Category Archives: Academia

Cross-Cultural Discourse on Black Culture and the Black Family

Posted in Academia, Black Families, Black Women, Blogging, Interracial Relationships, Race, Race in America by

After the Michael Richards racist tirade many non-Blacks chastised Black folks for being angry and suspicious about white America’s hidden racist views. A number of non-Black commentators said that Black folks’ suspicions were just as bad as Richards’s use of the term nigger and references to lynching. I have been called the nigger with the same contempt and rage that Richards spewed on that stage. I am not alone, I know a number of Black people who have been insulted, intimidated, physically threatened, and even assaulted under the banner of white supremacy (all over the country). It isn’t rare to hear family histories where relatives or family friends were lynched, gang raped, or chased down by white mobs. Based upon this real, and not imagined history, a lot of us Black folks were enraged. And NO… apology is still not accepted. It is especially not going to be accepted when the American public belittles our rage by pointing out that rappers appropriated the term nigger. Same thing for Don Imus calling those young women at Rutgers nappy-headed hos.

The internet discourse on Richards, Imus, and Black rage is emblematic of many cross-cultural discourses on race and class in America. I have often been disappointed by some of my conversations with well meaning, open minded, and liberal white people. I have spent my life having cross-cultural discussions because I grew up in a multi-cultural environment. Coming from different backgrounds and expeirences of race, we approach the issue from very different subjective positions. Sometimes the conversations are difficult, they challenge underlying assumptions, they expose logical inaccuracies, and, above all, they push us to confront deep seated and complex issues.

Yet there is often a complete dismissal of my viewpoint. Sometimes, a reluctant acknowledgment. It is not unknown to experience a fiery backlash that seems to come out of nowhere. Despite the many opportunities for cross-cultural understanding, I find that many non-Black people do not seem to get it. There are people who do get it, but they seem to be few and far in between.

Two trends in my discourse on race and class really bother me: 1.) color-blind approach; 2.) Blackness-as-a-pathology approach. In the first approach, they assume that America is color-blind society. They tend to point to Irish American or Italian experiences in America to make their case. They tend to overlook the fact that the Irish, Southern Europeans, and Eastern Europeans were not considered white when they immigrated by the masses to America. The people who argue for a color-blind society rarely have a critical understanding of how whiteness is construted in this society. The color-blind view minimizes the traumatic experience for many of black folk under the barrage of a global system of White supremacy. The second group does see race, America is not color-blind. But this group insists that African Americans do not have a distinct culture. Basically, they believe that AA do not have any cultural contributions that are worthwhile. Black culture for them is poverty, crime, a key example of the dangers of matriarchy, social depravity, and social marginalization, etc. Blackness becomes a pathology, a sickness, a “Negro Problem.” Black cultural heritage is invisible to them and any positives produced by Blacks is often attributed to them letting go of their Blackness and “becoming” White in a cultural sense. The people who see Black people as pathological basically see people who celebrate Black culture or highlight connections in the African Diaspora as dreamers, Black nationalists, facsists, ethnocentric. They are not satisfied in the conversation until you say that we are all the same, except somehow Black cultures is manifestation of the worst in American culture. Basically, they are not happy until you are so full of self loathing and shame about the condition of Black people that you are apologetic for being of African descent.

If African Americans are pathological, so is everyone else. It just plays out in different ways in the AA community because of the break down in social structures and networks due to exploitation, various migrations, and ruptures in families. Despite these challenges African Americans have many beautiful things to share with the rest of the world. And it is not just about singing, dancing, or playing basketball. We have strong family ties based upon extended and fictive relations, strong loyalties, spiritual values, inclinations toward communalism, and cutting edge intellectual thought from the academy. But this gets lost in a lot of discussions.

Without the writings of amazing Black intellectuals, and white anti-racist scholars and intellectuals such as Tim Wise, Allen Johnson , Dalton Conley, I think I might have checked my self into some psych ward. Many of white folk have told me that my perceptions were off, observations skewed, and experiences imagined, especially when things did not line up with how they perceived race and class in American society. But over the years, I have become increasingly sensitive to the asymmetries of power that allowed them to be so dismissive of my views in those exchanges. I am beginning to see how white privilege or male privilege plays such a prominent role in many of my cross-cultural conversations on race.

A while back, I read Sunni sister’s blog about White privilege. She wrote:

White privilege tells a male who admits he has nothing to do with this belief that he knows more about radical Black Islamist and racial seperatist movements than Black Muslims who follow a mainstream path of belief, who may have even come out of those movements themselves. And White privilege means that White male can tell Black people this. And he can call those Black people names and get applauded for it. And White privilege, and male privilege, means that he can represent himself as a voice of Islam, and outsiders don’t question this, and others egg him on and encourage his “voice,” without giving a moment of thought to the racist implications of his actions and words. He too, extends his middle finger.

In some ways I found myself in this type of exchange as I chimed in on a Umar Lee blog entry My Thought, Culture Matters. There was a side argument that developed where I argued that Black families instilled strict discipline on children because of the legacy of slavery. A White Muslim man, who argued that he had daily contact with African Americans of various classes, contested my claim about cultural practices in rearing Black children. Who was right? The insider or outsider? What came to mind was the anthropological view of the outsider. There is this historical legacy of the impartial observer (a rational white male) who draws upon empirical observations. His point of view is priveleged in both academic and mainstream circles. Academia, like mainstream media, is often quick to dismiss the insider’s point of view. We cannot get beyond our bias. So, as an insider speaking about Black issues or Muslim issues, I better be on point. If I have anything to say that challenges the sensibilities of my white friends, I better have my facts 100% together. They cannot be based upon my personal observations, and I better have 10 widely accepted scholars and their books to prove it. Importantly, I need to conjure up a white person like Tim Wise to make sure my view point sticks. Otherwise, not much I say holds weight.

I will continue with the discussion that begin in Umar Lee’s Blog. The reason why I think it is important is because there is something at stake, for me. I value my culture and feel that some of the views expressed on Umar Lee’s blog about Black culture were demeaning and not problematized. I will only address one topic. The issue that drew the most ire from a well meaning commentor. I am arguing that there are some cultural specificities of African American culture by looking at child rearing and disciplining young children. So, in the spirit of my own scholarly endeavors, I will support my arguments with evidence. I’ll start with an article on discipline, then provide some empirical evidence with a study on spanking, then I will list books that deal specifically with sociology of the Black family to show that this issue is subject to several erudite studies. Finally, I will point to a brief sample of one of the academic programs that specialize in the sociology and culture of the Black family. (Mind you, I am not an Americanist so my knowledge of the material is limited). My primary argument is there is enough scholarly work and anecdotal evidence to support my insider view that Black cultural practices in child-rearing tend to emphasize discipline (and corporeal punishment) because of the historical legacies of slavery. Here goes:

In support of my comments on the blog, I found this article in Salon magazine that discussed corporeal punishment.
In the article,“Spanking: A Black Mother’s Point of View” the author points out Black cultural perspectives on discipline:

Spanking is part of a long, historic continuum in our community. During slavery, a black person’s pout or backtalk to the wrong person could not only get him whipped, it could get him sold — or, if the transgression was deemed bad enough, maimed or killed. So black mothers and, by extension, the entire local community, had a vested interest in keeping their children alive and safe. Swift physical retribution for even minute transgressions tended to reinforce the rules, and adhering to the rules meant you were able to live to raise another generation — who, in all probability, spanked, too, but not as hard as the previous one.

The annals of black comedy are rife with examples of strict parental discipline. Sinbad, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor and the late Robin Harris have all riffed howlingly funny on the subject of gettin’ whupped. Cosby used to make audiences scream in delighted recognition when he went into his routine about The Belt that hung in his father’s closet: how long it was. How thick it was. How big the metal buckle was. What it sounded like as it whistled through the air, accurately aiming, like a smart bomb made from the cow’s outside, at his quivering buttocks. What it felt like when, on impact, his flesh was sucked through the holes.

[…]

A new study by Marjorie Linder Gunnoe, a developmental psychologist at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., has revealed something different from previous studies, which found that race and class do not affect the decision whether or not to spank. According to Gunnoe’s study, which tracked 1,110 children from 4 to 11 years old over a five-year period, spanking may be divided along racial lines. Gunnoe found that spanking increased antisocial behavior (lying, cheating and bullying) among white boys, but was correlated with a decrease in aggression among black boys. Her explanation: Spanking is not only tolerated, but endorsed by the black community. The culture expects that adults will be seen, and treated as, authority figures.

Whether or not certain traditions are dying, Black families have traditionally used corporeal punishment, taught children to respect elders, taught children to not talk back to authority figures, to be seen not heard. I’m not saying that all of these practices were good. But my cultural sensibilities were rudely shaken when I went to nanny for a mixed-race couple.

I found a study that breaks down stats:

Non-Hispanic black women are more likely than Hispanic women to agree or strongly agree that spanking a child is sometimes necessary. In 2002, 80 percent of non-Hispanic black women, compared with 56 percent of Hispanic women, agreed that a child sometimes needs a “good hard spanking.” Seventy-four percent of non-Hispanic white women say that spanking a child is sometimes necessary. Differences for men were not statistically significant.

See the rest of the study here.

I have encountered two books that demonstrate the cultural and social practices in Black families. The first is Theodore R. Kennedy’s

    You Gotta Deal with It Black Family Relations in a Southern Community

and the second is Carol B. Stack’s

    All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community

. I am sure there is a wide range of scholarly literature on Black families. These books detail parent-child relationships and relationships between children and extended kin and fictive kin. I think they move beyond the clinical approach to the Black family, diagnosed as disfunctional because of matriarchy, to point out complex social relationships.

In addition to various books, there are legitimate degree programs and classes that explore issues specific to the Black family. I will not even mention the graduate programs that focus on similar issues.
San Francisco State’s Africana Department

The Black Studies Department at San Francisco State University was the first Black Studies Department established on a four-year college campus in the United States. The birth of Black Studies at SFSU in 1968 was, in fact, inspired by student-led opposition to the then Western intellectual hegemony and racist scholarship that characterized the limitations found in traditional approaches to college education. In 2005, the Black Studies Department at SFSU changed its name to the Africana Studies Department.

They offer courses on the Black family. Also, Virginia Common Wealth universities offers a sociology course on African American families:

206/AFAM 206/SOCY 206 African American Family Relationships
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Focuses on the African American family from the 1940s to the present. Examines the values and the interpersonal/role relationships that are involved in forming and maintaining African American families in the contemporary United States. Topics include dating and sexual relationships, marital relationships, parent-child relationships and relationships with members of the extended family.

Finally, I found a curious final exam for class on the Black Family from the department of Pan African Studies at University of Louisville :

PASS 520.01: Black Family in America
Exam Questions: Summer 2002
Instructor: Professor Lateef P. Badru

1) What evidence would you cite to support or oppose the thesis that the black family in America today is disintegrating or dying? Discuss your answer.

2) Drawing on your personal experience and observation of the portrayal
of African Americans on popular TV, identify the basic stereotypes associated with Black family life in the United States. Discuss your points.

3) What aspects of African family pattern are still retained in the
African American Community? How do you think a comparative study of
family can be of value to you? Discuss your points.

4) What major functions does the Black Church, as an institution, perform today in the African American community? How are these functions different from the ones performed immediately after emancipation? Discuss your points.

5) What are the major obstacles to “plural marriage” in American
society? Can multiple cohabitation (men- sharing) solve the crisis of
shortage of mating partners for black women? Discuss.

6) Briefly define the following concepts:

i. Polyandry us Polygyny.
ii. Matrilocality vs. patrilocality
iii. Matrilineal vs. patrilineal descent
iv. Exogamous vs. Endogamous marriages

v. Nuclear vs. extended family

7). What role does religion play in black family life? Discuss your
answer with specific reference to the adoption of Christianity during
slavery and after emancipation

This is not to say that the students in this class come out blazing experts. But I am sure they have been given tools to think critically about issues involving cultural and social practices in the Black community. A number of the top scholars studying race in America are white. And they deal with the topic empathetically while focusing on understanding Black realities. An outsider’s gaze can be helpful in providing perspective on issues that face a given community. But when it comes to dealing with communities of color, the white point of view is often given more weight than a person of color. This is not to say that Africans or Black people have a monopoly on truth, but that insiders have an important perspective that is often overlooked but should be taken into account.

When it comes to engaging with these issues, whether over dinner, at a cocktail party, tea party, internet forum, or wherever, it is important to distinguish between informed opinions and unsubstantiated claims. In cross cultural discussion, neither party may fully understand the socio-economic and cultural structures that undergird our social worlds. But when it comes to weight of evidence and cultural translations, I would rather refer to the insider’s (especially those who have been rendered voiceless by the dominant group) viewpoint.

There are few mysteries in the Black community that others cannot participate in. It is really a matter of whether people want to join. The anthropologist’s gaze is on us on a daily level and he often tells us that he knows more about us than we do. That would be great his assessment was accurate. But sometimes those observations miss the complexities. Instead, they often provide an unnuanced understanding of Black culture and the challenges we face. I extend an olive branch in hopes of an honest and respectful cross-cultural discourse. But it is important that we all note our positions of power and privilege. I recognize that my status as an educated Black American Muslim Woman means that I have to fight tooth and nail for my voice to be heard by almost anyone. My perspective is so easily dismissed by so many. But it is still worth fighting to get it out there, don’t ya think?

Why I write

Posted in Academia, Ulema, Writing by

I write precisely because I don’t know yet what to think about a subject that attracts my interest. In so doing, the book transforms me, changes what I think. As a consequence, each new work profoundly changes the terms of thinking which I had reached with the previous work…When I write, I do it above all to change myself and not to think the same thing as before.

Michel Foucault in Remarks on Marx, 1981

I didn’t expect to discover something about myself today. I discovered something about the way that I communicate, write, and conduct my research. Foucault went on to say that in the beginning of a project, he never knows what the conclusion will be. Work is experience. This insight is something that Western academics rarely talk about. That is because there is this standard of removed and objective scholarship. But we all have something at stake in the production of knowledge.

We should have something at stake and be transformed by our work. Louis Brenner’s study of education reform in Mali, Controlling Knowledge shows us how traditional methods of Islamic education linked knowledge with practice. Knowledge was supposed to be implemented, knowledge was transformative, with every level of education from early Quranic school to higher Islamic sciences, students’ daily lives were changed. Now, people learn a subject without changing, or at least they imagine themselves to remain objective and removed from the subject. I think that Western orientations stress the mastery of knowledge and stockpiling information. It is like a hoarding of knowledge without applying it or using it effectively. Through modernizing reforms in Islamic education Western orientations have shaped Muslims and their approaches to knowledge. Knowledge is less linked to practice (praxis), and just knowing does not make one a better Muslim, let alone person.

But back to why I write. I write because I am wrestling with difficult issues. I don’t know the conclusion of my life will look like. I have so many questions and I’m not sure what to think about many things. But I know that I want to change and be better. I have often had a difficult time writing about the present, but have looked to the past–distant and recent. One of my primary interests has been the ways knowledge is passed on in the Muslim world, and how it is spread across space and through time. Often, as a historian, I am confronted with limitations of what can be known about people’s experiences. There is always the problem of evidence–skewed evidence and lack of evidence. We can barely talk to each other and understand the ways people now order their lives and make sense of their worlds. It seems like an impossible task to interpret fragments of evidence to get at the lived experiences of those who are long gone. I write because I don’t know what to think about those fragments in documentary evidence or those tales that were passed on in oral traditions. I write to make sense of those bits. It is a narrative, but is it fictional? Perhaps in a sense that it simplifies, creates analogies, comparisons, and connections that the people who lived in the past may not have seen. Yet, what was legible to them is not longer legible for me. Ultimately, I am subject to the whims of knowledge and what can be known.

With all the limitations of an impossible task, I am seeking knowledge, truth, and the reality of my lived experiences. If al-Haqq (Ultimate Reality and Truth) is infinite, then mere mortals can only grasp a finite sliver of Truth for an ephemeral moment. Postmodernists point argue that there is not a universal truth. Not one that we can fully grasp, at least.

Randomness, I know…The things an insominiac writes late at night.

Dissent in Egypt

Posted in Academia, Egypt, Labor Movements, Politics, Social Justice by

The Egyptian regime is cracking down on all manner of dissenters — from Muslim Brothers in Parliament to the well-known Kifaya movement to bloggers and journalists. But another form of opposition has been scoring victories: a wave of wildcat strikes that, like the Kifaya protests, began in late 2004. The collective action of Egyptian workers is currently the most broad-based kind of resistance to the regime. It represents a possible threat to the “stability” President Husni Mubarak needs to pass his office on to his son, as most Egyptians are convinced he seeks to do.

Joel Beinin and Hossam el-Hamalawy tell the story of the most militant and politically important strike to date in “Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order.”

Workers like ‘Attar and Habib tolerate such low wages because the Misr firm is part of Egypt’s large public sector. Manual workers and white-collar employees in the public sector have jobs for life and the right to a pension equal to 80 percent of their salary at retirement. Since 2004, however, the Egyptian government has renewed its drive to privatize the textile industry. Workers fear that the new investors, many of them from India, will not provide them with the job security or the benefits they and other public-sector workers have enjoyed since most textile mills, along with other large and medium-sized enterprises in all sectors of the economy, were nationalized in the early 1960s under Gamal Abdel Nasser. These fears have led to an unprecedented wave of wildcat strikes, which, since late 2004, have been centered in the textile sector, but have spread to other industries as well. In late 2006 and 2007, the strike wave has reached a particularly high crest.

Since the enactment of Egypt’s Unified Labor Law of 2003, it has technically been legal for workers to strike, but only if approved by the leadership of the General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions. Since the federation, along with the sectoral general unions and most enterprise-level union committees, are firmly in the grip of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), all actual strikes since 2003 have been “illegal.”

Muhammad ‘Attar and Sayyid Habib were among the leaders of a December 2006 strike at Misr Spinning and Weaving, one of the most militant and politically significant in the current strike wave. This upsurge of labor collective action has occurred amidst the broader political ferment that began in December 2004 with taboo-breaking demonstrations targeting President Husni Mubarak personally, demanding that he not run for reelection in 2005 (he did) and that his son, Gamal, not succeed him as president. An amendment to the constitution permitting the first-ever multi-candidate presidential election generated expectations that the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections would be fair and democratic. These hopes were frustrated. Nonetheless, a wide swathe of the public, which is mostly engrossed in trying to earn a living, began to take notice of politics.

With the election of 88 Muslim Brothers in 2005, Egypt’s normally sleepy Parliament acquired a substantial opposition bloc that has exerted continual pressure on the regime. Inexperienced in handling serious public debate, the regime has begun to crack down viciously on all manner of dissenters — from Muslim Brothers to bloggers and journalists. The passage of a second round of constitutional amendments in March 2007 will make it much more difficult for independents and Muslim Brothers to run for political office and permanently allow abusive police practices that have been nominally illegal or permissible only under the “temporary” state of emergency in force since 1981.

Read the rest of the article in Middle East Report Online here.

About Time: American Historical Association Denounces War In Iraq

Posted in Academia, Graduate Student, Iraq by

American Historical Association Denounces the War in
Iraq

March 13, 2007
Contact: Alan Dawley 215-843-6754

In an unprecedented step, the nation’s oldest and
largest professional association of historians, the
American Historical Association (AHA), has ratified a
resolution condemning government violations of civil
liberties linked to the war in Iraq. The resolution
urges members “to do whatever they can to bring the
Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.” In electronic
balloting whose results were announced on March 12,
some three-quarters of those voting supported the
resolution, which was originally proposed by members
of
Historians Against the War (HAW), a national network
of
over two thousand scholars on more than four hundred
campuses. The resolution had gained earlier acceptance
from members attending the AHA’s annual meeting in
Atlanta on January 6, 2007, and from the AHA Council,
which decided to send the resolution out for
ratification because of its sensitive nature.

“The outcome indicates the deep disquiet scholars feel
about damage done to scholarly inquiry and democratic
processes by this misbegotten war,” said Alan Dawley,
Professor of History at The College of New Jersey and
a
former winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize, who
was the initial mover of the resolution.

The American Historical Association was chartered by
Congress in 1889. Past Presidents include two United
States presidents who were also historians, Woodrow
Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. President John F.
Kennedy was also a member. According to current
members, there is no instance in its 118-year history
when the AHA has dissented from U.S. foreign policy.
Staughton Lynd, a prominent supporter of a defeated
1969 resolution opposing the Vietnam war, comments:
“Back then we asked historians not only to oppose the
Vietnam war but to protest harassment of the Black
Panthers and to call for freeing political prisoners.
This resolution focuses on government practices that
obstruct the practice of history. It asks the
American
Historical Association only to encourage its members,
as individuals, in finding ways to end the war in
Iraq.”

In the weeks leading to the vote, many of the nation’s
leading historians, such as Eric Foner of Columbia
University and John Coatsworth of Harvard, both former
AHA Presidents endorsed the resolution.

For more information on the AHA and the resolution, go
to http://www.historians.org/. For more information on
Historians Against the War, go to
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org

New Study Finds Widespread Racism Among White College Students

Posted in Academia, Race in America by

New Study Finds Widespread Racism Among White College Students

A study by Joe R. Feagin of Texas A&M University and Leslie H. Picca of the University of Dayton has found widespread racial prejudice among white college students. The sociologists analyzed 626 journals kept by white college students during the 2002-03 academic year at colleges and universities across the United States. Their analysis of content found that whites frequently use the word “nigger” when referring to blacks when they are alone with their white friends. Racial stereotypes about blacks being prone to criminal behavior, having hyperactive sex drives, and being lazy were commonplace in journal entries.

The researchers found that white college students are polite to their black peers to their face and when adults are in earshot. But in the safety of their inner circle of white friends, racist statements and behavior are not much different than they were generations ago.

The findings will be released in a new book entitled Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage published this spring by Routledge.

http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index.html

The Resolution, 2007

Posted in Academia, Graduate Student, Muslim Women, Race in Muslim Societies, Writing by

I have contemplated doing the New Years Resolution thing. It is a nice ritual, but we often fall short and slip back into our vices within months, if not weeks. One New Years Resolution I had was to be good to myself. I haven’t done a very good job, but I have been treating myself better than I have in the past few years. Or maybe I’m feeling less beat up because of a complete turn around in my academic career. 2006 was a rough year for me, career-wise and personally. Today I ran into a professor who has been supportive of me work and continually encouraged me to keep fighting the good fight. He said that something must be wrong, because I looked happy. I looked happier than I had in the past two years. I think happiness is relative. But I’m going to try to be happy. And when times aren’t happy, I’m going to embrace the hardship, loneliness, and pain. Riding through those will make me stronger and during those times, I will draw closer to the Creator.

What lies ahead for me during 2007 seems like a scary and seemingly impossible journey. My journey will span a year or two and will take me to Egypt. Going to Egypt for so long is a big leap for me, but I’m committed to going. It is something that I knew I would have to do since 2002 when I decided to take this path. Going abroad is essential for my career as a researcher and scholar. Historians of Africa pride themselves with the emphasis on fieldwork. I will earn my stripes as a legitimate scholar. Going out into the field means living amongst the people you are studying for extensive times. Historians of Africa are in many ways similar to anthropologists. Years ago, anthropologists spent years, sometimes 4-5 years in the field. Great historians like Jan Vansina and Steven Feierman spent years in the field and are both trained as anthropologists and historians. They became fluent in the languages and cultural repertoire of their subject populations. (But for me, I am a member of the community that I am studying. For anyone that hasn’t noticed: I am of African descent and I am Muslim. So my research directly relates to my identity meaning that I have more of a stake in my work. I am transformed by my work and my identity transforms the meaning of my work. )The average Africanist spends 10 years getting their degree. Becoming an Africanist often entails language training in another European language besides English, such as French and German and an African language. We draw on various disciplines and sources to reconstruct past lives and events. We use ethnographic studies, collect oral data through interviews or collecting poetry, oral histories, epics, stories, and songs. We visit archives set up by colonial and state governments. A historian of Islamic Africa requires the skill sets of an Orientalist scholar who can master Arabic texts, European languages for colonial and state archives, and a ethnographic skills of an anthropologist. Stanford provides funding for 5 years. There is university funding for the 6th year. Fortunately for me, my research subjects speak modern standard Arabic. My research focuses on race in Muslim societies and I will be examining a communityh of West Africans in Cairo. I am taking a leave of absence for language training and research, which means my degree can take 7-8 years.

But who wants to be in their early thirties, during the prime of my life abroad surrounded by strangers? I’m not really happy with what that means in my life right now. Often, I think about what I’m putting on hold to go there. It extends my studies. It prevents me from establishing roots or real connections here. It in many ways leaves me vulnerable and alone. Being a woman in the Middle East is not very easy. There is less freedom to move, more chaos, cultural misunderstandings, and increased vulnerability. Then, there are all the people who see me as a walking visa, a ticket out. Sure, I have a few friends that live in Cairo, but I’m going to be far away from my family and people who have looked after me for years. I’m also trying to brace for a new flavor of racism, the Middle Eastern type. Sometimes, when I think about the journey ahead, I already feel the homesickness. I can imagine the loneliness, since I remember how alone I felt in Morocco at times. I can also feel the culture shock coming on. On the other hand, a huge part of me is relieved to be leaving the Bay Area, this isolated pocket community. I’m tired of the weird incestuous nature of both the graduate and Muslim community here. I’m restless and want to do something and be exceptional. I want to master Arabic, which I have been studying for almost four years. I want to pay my dues as an Africanist and maximize my field experience. I want to be around spiritual and good-hearted people. Sometimes I don’t mind the break from the struggles of being black in America. But really, I want to be around people who make me want to be a better person. Here, I find myself agitated, but not stirred, shaken, but not moved. I would like to surround myself by exceptional people who inspire me. Maybe there will be people like that in Egypt. The people I know who are there are good people. I hope there are more like them.

My mixed feelings about traveling and living abroad really reflect my acknowledgment of the benefits and sacrifices of undertaking this endeavor. I still have a long road to go to finish my degree and many obstacles ahead. In order to finish in that time, I must write and research expeditiously. I must be focused. I have to focus my energies, doing away with frivolity and nonsense. This is why I have extricated myself from chaotic and distressing situations and relationships. I must be good to myself and follow some of my unwritten New Years resolutions in order to take on this task.

I don’t think I’m going to find what I’m looking for in Egypt. But I do think that I’m going to have one piece of the puzzle figured out. Then it will be on to figure out the next stage. But everything I’m doing right now is preparing me for that. When I come back, I will be different. But I’ll also come back hungrier to finish my Ph.D. and ready to do the damn thing. Cairo is more real to me in my dreams. Sometimes those dreams feel more real than my reality here. Today, I spoke with a jewelry vendor. She said that I spoke of Egypt like I’m already there. While Summer is still far away, I’m there somewhere in Cairo.

Intellectual Snob

Posted in Academia, Graduate Student, Writing by

Yes, I have been called an intellectual snob. Someone pointed out this trait years before I began studying at a university in what seems like another lifetime before I became a graduate student. In my late twenties and early teens, I was sort of a street intellectual, in independent scholar. I used to have a box full of notecards with tempting quotes and information. I had charisma too. I could get up in front of a crowd, and hit some points that resonated with almost everyone in the audience. But more than anything, I valued knowledge. No particular reason, just the desire to know drove me. I took a class with a prominent Muslim scholar and he noted my curiosity.

During that time, many of my friends went to the semi-prestigious Santa Clara University. I used to hang out there in the library, unable to afford classes at the local community college. As a JC drop-out, I had a strong thirst for knowledge. And I had a strong sense of justice and a lot more energy than I have now. And I’d go toe to toe with anybody who wanted to test me on some issue relating to Muslims. I’d argue with white feminist scholars who came at me with some orientalist notions of Islam and women’s rights. I argued about Islamic Law and Women’s rights with a Harvard trained lawyer. Instructors, I’d check em. Professors, I’d confound them with difficult questions. And no, I didn’t have a degree nor a lot of training. But even in that early stage, during those formative years in and out of community college, I knew I had a strong disdain for anyone trying to test me in a debate that they knew little about.

The first time I heard the term intellectual snob was after a dinner party 11 years ago. There was some woman who was going to Stanford in feminist studies (who now does nothing with her degree, but stays at home married to a wealthy doctor in priveleged Atherton) had something to say about patriarchy in Muslim societies without acknowledging the ways she was also circumscribed by patriarchy in this society. She upset me and my best friend by accusing us of being oppressed for wearing hijab. While she, wearing her long curly hair free flowing and dress was free. My friend got upset and left the table. I lost patience and took some intellectual jabs at her. I had little patience for her inconsistence in this discussion. By the way, telling a non-Western woman that she is oppressed at a dinner party is pretty damn rude.

So, this is all a side-point. My major point is that I have and always will be an intellectual snob. I have a whole bunch of pet peeves in a heavy conversation. Here are some:

1. Devil’s advocates
This has got to be the lamest for of critical engagement. Just taking the opposing side insincerely is the most annoying tactic. Keep these people far from me. There are times when looking at an issue from both angles can be helpful. But for the most part, I see Devil’s advocates as the very spawn of Satan.

2. Those who argue over semantics
Unless you got a fricken dictionary, don’t quibble with me over you own chosen definition of a word. I hate those people who basically agree with you, but have to find that one little flaw that they have to interjects. At the point of understanding, you should focus on what can be agreed upon, where we differ, and what can we build off of it.

3. Ignoramous with an Opinion
Yes, opinions are like assholes, and everyone has one. But that does not mean that we have to smell your shit. So, unless you have an informed opinion, in the company of experts, you should STFU.

4. Know it alls
People who have to have an opinion on everything. Guess what? You do not know everything. So this means that you should defer, listen, and learn. Be humble. Not everyone is impressed by your constant ramblings and need to prove to the world that you know everything.

Okay, well I gotta run. I will add to this list. But feel free to add your own.

Addendum:
1c. People who sprinkle their speech with foreign words, especially French, German, or Arabic, to sound really profound. Things like: “Voltgeist” or “Ya’ani” or even trying to pronounce some ridiculous French word to prove adeptness with the French language makes me want to vomit. This is especially annoying when the English equivalent will suffice.

2c. People who name drop. Rubbing shoulders with some scholar or knowing some important person does not
make you smarter. In fact, I hate name dropping all together. Just drop it, okay. Work with your own merits.

3c. People who throw out book titles and feel like they have defeated you when they name a book you haven’t read. Academics are notorious for this.

4c. People who bait others into debates. You know, that seemingly innocent question that the baiter uses to launch into some campaign of proving their intellectual prowess.

5c. People who won’t concede that their stances are not well supported. Or basically, people who cannot admit that they are wrong.

6c. People who say you don’t get their point, especially if their point is not clear or evident in what they are writing or saying. We are not mind readers. What you put out there is what is left for us to interpret. If I missed your poorly presented point, then clarify your thinking and get back at me.

7c. People who try to quiz you on the languages you know. “How many languages you speak? Oh, I speak 5.” My response, “STFU, you barely speak anyone of them well.” sometimes, I come back with, “I speak broken ebonics, some English, studied other languages….” Or the finally question of snobbery:”How is your French?” My reply: “non-existent you pompous idiot savant!!

Time wasters

Posted in Academia, Gender Relations in Islam, Graduate Student, Muslim, Relationships, Writing by

Okay, I’m procrastinating big time right now. I have this paper deadline and I really hate it. I’m going to get started on it, for reals. But a new curse has entered our household. It is called basic cable. So, I’ve read all this stuff on slavery in Africa, the Sokoto Caliphate, and trading diasporas. I have 15 pages to write and about 25 hours to do it. I think I’m going to miss this deadline. I was really busy. We had this Barbecue on Saturday, house guests all week. And then, like I said, tv channels.

But that is not the kind of time wasters I’m talking about. I mean the real time wasters. Time wasters are those dead end relationships. People who are up in your face because they want to hear themselves talk. People who need constant attention in meaningless interactions. Looking back at the past two years, I think about some of time wasters who have monopolized my time. I’m really jealous of my time too. I sometimes wonder why some men want to be all in my face wasting my time. Maybe its because I’m pretty laid back and pretty open. Do I look and talk like I’m some fun-loving, adveturish air-head?Maybe I should act a little bit more diva-ish or something. I dunno, but I’d like for the time wasters to keep moving on. I’m making it my next mid-week resolution to swear off time wasters. I have proposals and exams to prepare for. Plus I need a side job tutoring rich brats. I can be far more productive if I avoid this breed of human beings. You know the time wasters I’m talking about. The people who message you and ask: “How are you doing this evening?” Or they ask for my IM address so they can chat up my precious spare time.

What about the men who want to fly in like they are on some kind of vacation and have me show them around? Look man, do I look like a tour guide? Dude, this is not your fantasy vacation. Creepy out of towners who write me that they want to meet me. Meet me for what? Because long distance poonanny has less strings attached than local poonanny? Anyways, what do I get out of it? I could have male attention to affirm my feminity, a meaningless interaction, or maybe some temporary physical gratification where I’m left wondering if the feelings were mutual or was I just being used.

I find local dating hard enough. It is often a cat-and-mouse game. Sort of like how long can I maintain his interest and avoid getting boned or left for someone else who will get down with him. I personally find dating obnoxious for all its games. And because I don’t like the game nor do I play by its rules, I really am unfamiliar with all the protocols of dating.

Anyways, there are tons of admonitions against Muslims dating. The whole halal-style meeting leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Plus I don’t have that good old reliable ethnic network where you can find out if a brotha is shady from word of mouth. And brothas are real quick to secure a marriage before all the dirty secrets come out. There goes the more natural, un-artificial way of getting to know someone before jumping into a relationship. Anyways, I’m not really interested in dating in the conventional sense. But at the same time, I’m not interested in hook-ups. That doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in getting to know people. It is all about bringing It with the right intentions.

Since few men are really approaching me with a realness and depth that I think I deserve I’ll substitute it for some other needs in my life. For instance, I could use a really great free translator. As far as the interactions I could really use, would be someone who is well read and a sharp intellectual. I would love to run into another academic who can help me in those intellectual quagmires I find myself in. Do they understand what the hell the subaltern school people are saying? Do they understand the shortcomings of World Systems Theory? Can they give me a break down of Heidegger? Can they help me through the murkiness of post-modern theory. More than anything I need a reliable editor who has a good turn around time. Often, I am let down by people who offer even the most simple feedback. Their follow through has left something to be desired. I resolved myself to not to turn my writing it its most vulnerable stages unless I am sure that my reader will help nurture my ideas and thoughts. So, I substitute real interaction and even real writing for this blog stuff. Now that I have wasted 50 minutes writing this blog…I supposed I can get back to writing these crappy papers.

Commencement 2006

Posted in Academia by

This is the first time I’ve reached an important milestone and it just crept up on me. Tomorrow morning friends and family will join me to celebrate my Masters Degree. Before I thought about graduate school, I never thought I’d be at a place like Stanford. Schools like Stanford were for really really smart people, the over-achievers, the perfectionists, and people who had never failed. I remember the voice mail informing me about my acceptance Spring of 2004. I was on cloud nine for months before I came here. A month into my program, I realized I embarked on one of the hardest journeys of my life. The past two years has been two of the most difficult and stressful years of my life. A few months ago, I felt like I was drowning in this academic lifestyle. Just as I was about to give up, I realized that I qualified for my masters. In a way it seems anti-climatic. I am not done with my work, I still have to haul ass to qualify for candidacy. I still have to prove that I can write a dissertation, I still have to prove I can adjust to the culture and workload here. But, I have something that they can’t take away now. I can walk away from this university, take my knowledge and teach students in community colleges. I can change careers. I can say I took advantage of an opportunity and worked hard to get this piece of paper that says I have mastered something.
For years I felt like I started a lot of things and finished few. But when I recount my little journey, I am beginning to think I’ve managed to set out an extraordinary journey. Sometimes this climb seems endless and most days are tedious. I’m not done yet, but I passed this milestone. I’ve gained wisdom and set an example for those to come after me. Importantly, I rediscovered what was important to me. Through all the pomp and ceremony, I have to remind myself that this degree does not make me better or smarter than anyone else. Instead, it affords me certain opportunities and carries responsiblities to the communities that I belong to. From this point on, I will commence to work my hardest to fulfill the role that God has intended for me to play in this world. I don’t have a clear idea what that is, my path unfolds with each step I take. I have to keep striving fisabillah. Perhaps I will feel different tomorrow, perhaps it will sink in at the black graduation ceremony. Perhaps this weekend will rejuvenate me and I will feel more at peace with my struggles in this institution and that peace may give me comfort to face the challenges on the road to a doctorate.

Dark Heritage

Posted in Academia, Black Women, Colorism, Convert, Depression, Mothers, Muslim Women, Writing by

Yesterday was surprisingly gloomy for a June. I woke up in this introspective, my mind whirling full of thoughts that wouldnt go away. There were so many issues unresolved and unexplored. These were things that have come up in random conversations, as me and my girls ramble in long conversations that meander on random tangents:

My faith,my race, my skin tone, my relationships, my family, my privilege, my oppression, all that I achieved, every failed endeavor, lost opportunities, my conditioning process in academia, my personal connections, my isolation, my memories, all that I have forgotten, holding on, letting go, everything that I have disclosed, all that I cant say…

My mood shifted into a deep melancholy as I prepared myself for my errands, my heart beat extra hard against my constricted chest. A memory, I let out two sobs, pulled myself together and I went about my day.

Sometimes I feel as if my chest is pulling away from my heart. I become slightly light headed and feel as if my mind disconnect from my body. It is hard to keep balanced. This is when I want to sit something out. Or my longing for a particular state is becoming unbearable. Other times, I feel as if my chest is constricting my heart. And each beat is painful and exhausting. I try to ride this out, breathmeditatework through my thoughts. Sometimes I just sleep it off, drift off into a world of dreams with the hope that my subconscious will work it out. With every difficulty comes ease.

A lot of it comes from stress. But often it is rage against the injustice of a global caste-structure, a pervasive world view that has seeped insidiously into so many mindsets.

Sometimes I feel a primordial ache. I know I inherited some of these feelings while I was in my mothers womb. When I met my father 18 years after my parents divorce, he told me that he knew when I was conceived. He said, Were going to make a baby. I was a love child. My parents fell in love at first sight. They were married for several years and divorced after a series of tragedies and violent conflicts. My father always loved my mother, but was unable to truly love my mother, till the day he died. My mother told me she was very sad when she carried me. She also spent a lot of time reading and thinking. Her sadness and fear was a product of a so many forces, a society that circumscribed her, a community that rendered her without a voice, her love for a broken and wounded man who self-medicated and inflicted his rage on her, her constant striving despite all the obstacles to take care of her son and daughter while making way for her third child. With my brother, she hustled and was always on the move to make a living as a teenage expectant mother; my sister who passed, she was deeply spiritual; with my youngest sister she was emotional. We all carried my mothers imprint.

I think this sadness passed on generation after generation in our mothers womb, our grandmother, her mother, on back These women in my family tell me stories of the rapes and murder at the hands of officials; kidnapped child; death and violations by neighbors, strangers, and friends; the exploitation of professionals and civil servants; the beatings and abandonment by the men they love; the betrayal of their sisters and neighbors; the loss of children to the prison industrial complex or drugs; then all the secrets that have been left unspoken….