at the scene, the cops threatened to arrest him, too.
By contrast, the Whites who board the same light rail in Hunt Valley, Falls Road, or other affluent Baltimore suburbs enroute to their plush offices in downtown Baltimore, or to BWI Airport encounter no such police harassment. White and Asian tourists traveling by light rail for an afternoon of frolicking around Baltimore's sordidly gentrified Inner Harbor are untouched by racist cops. The rich, white drunks overflowing light rail trains leaving Camden Yards (stadium site) following a baseball game (whose tickets are so expensive as to be unaffordable to most of Baltimore's Black majority) are not harassed. Frequently, their fares are not even checked, nor is their public drunkenness.
Indeed police harassment appears reserved for Baltimore's poor Blacks, who often spend hours trying to get to work on the city's highly inefficient mass transit, to earn slave wages which they dutifully turn over to bloodsucking slumlords. All of this occurs in a majority Black city. I watch both sides of it from where I sit at work, and it makes me sick to the stomach. A People's Tribunal--to record and eventually try everyday acts of police terror against the U.S. Black population--is needed.
I've discussed the issue of police brutality with a broad spectrum of Blacks and Whites. The difference in reaction is stark, and strictly divided along racial lines.
The reaction of Whites generally falls in one of four categories:
1. Don't you realize the predicament the poor cop is in? He doesn't know which suspect has a gun, and which one doesn't. If you were in that situation, you'd probably shoot first and ask questions later, too.
2. You deride them now, but I'll bet you'd call them in an instant if someone breaks into your house.
3. Oh, they pulled him over, searched his car, and held him for three hours? It happened to me, too.
4. He's in jail/dead/etc.? He must have done it.
Unfortunately, these reactions do not reflect the reality on the ground. The reaction of Black people is formulated through first hand experience. Nothing brings home reality quicker than being at the end of a police baton or stun gun. And judging from the number of Black men spreadeagled outside Jaguars and Lexuses in police stops, class offers little protection.
I'm not evidently Black, and am generally exempt from police harassment. As a Muslim, however, I feel strongly that I must speak out on this issue for three reasons:
1. Everyone living in the U.S. has profited from forced Black labor. We owe a debt to Black people. At the very least, we must oppose police brutality against the very people without whom this country's very infrastructure would not exist.
2. To remain silent against the racist power structure is to acquiesce--indeed profit from--that power structure.
3. The Qur'an commands opposition to injustice. And racism (with all its economic implications) is the leading form of injustice in the U.S.
Only the most blatant acts of police terror--such as those involving Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, or Sean Bell--garner corporate media attention, and that too, usually after massive public outcry. But terrorism of the U.S. Black population occurs daily, and at many levels. Some are immediately life-threatening, such as the dragging of James Byrd, Jr., behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas, or the deliberate ramming of Black suspects with police cruisers in South Carolina. Others are not immediately life-threatening, but rather confer long-range mental and physical health problems on the victims.
Take for example, the case of a close friend, who is Black. He was accosted by MTA police on the Baltimore light rail enroute to work. The events as he related them:
Between commuting by public transportation and time spent at work, he is away from home at least 14 hours a day. Since he is very strapped for time, he occasionally pays bills via cell phone during his long commute. Recently, he boarded the train, sat down, and was paying a utility bill, when three hulking MTA cops approached him. My friend is 5'4," slender and slight, with a very quiet manner. He does not engage in illegal or threatening behaviors in public. The approach by three cops seemed grossly misplaced.
They demanded to see my friend's boarding pass (checking of boarding passes is standard procedure on light rail, but generally conducted by a regular MTA employee). He took a few seconds too long to hang up the cell and produce it, so they verbally assaulted him.
He challenged their rudeness. They removed him from the train without warning. Then, they wrote him a citation for "disorderly conduct". Since he was forced to miss his train and had to wait for a later one, he was late for work--a very serious matter, since he is the only breadwinner for his family, and could be suspended or fired for tardiness. And he was saddled with the added burden of going to court to contest the bogus citation.
My friend said what he'd experienced was not at all unusual. Poor and working class Black people riding Baltimore's light rail are routinely accosted by cops. He'd witnessed an incident involving an elderly Black woman with dreadlocks. Probably hungry after a hard day's work and facing a long commute on the slow moving train, she committed the mortal sin of eating a piece of bread on the light rail (eating on the train is technically prohibited by MTA rules). "MTA police jacked her up," said my friend. "They put her in a choke hold, and took her off the train."
He relayed another such incident involving a young Black woman with her child. She was quietly sitting on the train, talking to her mate on her cell, when she was accosted by two MTA cops. It was not clear what "crime" she'd committed. MTA police demanded her ID, frisked and verbally assaulted her--all in front of her child. Then, the cops forcefully removed her and the child from the train. When her mate arrived at the scene, the cops threatened to arrest him, too.
By contrast, the Whites who board the same light rail in Hunt Valley, Falls Road, or other affluent Baltimore suburbs enroute to their plush offices in downtown Baltimore, or to BWI Airport encounter no such police harassment. White and Asian tourists traveling by light rail for an afternoon of frolicking around Baltimore's sordidly gentrified Inner Harbor are untouched by racist cops. The rich, white drunks overflowing light rail trains leaving Camden Yards (stadium site) following a baseball game (whose tickets are so expensive as to be unaffordable to most of Baltimore's Black majority) are not harassed. Frequently, their fares are not even checked, nor is their public drunkenness.
Indeed police harassment appears reserved for Baltimore's poor Blacks, who often spend hours trying to get to work on the city's highly inefficient mass transit, to earn slave wages which they dutifully turn over to bloodsucking slumlords. All of this occurs in a majority Black city. I watch both sides of it from where I sit at work, and it makes me sick to the stomach. A People's Tribunal--to record and eventually try everyday acts of police terror against the U.S. Black population--is needed.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Defeated--For Now
Today marks one year since I lost Abdul Hakeem. Unlike my ex-husband Asif, he could not be seduced by blond hair and blue eyes. Unlike my beloved friend Steve (without whom my science major would be a thing of the past) he was not alcohol’s marionette.
Abdul Hakeem lived on Baltimore's Garrison Avenue, a proverbial American ghetto. There he could live free of the daily taunts of “nigger” which pervaded his Anne Arundel County childhood, while affording the rent and court-ordered $700/month child support on his meager blue collar wages.
At that time, I had my ancient red Honda with “permanently” fused tail light (“permanently” because the entire fixture--not just the bulb, was in need of replacement, an expensive, if not impossible proposition for a student). Every trip up and down Garrison in the Honda was an ordeal. The pigs who haunted the block stopped and gave me a work order or citation nearly every visit. To me, a small-built Asian woman, the pigs were cordial. I could only imagine the harassment that poor and working class black residents of the area endured at their hands.
One block south of Abdul Hakeem’s apartment stood the trick. She looked sickly, her face ashen and devoid of emotion. Despite the freezing weather, she wore no coat. She stood shivering and looking miserable, as I wondered how I might safely help her. What a far cry from the pimps and hoes often the butt of jokes among the privileged and uninformed students on my campus.
Two blocks south, at Hilton and Garrison, was the nearest “grocery store.” Charging thrice the going rate for produce purchased at suburban grocers, it reeked with the stench of dead rats. On payday, the customer service counter was swamped with poor people with no bank accounts, trying to get money orders to pay exorbitant rents to Indo-Pak slum lords. The “grocery store” shared the strip with a liquor store and a dollar store. The shopping center housing the three was graced by a blue strobe light and surveillance cameras.
Adjacent to the strip mall but right on the main road was a bar and a pawnshop. Across from that was another liquor store. One block from Abdul Hakeem’s apartment was the bail bonds man. Another few blocks south was a McDonalds and a Duncan Donuts. And a block north was a church.
When I first visited Garrison Avenue, I was bemused: Where were all the grocery stores? Libraries? Parks? Restaurants (serving real food)? Coffee shops? Books stores? It made no sense. There were children living here. They needed playgrounds, libraries, community centers, grocery stores, toy stores.
Once, during a trip to New York, my father pointed out to me that Manhattan was the modern day Big House, and Bronx the Slave Quarters. In New York, the juxtaposition was glaringly evident, but a similar theme seemed to arise in many American cities. It occurred to me that Baltimore’s slave quarters included Garrison Boulevard and the area surrounding it. Slaves were not to consume nutritious food, or drink. They were there to eat chitlin’s and to serve the labor needs of the massa. They were not to read, study, or discuss issues. To do so could lead to a slave revolt.
Surrounded by depravity, Abdul Hakeem did not succumb. He did not patronize the liquor stores, the bail bonds men, the tricks, or the churches. He smiled, joked, laughed and loved his way through life, bringing joy to everyone who crossed his path. He enchanted me with his soft voice, gentle manner, and sweet smile.
He had a son, Hakeem, who lived with him. Abdul Hakeem adored Hakeem, and his whole life revolved around the boy. The first time I called their residence, the boy answered the phone in his high pitched child's voice, his impeccable manners coming across clearly on the phone line. He was a bright youngster, gifted in math, and deadly at chess. We clicked almost immediately, and I took him under my wing, tutoring him in math, buying him books and school uniforms, and taking him out for special treats when he did particularly well. I learned that the boy’s mother had died of breast cancer when he was very young. I knew that I could never take the place of the mother, but this made me even more protective of Hakeem.
Eventually, Abdul Hakeem and I became engaged, and I was thrilled at the prospect that I would be gaining a husband and a son. I picked out the red dress I would wear at our wedding. We debated where in Africa to hold the nikkah.
Abdul Hakeem worried a great deal about his son (and I—when I came to visit them) being in the drug-ridden climate at Garrison. After a great deal of apartment-hunting (between working ten hour shifts and commuting by public transportation), Abdul Hakeem found an apartment on the north side of town. The rent, while high, was not completely out of reach, as it was at some of the places he’d looked at, and it was, by all appearances, a “clean” neighborhood. By now it was summer, and while Abdul Hakeem worked long hours, Hakeem, on break from school, fraternized with the unemployed, marijuana-using neighbors in the apartment below. When Abdul Hakeem found out about this, he was furious and forbade Hakeem from subsequent visits. As a result, there was an altercation between father and son. Then another. And another. Then, tragically, the younger Hakeem called the police on his father, saying that Abdul Hakeem had threatened him. The cops came to the apartment and took the police report.
A few months later, the teenager ran away to Delaware, from whence his dead mother hailed and which he perceived as his Shangrila. Unfortunately for him, unemployment and poverty in the area was even worse than Baltimore, and the boy, who by this time was living with his mother’s unemployed, pothead relatives, joined their ranks. Within months, he was jailed for grand larceny. The charges were dropped, but an onerous pattern was emerging.
Abdul Hakeem and I went to Delaware to meet Hakeem and his social worker in court. We hoped to bring the boy home. But, Hakeem told his social worker that he would rather be a ward of the state of Delaware for the remainder of the time until he turned 18 than to return home with his father. In the waiting area outside the court, Hakeem barely spoke to Abdul Hakeem. When he did speak, it was as if he was addressing one of his homies, not his father. The last Abdul Hakeem heard from Hakeem was that he was attempting to enlist in the National Guard, but having trouble getting in due to his athsma.
That fall, Abdul Hakeem’s mother, Delma, died of cancer. He’d been very close to her, and was profoundly affected by her loss. Abdul Hakeem had two brothers, Mark and Andre, both of whom lived in what had been Delma’s apartment. Before passing away, she had asked Abdul Hakeem to take care of Andre, who was “a little slow.” Since neither of the other two brothers was responsible, and Hakeem was out of the picture, the need for a space of his own was less. So, Abdul Hakeem assumed Delma’s lease. No sooner had he moved into his mother’s apartment, which still contained her special scent, to take care of his retarded brother than he found out that both of his brothers were on crack.
The following May, Abdul Hakeem and I visited the National Zoo (it was his birthday). It was a beautiful day, and we spent much of our time in the Ape House, philosophizing on the inhumanity of imprisoning such intelligent creatures as primates, and sharing dreams of liberating them, before going on to have dinner at a favorite restaurant.
Ironically, the very next day, when Abdul Hakeem visited Child Support Services to make sure he was in good standing with his child support payments (he had two little girls—one from a previous marriage, and another from his jahilliya days), he was locked up. They nabbed him without warning, saying he was behind on payments (the notifications ostensibly mailed to him never arrived). He called me from Central Booking, and told me he was being held in a vastly overcrowded, steamy hot cell with 20 other men.
I immediately put down the carbohydrate biochemistry book I was reading, and ran across town to collect money to bail him out. As a student, I was quite broke, and so had to be creative. I called his employer and advised him of the situation. Abdul Hakeem was a well-respected and reliable employee, and the employer, to my amazement agreed to advance some of the money. The remainder I acquired as a cash advance on my credit card. I posted the money, and then called the employer to update him. Abdul Hakeem was released two days later. Central Booking officials refused to tell me his release time, and though I waited as long as possible to receive him, he was ejected, along with others being released, around midnight, when no public transportation was available, and spent hours traveling home. He went back to work shortly thereafter, and it seemed that things were finally getting back to normal.
But it got worse.
Tony was Abdul Hakeem’s nephew. He never knew his father, and was raised by a mother who brought different men home nightly. Like many young black men, he got caught up in the game, and went to prison for minor offenses. Martial arts, which he’d engaged in since very young, seemed to keep his focus while in prison, and the third degree black belt emerged to acquire his ASE-certification. He was a talented young mechanic, highly sought after by his employer’s patrons. Like Abdul Hakeem, he did not drink, smoke, or take drugs. Abdul Hakeem was proud of him, and considered him a success story in the family, even wishing at times that his son could have been more like Tony.
One day, Abdul Hakeem called to tell me that Tony had been shot to death in his home by the cops. Since Tony’s mother, Carla, was nowhere to be found (she was gallivanting about California with her Italian boyfriend), Abdul Hakeem went to the morgue to claim the body. He was clearly very shaken when he returned. After giving me the initial run down, he entered into a period of depression and refused to speak further on the incident. It was my penultimate semester at school, and, after a very long drawn out academic career riddled with trials and tribulations of every sort, I was doing my darnedest to focus so I might finally graduate. Abdul Hakeem and I started to talk less frequently by phone.
One day, shortly prior to my graduation, Abdul Hakeem became fodder for the prison industry. I feel a complete and utter sense of loss. Although he was not directly involved in the struggle at the time he succumbed, he’d demonstrated the possibilities of daily resistance. I weep at his loss. It is, indeed, a big blow for the Black liberation struggle. My Black shining prince, with whom I’d dreamed of living happily ever after, resides in the Ironhouse of Greed.
Abdul Hakeem lived on Baltimore's Garrison Avenue, a proverbial American ghetto. There he could live free of the daily taunts of “nigger” which pervaded his Anne Arundel County childhood, while affording the rent and court-ordered $700/month child support on his meager blue collar wages.
At that time, I had my ancient red Honda with “permanently” fused tail light (“permanently” because the entire fixture--not just the bulb, was in need of replacement, an expensive, if not impossible proposition for a student). Every trip up and down Garrison in the Honda was an ordeal. The pigs who haunted the block stopped and gave me a work order or citation nearly every visit. To me, a small-built Asian woman, the pigs were cordial. I could only imagine the harassment that poor and working class black residents of the area endured at their hands.
One block south of Abdul Hakeem’s apartment stood the trick. She looked sickly, her face ashen and devoid of emotion. Despite the freezing weather, she wore no coat. She stood shivering and looking miserable, as I wondered how I might safely help her. What a far cry from the pimps and hoes often the butt of jokes among the privileged and uninformed students on my campus.
Two blocks south, at Hilton and Garrison, was the nearest “grocery store.” Charging thrice the going rate for produce purchased at suburban grocers, it reeked with the stench of dead rats. On payday, the customer service counter was swamped with poor people with no bank accounts, trying to get money orders to pay exorbitant rents to Indo-Pak slum lords. The “grocery store” shared the strip with a liquor store and a dollar store. The shopping center housing the three was graced by a blue strobe light and surveillance cameras.
Adjacent to the strip mall but right on the main road was a bar and a pawnshop. Across from that was another liquor store. One block from Abdul Hakeem’s apartment was the bail bonds man. Another few blocks south was a McDonalds and a Duncan Donuts. And a block north was a church.
When I first visited Garrison Avenue, I was bemused: Where were all the grocery stores? Libraries? Parks? Restaurants (serving real food)? Coffee shops? Books stores? It made no sense. There were children living here. They needed playgrounds, libraries, community centers, grocery stores, toy stores.
Once, during a trip to New York, my father pointed out to me that Manhattan was the modern day Big House, and Bronx the Slave Quarters. In New York, the juxtaposition was glaringly evident, but a similar theme seemed to arise in many American cities. It occurred to me that Baltimore’s slave quarters included Garrison Boulevard and the area surrounding it. Slaves were not to consume nutritious food, or drink. They were there to eat chitlin’s and to serve the labor needs of the massa. They were not to read, study, or discuss issues. To do so could lead to a slave revolt.
Surrounded by depravity, Abdul Hakeem did not succumb. He did not patronize the liquor stores, the bail bonds men, the tricks, or the churches. He smiled, joked, laughed and loved his way through life, bringing joy to everyone who crossed his path. He enchanted me with his soft voice, gentle manner, and sweet smile.
He had a son, Hakeem, who lived with him. Abdul Hakeem adored Hakeem, and his whole life revolved around the boy. The first time I called their residence, the boy answered the phone in his high pitched child's voice, his impeccable manners coming across clearly on the phone line. He was a bright youngster, gifted in math, and deadly at chess. We clicked almost immediately, and I took him under my wing, tutoring him in math, buying him books and school uniforms, and taking him out for special treats when he did particularly well. I learned that the boy’s mother had died of breast cancer when he was very young. I knew that I could never take the place of the mother, but this made me even more protective of Hakeem.
Eventually, Abdul Hakeem and I became engaged, and I was thrilled at the prospect that I would be gaining a husband and a son. I picked out the red dress I would wear at our wedding. We debated where in Africa to hold the nikkah.
Abdul Hakeem worried a great deal about his son (and I—when I came to visit them) being in the drug-ridden climate at Garrison. After a great deal of apartment-hunting (between working ten hour shifts and commuting by public transportation), Abdul Hakeem found an apartment on the north side of town. The rent, while high, was not completely out of reach, as it was at some of the places he’d looked at, and it was, by all appearances, a “clean” neighborhood. By now it was summer, and while Abdul Hakeem worked long hours, Hakeem, on break from school, fraternized with the unemployed, marijuana-using neighbors in the apartment below. When Abdul Hakeem found out about this, he was furious and forbade Hakeem from subsequent visits. As a result, there was an altercation between father and son. Then another. And another. Then, tragically, the younger Hakeem called the police on his father, saying that Abdul Hakeem had threatened him. The cops came to the apartment and took the police report.
A few months later, the teenager ran away to Delaware, from whence his dead mother hailed and which he perceived as his Shangrila. Unfortunately for him, unemployment and poverty in the area was even worse than Baltimore, and the boy, who by this time was living with his mother’s unemployed, pothead relatives, joined their ranks. Within months, he was jailed for grand larceny. The charges were dropped, but an onerous pattern was emerging.
Abdul Hakeem and I went to Delaware to meet Hakeem and his social worker in court. We hoped to bring the boy home. But, Hakeem told his social worker that he would rather be a ward of the state of Delaware for the remainder of the time until he turned 18 than to return home with his father. In the waiting area outside the court, Hakeem barely spoke to Abdul Hakeem. When he did speak, it was as if he was addressing one of his homies, not his father. The last Abdul Hakeem heard from Hakeem was that he was attempting to enlist in the National Guard, but having trouble getting in due to his athsma.
That fall, Abdul Hakeem’s mother, Delma, died of cancer. He’d been very close to her, and was profoundly affected by her loss. Abdul Hakeem had two brothers, Mark and Andre, both of whom lived in what had been Delma’s apartment. Before passing away, she had asked Abdul Hakeem to take care of Andre, who was “a little slow.” Since neither of the other two brothers was responsible, and Hakeem was out of the picture, the need for a space of his own was less. So, Abdul Hakeem assumed Delma’s lease. No sooner had he moved into his mother’s apartment, which still contained her special scent, to take care of his retarded brother than he found out that both of his brothers were on crack.
The following May, Abdul Hakeem and I visited the National Zoo (it was his birthday). It was a beautiful day, and we spent much of our time in the Ape House, philosophizing on the inhumanity of imprisoning such intelligent creatures as primates, and sharing dreams of liberating them, before going on to have dinner at a favorite restaurant.
Ironically, the very next day, when Abdul Hakeem visited Child Support Services to make sure he was in good standing with his child support payments (he had two little girls—one from a previous marriage, and another from his jahilliya days), he was locked up. They nabbed him without warning, saying he was behind on payments (the notifications ostensibly mailed to him never arrived). He called me from Central Booking, and told me he was being held in a vastly overcrowded, steamy hot cell with 20 other men.
I immediately put down the carbohydrate biochemistry book I was reading, and ran across town to collect money to bail him out. As a student, I was quite broke, and so had to be creative. I called his employer and advised him of the situation. Abdul Hakeem was a well-respected and reliable employee, and the employer, to my amazement agreed to advance some of the money. The remainder I acquired as a cash advance on my credit card. I posted the money, and then called the employer to update him. Abdul Hakeem was released two days later. Central Booking officials refused to tell me his release time, and though I waited as long as possible to receive him, he was ejected, along with others being released, around midnight, when no public transportation was available, and spent hours traveling home. He went back to work shortly thereafter, and it seemed that things were finally getting back to normal.
But it got worse.
Tony was Abdul Hakeem’s nephew. He never knew his father, and was raised by a mother who brought different men home nightly. Like many young black men, he got caught up in the game, and went to prison for minor offenses. Martial arts, which he’d engaged in since very young, seemed to keep his focus while in prison, and the third degree black belt emerged to acquire his ASE-certification. He was a talented young mechanic, highly sought after by his employer’s patrons. Like Abdul Hakeem, he did not drink, smoke, or take drugs. Abdul Hakeem was proud of him, and considered him a success story in the family, even wishing at times that his son could have been more like Tony.
One day, Abdul Hakeem called to tell me that Tony had been shot to death in his home by the cops. Since Tony’s mother, Carla, was nowhere to be found (she was gallivanting about California with her Italian boyfriend), Abdul Hakeem went to the morgue to claim the body. He was clearly very shaken when he returned. After giving me the initial run down, he entered into a period of depression and refused to speak further on the incident. It was my penultimate semester at school, and, after a very long drawn out academic career riddled with trials and tribulations of every sort, I was doing my darnedest to focus so I might finally graduate. Abdul Hakeem and I started to talk less frequently by phone.
One day, shortly prior to my graduation, Abdul Hakeem became fodder for the prison industry. I feel a complete and utter sense of loss. Although he was not directly involved in the struggle at the time he succumbed, he’d demonstrated the possibilities of daily resistance. I weep at his loss. It is, indeed, a big blow for the Black liberation struggle. My Black shining prince, with whom I’d dreamed of living happily ever after, resides in the Ironhouse of Greed.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Quds (Jerusalem) Day 2007
I arrived at Dupont Circle around 11:15 AM., hoping to participate in the annual Quds Day procession down Massachusetts Avenue (Embassy Row). The street was unusually quiet--no protestors, no Palestinian flags, in fact nary a Muslim. Disappointed, I walked down Embassy Row to the Islamic Center. Outside this well-known Washington landmark, a small but spirited group, including some of the organizers of the Quds Day event, regularly hold juma'a prayer, known to locals as the Sidewalk Juma'a. The juma'a is held outside--not inside--the mosque, for reasons to be discussed later.
The imam of the Sidewalk Juma'a, Syrian-born Muhammad Al-Asi, had not yet arrived. About a half dozen people milled about, waiting for the khutba to commence. I asked one of them, an Iranian named Yousaf, who seemed to be in charge, about the Quds Day protest. He explained that the procession was cancelled due to the lack of a permit. In my backpack, I carried a Palestinian flag, picturing Masjid Al-Aqsa in the center. Given to me by a dear friend who is a Palestinian artist, activist, and imam in North Carolina, it has special meaning. I expressed my regrets at the march's cancellation, and asked if it might be okay to display the flag as a gesture of solidarity. Yousaf said yes.
I looked around for someone to help me hold the flag. The only brother I knew rather well was busy talking to someone, so I thrust one end of the flag in the direction of two older Iranian gents, figuring one of them would hold it, considering it was the flag of our beloved Palestine, or at least give it to someone else to hold.
One of them took it, but seemed rather embarrassed to be doing so. Although significantly taller than me, he insisted on holding the Palestinian flag much lower than me (almost at waist level), as if hoping no one would notice us. Ah well.
Yousaf, on the other hand, seemed smitten by the flag, because a short time later, he asked if I had any more. I didn't. No one else had any placards or flags, other than a Caucasian brother, who'd brought a yellow Hizbollah flag, with the famous depiction of the kalima in the form of a machine gun.
A short while later, Imam Al-Asi arrived. The khutba was about to commence, and I realized I was at the back of the men's section (necessary to hold the flag with the poor gent I'd impressed into service). The men, predominantly Iranian, were very respectful of me, and no one asked me to move. But, I voluntarily relinquished my end of the flag to a brother, and moved over to the women's section, which, interestingly, flanked the men's section, rather than posterior to it, as is the case at many juma'a congregations.
Asi's khutba powerfully commemorated Quds Day. He quoted verses from the Qur'an naming the characteristics of the Bani Israel. Their nature, as delineated in the Qur'an, he said, was to wreck havoc not just in a single city, country, or even continent--but throughout the earth. The "Muslim" heads-of-state who recognized Israel were complicit in the subjugation of Palestine, said Asi. Imams who refused to speak out against such misguided rulers were "Scholars for Dollars," he said, gesturing towards the Islamic Center.
The grey-haired, bespectacled khateeb's excoriation of corrupt Arab/Muslim rulers partly explained why he was outside a multi-million dollar Islamic Center rather than inside it. It is clearly a role to which he is accustomed. The Sidewalk Juma'a began after Asi was ousted from his elected position as the Center's imam by the Saudi government with the help of U.S. authorities in 1983, and briefly jailed. I asked him what would happen if he attempted to enter the Center today. Asi said he'd variously been barred outright from the Center; been told he could enter but not talk to or interact with anyone; and banned from preaching there. I noted that such actions appeared to constitute particularly flagrant violations of Asi's First Amendment rights (his Islamic right to access the Islamic Center notwithstanding).
Worshippers emerging from the Islamic Center proper appeared stunned at Asi's powerful message, and several of them stopped in the middle of the street, gawking at the kaffiyeh-adorned Sidewalk imam. Notably, few other imams around the DC area commemorated Quds Day, although ostensibly the freedom of Jerusalem--second most holy site to Muslims--is an issue on which Muslims are in complete agreement.
The imam of the Sidewalk Juma'a, Syrian-born Muhammad Al-Asi, had not yet arrived. About a half dozen people milled about, waiting for the khutba to commence. I asked one of them, an Iranian named Yousaf, who seemed to be in charge, about the Quds Day protest. He explained that the procession was cancelled due to the lack of a permit. In my backpack, I carried a Palestinian flag, picturing Masjid Al-Aqsa in the center. Given to me by a dear friend who is a Palestinian artist, activist, and imam in North Carolina, it has special meaning. I expressed my regrets at the march's cancellation, and asked if it might be okay to display the flag as a gesture of solidarity. Yousaf said yes.
I looked around for someone to help me hold the flag. The only brother I knew rather well was busy talking to someone, so I thrust one end of the flag in the direction of two older Iranian gents, figuring one of them would hold it, considering it was the flag of our beloved Palestine, or at least give it to someone else to hold.
One of them took it, but seemed rather embarrassed to be doing so. Although significantly taller than me, he insisted on holding the Palestinian flag much lower than me (almost at waist level), as if hoping no one would notice us. Ah well.
Yousaf, on the other hand, seemed smitten by the flag, because a short time later, he asked if I had any more. I didn't. No one else had any placards or flags, other than a Caucasian brother, who'd brought a yellow Hizbollah flag, with the famous depiction of the kalima in the form of a machine gun.
A short while later, Imam Al-Asi arrived. The khutba was about to commence, and I realized I was at the back of the men's section (necessary to hold the flag with the poor gent I'd impressed into service). The men, predominantly Iranian, were very respectful of me, and no one asked me to move. But, I voluntarily relinquished my end of the flag to a brother, and moved over to the women's section, which, interestingly, flanked the men's section, rather than posterior to it, as is the case at many juma'a congregations.
Asi's khutba powerfully commemorated Quds Day. He quoted verses from the Qur'an naming the characteristics of the Bani Israel. Their nature, as delineated in the Qur'an, he said, was to wreck havoc not just in a single city, country, or even continent--but throughout the earth. The "Muslim" heads-of-state who recognized Israel were complicit in the subjugation of Palestine, said Asi. Imams who refused to speak out against such misguided rulers were "Scholars for Dollars," he said, gesturing towards the Islamic Center.
The grey-haired, bespectacled khateeb's excoriation of corrupt Arab/Muslim rulers partly explained why he was outside a multi-million dollar Islamic Center rather than inside it. It is clearly a role to which he is accustomed. The Sidewalk Juma'a began after Asi was ousted from his elected position as the Center's imam by the Saudi government with the help of U.S. authorities in 1983, and briefly jailed. I asked him what would happen if he attempted to enter the Center today. Asi said he'd variously been barred outright from the Center; been told he could enter but not talk to or interact with anyone; and banned from preaching there. I noted that such actions appeared to constitute particularly flagrant violations of Asi's First Amendment rights (his Islamic right to access the Islamic Center notwithstanding).
Worshippers emerging from the Islamic Center proper appeared stunned at Asi's powerful message, and several of them stopped in the middle of the street, gawking at the kaffiyeh-adorned Sidewalk imam. Notably, few other imams around the DC area commemorated Quds Day, although ostensibly the freedom of Jerusalem--second most holy site to Muslims--is an issue on which Muslims are in complete agreement.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
The King David Hotel Bombing—Min al-Erhabi (Who’s the Terrorist)?
July 22 marks the anniversary of the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Palestine by the Zionist Irgun organization. Palestine was then a British mandate, and the headquarters of the British Secretariat were located in the hotel. Ninety-one people were killed in the bombing. Forty-five more were wounded.
Irgun claimed responsibility. Chaim Weizman, then President of the World Zionist Organization and soon to be first president of Israel, cried when he learned of the bombing, saying he couldn’t help but be very proud for "our boys." (Crossman, A Nation Reborn, The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin and Ben-Gurion)
The lead terrorist was an Israeli named Menachem Begin. Begin was commander of the Irgun at the time of the attack. Irgun’s stated philosophy was that "political violence and terrorism" were "legitimate tools in the Jewish national struggle for the Land of Israel." (Perliger and Weinberg, Jewish Self Defense and Terrorist Groups Prior to the Establishment of the State of Israel: Roots and Traditions, Vol. 4, No. 3)
Indeed Irgun’s actions were congruous with its philosophy. According to author James Gelvin, “Irgun perpetrated some of the most appalling terrorist atrocities committed in modern Palestine,” including a campaign of bombings in Arab markets in 1937. From 1936 – 1939, Irgun carried out at least 60 attacks against Palestinian Arabs. In 1948 the organization carried out the Deir Yassin massacre, in which more than 250 Palestinian villagers were slaughtered (The Israel-Palestine Conflict, Cambridge University Press).
Begin went on to become Israeli Prime Minister in 1977, overseeing the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 (while keeping Israel’s nuclear weapons--developed around 1967--a well-guarded secret), and the invasion of Lebanon and Sabra-Shatilla Massacre in 1982. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
My American friends tell me that Israel is a bastion of democracy—indeed the only democracy—in the Middle East, and that Palestinians are terrorists. I laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
Irgun claimed responsibility. Chaim Weizman, then President of the World Zionist Organization and soon to be first president of Israel, cried when he learned of the bombing, saying he couldn’t help but be very proud for "our boys." (Crossman, A Nation Reborn, The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin and Ben-Gurion)
The lead terrorist was an Israeli named Menachem Begin. Begin was commander of the Irgun at the time of the attack. Irgun’s stated philosophy was that "political violence and terrorism" were "legitimate tools in the Jewish national struggle for the Land of Israel." (Perliger and Weinberg, Jewish Self Defense and Terrorist Groups Prior to the Establishment of the State of Israel: Roots and Traditions, Vol. 4, No. 3)
Indeed Irgun’s actions were congruous with its philosophy. According to author James Gelvin, “Irgun perpetrated some of the most appalling terrorist atrocities committed in modern Palestine,” including a campaign of bombings in Arab markets in 1937. From 1936 – 1939, Irgun carried out at least 60 attacks against Palestinian Arabs. In 1948 the organization carried out the Deir Yassin massacre, in which more than 250 Palestinian villagers were slaughtered (The Israel-Palestine Conflict, Cambridge University Press).
Begin went on to become Israeli Prime Minister in 1977, overseeing the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 (while keeping Israel’s nuclear weapons--developed around 1967--a well-guarded secret), and the invasion of Lebanon and Sabra-Shatilla Massacre in 1982. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
My American friends tell me that Israel is a bastion of democracy—indeed the only democracy—in the Middle East, and that Palestinians are terrorists. I laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
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