The Black American Muslim paper tiger campaign against white supremacy seems to have no Islamic ideological anchor. Our unbridled undisciplined hatred for a loosely defined “white supremacy” is such that it only took moments for us to condemn an 18 year old black man who forgave his brothers killer.
Interestingly enough, the people whom we As Black Americans seem to express the most admiration for, are people most accepted and invested in the system of white supremacy that we claim to abhor. The professional athletes, the entertainers, the movie stars, the wealthy, the worldly accomplished, the ostentatious, and the carefree. These are the types of people we cheer on and who benefit the most from our attention, duration and hard earned earned dollars. On the other hand the prayerful, the virtuous, the scripturally faithful, and the obedient of God, are honored in our scriptures but marginalized here on the ground with our blessing. We strive to be as much as we can inline with the system of white supremacy as we can. Our (black people’s ) attitudes towards marriage, towards alternative sexual lifestyle, definitions of success, and our declining morality alone, support the system of white supremacy. Muslims should know better.
As Americans we are accustomed to knowing who and what organizations are at the head of or are committed to issue campaigns whether it is global warning, the me too movement, occupy wall street, anti-tobacco, anti-vaping, pro-abortion, pro-life, black lives matter, Christian conservatism, seat belt laws (back in the day), civil rights, prison reform and a host of other domestic issues mitigated for or against in American past and current history.
Muslims who have found a sudden obsession with white supremecy have failed to show any new light on the matter, and have shown nothing more as far as I can see than just saying that they are against white supremacy.
No strategy, no definable leadership on the issue, no traceable origin of how it suddenly has become vogue amongst some Muslim activists or a bonifide Islamic position on it’s level of priority with regards to our situational reality. There has not even been a single public conference (in my knowledge) on stratagem and the way forward in the campaign against white supremacy. Just a slogan and that’s all. Coupled by copious expressions of hatred and unbridled emotionalism.That’s a heck of a way to run a campaign about an issue people deem so important.
In their campaigns against oppression, Harriet Tubman, Yaasir Arafat, Omar Mukhtar, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Randall Robinson, Nelson Mandala, and even our beloved Prophet صلى الله عليه و سلم all operated with some form of articulated strategy, chain of command, and operational methodology. Muslims who position opposition to White supremacy as an issue that Black American Muslims need to place at the top of our to do list, need a little more than emotional sloganeering to make an actionable case.
Shaykh Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad, a veteran 20 plus year Imam, is an Associate Imam at Masjid al-Islam in Toledo Ohio. He is a Philadelphia native, a writer, a former executive committee member of the North America Imams Federation (NAIF), and the CEO of ‘Mosque Without Borders’, an organization that address Muslim issues in the United States.
He is also and the author of the book, “Double Edged Slavery“, a objective and authoritative look at the condition of African American and convert Muslims in the United States, and the book: “The Devil’s Deception of the Modern Day Salafi Sect “, a critical look at the ideological underpinning of modern Salafist extremism. The views expressed in this article are his own. He blogs at imamluqman.wordpress.com, and can be reached at imamabulaith@yahoo.com.
Imam Luqman Ahmad Mosque Without Borders 