As salaam alaikum,
I was going to write about depression and NVC next, but I want to take a break from that to voice my reaction to an article in The Atlantic that I just read about the two young people, now convicted of terrorism, Muhammad "Moe" Dakhlalla and Jaelyn Young.
For as long as I've had this blog, on this site and the previous one on Xanga, I have tried to steer clear of politics. My quest in Islam was personal, and although I did have real opinions on issues across the Muslim world, I felt too poorly read and ill-informed to make this place a platform to voice them. Granted, I know that doesn't stop many other people from sharing their two cents on the internet, but I didn't want to contribute to that pool. So this didn't become the place where I decried wars, crimes against Muslims, Islamophobia or condemned terrorism in its many forms and specifics regularly.
The exception I made a year and a half ago was my entry on the San Bernadino attack, in which I expressed my fear about the rise of ISIS and how Americans seemed to be spontaneously radicalizing to attack such mundane venues as a company Christmas party. I remember as a post-9/11 teenager scoffing at security measures at a college football game. Terrorists weren't going to target Nowheresville, USA. With the rise of IS and its sympathizers, I was wrong.
I know little about IS and their propaganda other than they exist and they are terrorists who primarily target other Muslims in Muslim majority countries but whose sympathizers have carried out attacks in Europe as well. I feel as the majority of Muslims do--that these amoral individuals carrying out monstrosities in the name of Islam do not represent the true nature of our faith and way of life. I remember hearing about these two young people, Muhammad and Jaelyn, in passing a couple of years ago. I read of their arrest and their intent to join ISIS abroad. I looked at their pictures. I wondered how a young, mixed couple, in particular, a young, African American revert to Islam, got mixed up in ISIS. In particular, for Jaelyn, I wondered how a young American woman could aspire to such an existence. What were they telling them?
I read The Atlantic article and it gave me pause for another reason. Jaelyn's story sounded so familiar to me, especially her growing up story. It could have been mine. Smart, nerdy but isolated kid in high school. Very strict parents. Untreated depression. Cluster B tendencies. Increased interest in Islam in college, starting to don hijab then. The only difference is that she bought into ISIS propaganda, and I didn't.
The other difference was that of 10 years.
When I was her age and searching the internet for everything I could about Islam, posting in my blog, trying my best to join the MSA, YouTube was nascent, Facebook was The Facebook and was open to Ivys and specific colleges like the University of Michigan only, and MySpace was hanging on. There was no Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. Message boards were on their way out. My online quest was limited to reading online translations of the Qur'an on the go, browsing Hadith collections and cruising (painfully) through online fatwa banks. Video sermons and online imams were not as ubiquitous as they are now.
No one knows what is in this woman's heart and what was in her intentions but she and God, and I'm not trying to defend her at all. I'm just startled at how much the beginning of her story sounds like the beginning of my own. I don't think it could have been me, but could it have?
It also gives a sinister spin to my novel in progress, A Rose Much Desired, with the two Muslim young adults, Nisreen and Mo, trying to figure out their next steps. Their stories begin separate and as innocently as my story characters. My characters do make a series of mistakes and ultimately crash and burn, but they do not radicalize. Mo and Nisreen's story is entangled in the new world of social media as well. How much of a reality would this be for my characters if they were young 20-somethings now and not in 2007?
I also recognize that for that one Jaelyn, there are hundreds of thousands of other young black women who grew up isolated nerds with strict parents and resultant depression that do not end up attempting to joint ISIS. No one knows what happened there. And given that the FBI were the makers of COINTELPRO, my trust of that institution is thin, if any. We will not know in this life where their influence began with either of these young people.
But what I do know is that this did not have to be. This never has to be. We, as Muslims, have to stop shutting out too many people as other, not of us. At some point, many current day terrorists were one of us, people we wouldn't hesitate to call Muslims. Some of them were once children, and therefore our responsibility to guide. I am not a parent yet and I do not have answers. But saying that these people are not Muslim is not enough. Once they were, and now they are not, and maybe some of us had a hand in that doing. Socially, our religious institutions are not exempt from structural violence, and by belonging to the religion, we are sometimes its agents.
It's hard with social media, though. In its earliest iteration for young people, AIM, I would spend hours at night IMing friends, paragraphs, monologues, soliloquies about our lives. AIM is the reason that I'm able to type so fast today. It was a world we created of our own. My parents barely knew it existed except to comment on the sound of me "raining on the keyboard" when typing to my friends. In a similar way, young people, especially those who have gone off to college, have a world of their own with many more modalities to communicate on, separate from their parents, guardians and mentors, that they can never infiltrate.
I know the answer is love and connection, and we're going to have to figure out all of the essential spaces in which it needs to be placed.
Showing posts with label activist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activist. Show all posts
Monday, May 8, 2017
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
The Tyranny of Now
As salaam alaikum,
I almost have no words for this time. I'm so happy that I got to marry before the storm, in a time of relative tranquility, in the time of the first President I voted for that I was proud to call mine, flawed and polemic as some of his policies were. I was a black woman marrying a white man in the era of our first black president, born of black and white. We wed in the waning time of hope and progress. We spend our first married weeks in a time of turmoil.
My husband, bless his heart, doesn't want me to worry. My husband, accordingly, is used to compartmentalizing himself away from fear when certain things do not directly affect him. We are both citizens. We will be provided good insurance from our employers. If I want long-acting birth control, I can afford to pay $800 for it out-of-pocket, and we have no pre-existing conditions. He is not from a country on the current travel ban. If public schools go to hell, insha'Allah we'll be able to afford to get our kids into private school. We live on a literal hill, above it all, protected from flood and tsunami, protected in a way that we can be at all times blissfully unaware, if we so chose, to what is happening below.
I am not used to ignoring those things that do not apply to me. Everything applies to us all, as long as we are all human. More than any one group of people in my life, the executive actions of this administration so far has and will affect the people I trained to serve--my patients. My patients are low-income, immigrant and refugee. They are documented and undocumented. Thirty percent of them are insured by my state's Medicaid expansion under the ACA.
When I heard the election results, I curled up in a ball and cried for these people who I've dedicated this big part of my life to, for all of the rights and necessities that would be stripped away from them. In that sorrowful way, I have not been disappointed.
I hurt for my patients. I am trying to find the best ways to be active, but recognize at the same time that I am newly married and have this relationship to nurture. When my colleagues were protesting at SeaTac airport the recent Muslim ban, I was present for a business meeting my husband had at our home. I balance the desire to start a family right away with the reality that I will bring children into. Are we headed for a coup? Will the US see its first dictator? Do I want to wait (even longer than we've already waited) for things to become more stable?
I don't know.
He doesn't want me to worry. This is a man who lived in a communist country, protested as a child, lived as an undocumented immigrant in another country, immigrated legally to North America and forged a gradual road to citizenship. He has seen a lot, probably a lot worse. I respect his perspective.
But I will not sit idly by just because I, personally, will be alright. Because those who I serve will not, and to the extent that I empathize with every patient that enters my exam rooms, I will not be alright.
And this is not to speak of the friends and family members who are more directly impacted.
And this is not to speak of how, with any given tomorrow, this could be any one of us. My new Muslim surname, my old Muslim self, the daughter of an immigrant, the wife of an immigrant...anything.
It's reached the point where most happiness is hollow.
I almost have no words for this time. I'm so happy that I got to marry before the storm, in a time of relative tranquility, in the time of the first President I voted for that I was proud to call mine, flawed and polemic as some of his policies were. I was a black woman marrying a white man in the era of our first black president, born of black and white. We wed in the waning time of hope and progress. We spend our first married weeks in a time of turmoil.
My husband, bless his heart, doesn't want me to worry. My husband, accordingly, is used to compartmentalizing himself away from fear when certain things do not directly affect him. We are both citizens. We will be provided good insurance from our employers. If I want long-acting birth control, I can afford to pay $800 for it out-of-pocket, and we have no pre-existing conditions. He is not from a country on the current travel ban. If public schools go to hell, insha'Allah we'll be able to afford to get our kids into private school. We live on a literal hill, above it all, protected from flood and tsunami, protected in a way that we can be at all times blissfully unaware, if we so chose, to what is happening below.
I am not used to ignoring those things that do not apply to me. Everything applies to us all, as long as we are all human. More than any one group of people in my life, the executive actions of this administration so far has and will affect the people I trained to serve--my patients. My patients are low-income, immigrant and refugee. They are documented and undocumented. Thirty percent of them are insured by my state's Medicaid expansion under the ACA.
When I heard the election results, I curled up in a ball and cried for these people who I've dedicated this big part of my life to, for all of the rights and necessities that would be stripped away from them. In that sorrowful way, I have not been disappointed.
I hurt for my patients. I am trying to find the best ways to be active, but recognize at the same time that I am newly married and have this relationship to nurture. When my colleagues were protesting at SeaTac airport the recent Muslim ban, I was present for a business meeting my husband had at our home. I balance the desire to start a family right away with the reality that I will bring children into. Are we headed for a coup? Will the US see its first dictator? Do I want to wait (even longer than we've already waited) for things to become more stable?
I don't know.
He doesn't want me to worry. This is a man who lived in a communist country, protested as a child, lived as an undocumented immigrant in another country, immigrated legally to North America and forged a gradual road to citizenship. He has seen a lot, probably a lot worse. I respect his perspective.
But I will not sit idly by just because I, personally, will be alright. Because those who I serve will not, and to the extent that I empathize with every patient that enters my exam rooms, I will not be alright.
And this is not to speak of the friends and family members who are more directly impacted.
And this is not to speak of how, with any given tomorrow, this could be any one of us. My new Muslim surname, my old Muslim self, the daughter of an immigrant, the wife of an immigrant...anything.
It's reached the point where most happiness is hollow.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
A Trump Presidency
As salaam alaikum,
I need to be doing some charting this morning, but after cruising the pain on my Facebook newsfeed and not feeling able to limit my thoughts to my status box, I decided to come back here, my nearly completely neglected blog with, so it seems, zero readership at this point, to put some of my thoughts down.
When I saw the polls take that critical turn toward Trump last night and saw my own home state had turned red for the first time since Reagan in 1988, I curled upon myself and cried. I cried for my patients, who I've grown with and come to learn from, who will no longer have insurance when the ACA is repealed. That's 30% of the people at our clinic that didn't ave insurance 2-3 years ago who now do. I cried for what that would mean, acutely, for our clinic, and the sudden struggle.
Of course that is where my mind would go first. Of course I would think of my patients. They are the people I spend most of my waking hours with, every week. These are the people who challenge me and sometimes traumatize me with their own stories of trauma. I empathize with them, even in 10-20 minute visits, I get in their space, 20 times a day I get into another person's space. It is emotionally taxing, but it was made easier by the fact that my patients had more resources because they had insurance through the ACA and Washington state's Medicaid expansion.
I was not among those who didn't believe it could happen. I saw it happen with the Republicans, and I hoped Trump antagonists were calculated enough to vote accordingly. We were not. There was hubris, and now there is nemesis.
I slept fitfully, having to pray before I could drift off and acknowledge all that I was grateful for, and all I'd rather have than avoiding a Trump presidency.
I am not of the most privileged in this country, but I am privileged. In January, I marry my long-time fiance, who is (now) a citizen and who is a white man. I will reap the benefits of his white privilege, including our living situation. Insha'Allah, we'll live and I'll co-own a home he bought for us last year, with five bedrooms, enough for our future children.
After my crying fit last night, I briefly wondered if this is a world I want to bring my children into, the children that I've been praying about more as of late, as family planning becomes acute for us.
I talked to my fiance about it. He calmed my fears. He's lived in a communist Albania. He's lived as an illegal immigrant in Greece, fearing for deportation at every turn. He's been an immigrant engineering student in Canada, he's earned citizenship there and, this year, here in the US. He's experienced that trauma. I still hurt for my patients, especially the undocumented immigrants and the refugees among them. I hurt for the babies that got invested in this election and are now are afraid for their well-being.
Insha'Allah, when Trump is inaugurated, I'll be sitting with my husband in our house on the hill with a relative position of privilege. The perfect position to affect change.
Don't get it twisted. LBJ knew Kennedy was going to be assassinated and gleefully took over as POTUS. This was a man who bragged about the size of his penis. It was not going to be him alone who signed into law the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. My people mobilized to affect change. They mobilized. There were no submitting of demands. They gave their bodies to the cause. They worked to affect the change they wanted to see, they saw that change with their bodies. In effect, they were the change they hoped to see in the world.
My point in all this is that LBJ was hardly the charismatic and hopeful Kennedy, but he was the president under which these critical laws were passed because of the people. Will things be harder with a "Republican" (I think?) president and Republican majority in the House and Senate? For many of us, yes. Are we less likely to see the change we want to see under this president, even if we work hard to realize it? Yes. But the movements before us also didn't happen overnight.
One can muster all the memes that they like, craft all the hashtags they want--that has never been, nor never will be what is real. Although it will be painful, I will shower, dress, and be present for my patients this afternoon and evening because that is why I am here. I moved to this state from the comfort of Massachusetts' health care plan to learn how to provide care for a resource-poor, underserved community without a robust health safety net. The ACA happened, and I was overjoyed. It may be taken away, but my mission still stands. I will be there for my patients. I will use my position of comfort and privilege and muster up all the strength and smarts I can to be there for my patients.
And insha'Allah, I'll still bring babies into the world...but that's a topic for another time, another entry.
I don't believe this is a signal of end times. God knows, as always, and we don't. I also believe that this is (hopefully) the last hurrah for a dwindling majority in this nation. I will divert my energies into praying for us all, that God keep us in spite of political and financial twists and turns. I pray for my patients, my overwhelmingly black, Latino, and East African immigrant/refugee patients. I pray for my safety and the safety of all of my black and brown brothers and sisters in the face of police brutality, racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. I pray for the scared babies and their future. I pray for those abroad who bear the brunt of our foreign policy. I pray that all of my loved-ones survive the next 4-8 years, as we did Bush...
...as we did Obama, who has the blood upon blood on his hands, who played the game, who wasn't the president we all hoped he could be, who didn't affect the change we wanted to see, sometimes because he couldn't and sometimes because he didn't try. Let's be honest.
At times like these I remember my purpose in this life, our purpose in life--to help each other through it. This is why I'm here, and forward I go.
Also, inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon. One of my cousins passed away yesterday. Please join me in prayers for my auntie and uncle who lost another child just 4 months ago. Yesterday was also my grandmother's birthday. She would have been 88 years old. Please join me as I continue to pray for God's mercies and that God grant her peace and paradise.
I'm honestly thankful that my grandparents lived to see the first black president elected, for all that it was worth, and that neither lived to see the resurgence of the hatred that they felt so acutely when they lived in 1920s to 40s Arkansas.
I need to be doing some charting this morning, but after cruising the pain on my Facebook newsfeed and not feeling able to limit my thoughts to my status box, I decided to come back here, my nearly completely neglected blog with, so it seems, zero readership at this point, to put some of my thoughts down.
When I saw the polls take that critical turn toward Trump last night and saw my own home state had turned red for the first time since Reagan in 1988, I curled upon myself and cried. I cried for my patients, who I've grown with and come to learn from, who will no longer have insurance when the ACA is repealed. That's 30% of the people at our clinic that didn't ave insurance 2-3 years ago who now do. I cried for what that would mean, acutely, for our clinic, and the sudden struggle.
Of course that is where my mind would go first. Of course I would think of my patients. They are the people I spend most of my waking hours with, every week. These are the people who challenge me and sometimes traumatize me with their own stories of trauma. I empathize with them, even in 10-20 minute visits, I get in their space, 20 times a day I get into another person's space. It is emotionally taxing, but it was made easier by the fact that my patients had more resources because they had insurance through the ACA and Washington state's Medicaid expansion.
I was not among those who didn't believe it could happen. I saw it happen with the Republicans, and I hoped Trump antagonists were calculated enough to vote accordingly. We were not. There was hubris, and now there is nemesis.
I slept fitfully, having to pray before I could drift off and acknowledge all that I was grateful for, and all I'd rather have than avoiding a Trump presidency.
I am not of the most privileged in this country, but I am privileged. In January, I marry my long-time fiance, who is (now) a citizen and who is a white man. I will reap the benefits of his white privilege, including our living situation. Insha'Allah, we'll live and I'll co-own a home he bought for us last year, with five bedrooms, enough for our future children.
After my crying fit last night, I briefly wondered if this is a world I want to bring my children into, the children that I've been praying about more as of late, as family planning becomes acute for us.
I talked to my fiance about it. He calmed my fears. He's lived in a communist Albania. He's lived as an illegal immigrant in Greece, fearing for deportation at every turn. He's been an immigrant engineering student in Canada, he's earned citizenship there and, this year, here in the US. He's experienced that trauma. I still hurt for my patients, especially the undocumented immigrants and the refugees among them. I hurt for the babies that got invested in this election and are now are afraid for their well-being.
Insha'Allah, when Trump is inaugurated, I'll be sitting with my husband in our house on the hill with a relative position of privilege. The perfect position to affect change.
Don't get it twisted. LBJ knew Kennedy was going to be assassinated and gleefully took over as POTUS. This was a man who bragged about the size of his penis. It was not going to be him alone who signed into law the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. My people mobilized to affect change. They mobilized. There were no submitting of demands. They gave their bodies to the cause. They worked to affect the change they wanted to see, they saw that change with their bodies. In effect, they were the change they hoped to see in the world.
My point in all this is that LBJ was hardly the charismatic and hopeful Kennedy, but he was the president under which these critical laws were passed because of the people. Will things be harder with a "Republican" (I think?) president and Republican majority in the House and Senate? For many of us, yes. Are we less likely to see the change we want to see under this president, even if we work hard to realize it? Yes. But the movements before us also didn't happen overnight.
One can muster all the memes that they like, craft all the hashtags they want--that has never been, nor never will be what is real. Although it will be painful, I will shower, dress, and be present for my patients this afternoon and evening because that is why I am here. I moved to this state from the comfort of Massachusetts' health care plan to learn how to provide care for a resource-poor, underserved community without a robust health safety net. The ACA happened, and I was overjoyed. It may be taken away, but my mission still stands. I will be there for my patients. I will use my position of comfort and privilege and muster up all the strength and smarts I can to be there for my patients.
And insha'Allah, I'll still bring babies into the world...but that's a topic for another time, another entry.
I don't believe this is a signal of end times. God knows, as always, and we don't. I also believe that this is (hopefully) the last hurrah for a dwindling majority in this nation. I will divert my energies into praying for us all, that God keep us in spite of political and financial twists and turns. I pray for my patients, my overwhelmingly black, Latino, and East African immigrant/refugee patients. I pray for my safety and the safety of all of my black and brown brothers and sisters in the face of police brutality, racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. I pray for the scared babies and their future. I pray for those abroad who bear the brunt of our foreign policy. I pray that all of my loved-ones survive the next 4-8 years, as we did Bush...
...as we did Obama, who has the blood upon blood on his hands, who played the game, who wasn't the president we all hoped he could be, who didn't affect the change we wanted to see, sometimes because he couldn't and sometimes because he didn't try. Let's be honest.
At times like these I remember my purpose in this life, our purpose in life--to help each other through it. This is why I'm here, and forward I go.
Also, inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon. One of my cousins passed away yesterday. Please join me in prayers for my auntie and uncle who lost another child just 4 months ago. Yesterday was also my grandmother's birthday. She would have been 88 years old. Please join me as I continue to pray for God's mercies and that God grant her peace and paradise.
I'm honestly thankful that my grandparents lived to see the first black president elected, for all that it was worth, and that neither lived to see the resurgence of the hatred that they felt so acutely when they lived in 1920s to 40s Arkansas.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
The Worst Kind of Terrorists
Salaam,
I vacillated about whether or not I should make this entry, as I try to keep this space as apolitical as possible for one thing, and for another, I don't like to write stream-of-consciousness pieces for something that I could research and on which I could write a proper dissertation.
And I feel that way for most political topics, current events, news, etc.
But I've been sitting back these last couple of days since the San Bernardino terrorist attack, watching people stew and seep, boil and burn, cry and fret about what this country is coming to, what it all means, whether this is terrorism or not, what terrorism is.
I've seen fellow Muslims hesitate to call this terrorism, wish (as we all do) that it's not terrorism--by which we mean, we wish it's not someone carrying out an attack in the name of our religion.
But those same people, just days before with the Colorado Springs shooting, hastened to call that shooter a terrorist--and he is. And that was a terrorist attack.
As of December 2, we had 355 mass shootings in this country, more than days we've had in this year so far. Many of them, if not all of them, I consider to be acts of terror. For me, terrorism is simple--acts of violence aimed at killing and maiming multiple people and to, in general, cause chaos within communities and societies.
For state purposes, terrorism is often defined as such violent acts that have a political, religious or ideological significance or, by some definitions, are carried out in affiliation with larger organizations.
And this is why, if I am as diplomatic as I can be, Muslim mass murderers are labeled as terrorists and lone-wolf white mass murderers are not.
The question of affiliation with larger organizations is one for another time. For example, how loosely does a white mass murderer have to be affiliated to, say, a white supremacist group before being considered a terrorist because of this affiliation?
Again, I consider all mass murders terrorists by my definition, so this is moot to me.
But, if what we have been told about the shooters in San Bernardino is true, then they are the worst kind of terrorists I have ever seen. It is absolutely horrifying. The flagrant disregard for human life, the indiscriminant killing of men and women of all ages, the mundane venue--a company holiday party at a rented space in a social services building.
How many of us have gone to our company's holiday parties, hackneyed Christmas classics playing softly in the background, people milling around, nibbling on dessert for too long and being embarrassed for someone who got uncharacteristically drunk and loud? Can you imagine going there and dying? Can you imagine the people around you dropping dead? How terrible!
Each story is heartbreaking. Understatement.
That, of course, makes me the most sad and the most angry.
What also makes me angry is that, because of these devils, the moderate Muslim defense doesn't exist anymore.
What do I mean by that? The perpetrators seemed like--and perhaps, for a good while, were--the "moderate Muslim" archetype. Professionals, integrated into their community, seemingly responsible citizens, married with a baby. And then, they spontaneously radicalized.
It's insidious. It reminds me of what family members and friends of the Paris assailants said, that six months prior to the attacks, they stopped drinking and started praying.
Prayer now seems a sinister act...
...though, I guess it always could be.
Muslims are being stopped in subways by passengers believing their laptops are bombs. People in town halls blurt out that "all Muslims are terrorists." A Sikh woman on a Delta flight is made to show her breast pump so a wary passenger is at ease that she is not carrying a bomb. People are being put off flights for speaking Arabic or being visibly Muslim.
Being Muslim right now is different than it was post 9/11. Post 9/11, there was an unspoken other. We were American Muslims. We had no ties to these radical groups in the East "jumping through flaming hoola-hoops," as my mother once put it. And their targets were big and symbolic. I remember, as the 16-year-old I was in 2001, scoffing at the security measures at local stadiums. I cried when I was made to throw away my purse at a game. "Why would terrorists want to attack a college football game?" Why would they target Nowheresville, USA? And for years, that remained true, and I felt justified at dismissing some of the lingering fears as Michael Moore did, as a white American culture of fear.
I think the fear is legitimate now. Conspiracy theorists, like they did post 9/11, are running rampant, but the fact of the matter remains--people really got shot and people really died at an everyday venue, horrendously at what should have been a time of casual celebration.
In the eyes of the public, every Muslim is suspect. There are no such thing as moderate Muslims. Any could radicalize at any time. Once again, "See something, say something" targets Muslims and apparent Muslims, brown people and people who cover their hair with scarves and turbans.
These terrorists are the worst kind because they took lives, shattered families, terrified a community, and made things worse for the peaceful majority of Muslim people in America, heightening their exposure to discrimination, hatred and possible violence.
I do wonder what's become of my country, that mass shootings are so commonplace and so many of us have become so flippant about death until, perhaps, it personally touches us. And just today I began to wonder, as staunchly as I am for gun control (to the point where I am like, yes, someone should take your guns!), if the problem is not other. If it lies in the fabric of who we are as Americans, who we purport to be, and who we actually are.
But besides that, I am at a loss. I don't know what to do, like none of us does, but I do know what not to do.
As a Muslim, I am mortified by every act of violence that is carried out by a Muslim, more than I cringe at ever instance of so-called "black-on-black violence." We can say that these people aren't really Muslim, we can say that what they're following isn't really Islam, we can point out every Muslim that was killed by them and every Muslim hero who saved those around them.
We can condemn every act carried out by people with "Muslim names" before terrorism is formally identified as a motive.
But this doesn't take away the fact that, for some reason and at this time, organizations and individuals are interpreting our texts and our message for the purpose of evil and mass slaughter.
They are certainly not the only ones using a faith to commit atrocities. There are terrorists who draw some sort of twisted inspiration from every religion. But the terrorists who use our faith are center stage now.
A vociferous and murderous minority is successfully defiling our religion in a public arena.
This is not time to sit back and state that this is a sign of the end times, because every day, we're still here. End times is clearly not right now.
So, now--what?
I vacillated about whether or not I should make this entry, as I try to keep this space as apolitical as possible for one thing, and for another, I don't like to write stream-of-consciousness pieces for something that I could research and on which I could write a proper dissertation.
And I feel that way for most political topics, current events, news, etc.
But I've been sitting back these last couple of days since the San Bernardino terrorist attack, watching people stew and seep, boil and burn, cry and fret about what this country is coming to, what it all means, whether this is terrorism or not, what terrorism is.
I've seen fellow Muslims hesitate to call this terrorism, wish (as we all do) that it's not terrorism--by which we mean, we wish it's not someone carrying out an attack in the name of our religion.
But those same people, just days before with the Colorado Springs shooting, hastened to call that shooter a terrorist--and he is. And that was a terrorist attack.
As of December 2, we had 355 mass shootings in this country, more than days we've had in this year so far. Many of them, if not all of them, I consider to be acts of terror. For me, terrorism is simple--acts of violence aimed at killing and maiming multiple people and to, in general, cause chaos within communities and societies.
For state purposes, terrorism is often defined as such violent acts that have a political, religious or ideological significance or, by some definitions, are carried out in affiliation with larger organizations.
And this is why, if I am as diplomatic as I can be, Muslim mass murderers are labeled as terrorists and lone-wolf white mass murderers are not.
The question of affiliation with larger organizations is one for another time. For example, how loosely does a white mass murderer have to be affiliated to, say, a white supremacist group before being considered a terrorist because of this affiliation?
Again, I consider all mass murders terrorists by my definition, so this is moot to me.
But, if what we have been told about the shooters in San Bernardino is true, then they are the worst kind of terrorists I have ever seen. It is absolutely horrifying. The flagrant disregard for human life, the indiscriminant killing of men and women of all ages, the mundane venue--a company holiday party at a rented space in a social services building.
How many of us have gone to our company's holiday parties, hackneyed Christmas classics playing softly in the background, people milling around, nibbling on dessert for too long and being embarrassed for someone who got uncharacteristically drunk and loud? Can you imagine going there and dying? Can you imagine the people around you dropping dead? How terrible!
Each story is heartbreaking. Understatement.
That, of course, makes me the most sad and the most angry.
What also makes me angry is that, because of these devils, the moderate Muslim defense doesn't exist anymore.
What do I mean by that? The perpetrators seemed like--and perhaps, for a good while, were--the "moderate Muslim" archetype. Professionals, integrated into their community, seemingly responsible citizens, married with a baby. And then, they spontaneously radicalized.
It's insidious. It reminds me of what family members and friends of the Paris assailants said, that six months prior to the attacks, they stopped drinking and started praying.
Prayer now seems a sinister act...
...though, I guess it always could be.
Muslims are being stopped in subways by passengers believing their laptops are bombs. People in town halls blurt out that "all Muslims are terrorists." A Sikh woman on a Delta flight is made to show her breast pump so a wary passenger is at ease that she is not carrying a bomb. People are being put off flights for speaking Arabic or being visibly Muslim.
Being Muslim right now is different than it was post 9/11. Post 9/11, there was an unspoken other. We were American Muslims. We had no ties to these radical groups in the East "jumping through flaming hoola-hoops," as my mother once put it. And their targets were big and symbolic. I remember, as the 16-year-old I was in 2001, scoffing at the security measures at local stadiums. I cried when I was made to throw away my purse at a game. "Why would terrorists want to attack a college football game?" Why would they target Nowheresville, USA? And for years, that remained true, and I felt justified at dismissing some of the lingering fears as Michael Moore did, as a white American culture of fear.
I think the fear is legitimate now. Conspiracy theorists, like they did post 9/11, are running rampant, but the fact of the matter remains--people really got shot and people really died at an everyday venue, horrendously at what should have been a time of casual celebration.
In the eyes of the public, every Muslim is suspect. There are no such thing as moderate Muslims. Any could radicalize at any time. Once again, "See something, say something" targets Muslims and apparent Muslims, brown people and people who cover their hair with scarves and turbans.
These terrorists are the worst kind because they took lives, shattered families, terrified a community, and made things worse for the peaceful majority of Muslim people in America, heightening their exposure to discrimination, hatred and possible violence.
I do wonder what's become of my country, that mass shootings are so commonplace and so many of us have become so flippant about death until, perhaps, it personally touches us. And just today I began to wonder, as staunchly as I am for gun control (to the point where I am like, yes, someone should take your guns!), if the problem is not other. If it lies in the fabric of who we are as Americans, who we purport to be, and who we actually are.
But besides that, I am at a loss. I don't know what to do, like none of us does, but I do know what not to do.
As a Muslim, I am mortified by every act of violence that is carried out by a Muslim, more than I cringe at ever instance of so-called "black-on-black violence." We can say that these people aren't really Muslim, we can say that what they're following isn't really Islam, we can point out every Muslim that was killed by them and every Muslim hero who saved those around them.
We can condemn every act carried out by people with "Muslim names" before terrorism is formally identified as a motive.
But this doesn't take away the fact that, for some reason and at this time, organizations and individuals are interpreting our texts and our message for the purpose of evil and mass slaughter.
They are certainly not the only ones using a faith to commit atrocities. There are terrorists who draw some sort of twisted inspiration from every religion. But the terrorists who use our faith are center stage now.
A vociferous and murderous minority is successfully defiling our religion in a public arena.
This is not time to sit back and state that this is a sign of the end times, because every day, we're still here. End times is clearly not right now.
So, now--what?
Monday, June 29, 2015
No longer a resident
As salaam alaikum,
I've been busy but not busy, if that makes any sense. I've been mentally and emotionally busy, preparing myself for graduation for residency. This included taking (and passing, alhamdulillah) my boards, getting my work schedule arranged for when I start my new job in September, tidying things up for my patients before I hand them off to the new resident, moving...
Ya girl's been busy.
There is also a lot of background noise right now, honestly, that has gone on for the last three years. My faith has been challenged in a very specific way that I have not shared on this blog, because it is a moment in progress. When this metamorphosis of sorts is complete, I will speak more openly and frankly about it. For now, sorry, you just get tidbits.
But alhamdulillah, I have completed residency and I am now a family physician practicing family medicine with obstetrics. This morning, getting up and not going to clinic, I felt starkly naked in a way I never have before in my life. I said at first that I felt naked because I was no longer a resident, but in truth, I've been a resident for only 3 years. It seems like nothing and it seems like forever at the same time.
I gaze at pictures of my co-residents and feel like I miss them already and that I never truly got to know them at the same time. They are a group of 11 people that I love and with whom I have experienced something unique that will not replicate. I feel like I've known them forever and for not that long at the same time. They are excellent people and I hope we continue our road to excellence.
I went in three years from being an insecure medical school graduate, not ready to embrace myself as a physician, to a board certified family physician with no insecurities about my capabilities. Again, alhamdulillah.
This moment, however, reminds me of a song Elis Regina sang, called, "20 Anos Blues."
Ontem de manhã quando acordei / olhei a vida e me espantei. / Eu tenho mais que vinte anos. / Eu tenho mais que mil perguntas sem respostas. / Estou ligada a um futuro blue.
Yesterday morning when I woke up, I looked at life and I startled myself. I am more than 20 years old. I have more than a thousand questions without answers. I'm tied to a blue future.
And while I do not believe I'm tied to a blue future, there were all of those ways, over the past few years, that I realized that I was not my 20 year old self. I am not who I was when I began this journey to be a physician, to be a better Muslimah, to make my own contribution to social justice.
I'm not 20 years old anymore. My grandfather is not on this earth anymore and my brother is an adult with autism who is unemployed, unskilled for most vocations and lives at home with my aging parents. I am a family physician continuing a very separate life on the West Coast, away from my aging parents and away from my brother. My personal life bears harsh realities that I did acknowledge, in a highly dramatized form at 20 years old, but that are more eminent now, as I begin to make plans for marriage and a family of my own.
At the same time, I'm not 20 years old anymore and I don't look for ways to save the world at every turn, in every crevice and with every issue. I'm looking for very specific ways I can make an impact in matters that I care most about and that I know most about.
I'm not 20 and I'm not premed, I'm a family physician. I don't love a man absently who I have no access to, I love one who is here, on earth, with me, who is not a character I created but a real man who doesn't always follow the ideal script for our lives but who is here regardless. I don't look outward for my Muslim identity, I look inward.
So I begin this two months off before starting work period resuming Ramadan (Ramadan Mubarak to all) after the Feminine Interruption. I return to focusing on The Compassionate.
I've been busy but not busy, if that makes any sense. I've been mentally and emotionally busy, preparing myself for graduation for residency. This included taking (and passing, alhamdulillah) my boards, getting my work schedule arranged for when I start my new job in September, tidying things up for my patients before I hand them off to the new resident, moving...
Ya girl's been busy.
There is also a lot of background noise right now, honestly, that has gone on for the last three years. My faith has been challenged in a very specific way that I have not shared on this blog, because it is a moment in progress. When this metamorphosis of sorts is complete, I will speak more openly and frankly about it. For now, sorry, you just get tidbits.
But alhamdulillah, I have completed residency and I am now a family physician practicing family medicine with obstetrics. This morning, getting up and not going to clinic, I felt starkly naked in a way I never have before in my life. I said at first that I felt naked because I was no longer a resident, but in truth, I've been a resident for only 3 years. It seems like nothing and it seems like forever at the same time.
I gaze at pictures of my co-residents and feel like I miss them already and that I never truly got to know them at the same time. They are a group of 11 people that I love and with whom I have experienced something unique that will not replicate. I feel like I've known them forever and for not that long at the same time. They are excellent people and I hope we continue our road to excellence.
I went in three years from being an insecure medical school graduate, not ready to embrace myself as a physician, to a board certified family physician with no insecurities about my capabilities. Again, alhamdulillah.
This moment, however, reminds me of a song Elis Regina sang, called, "20 Anos Blues."
Ontem de manhã quando acordei / olhei a vida e me espantei. / Eu tenho mais que vinte anos. / Eu tenho mais que mil perguntas sem respostas. / Estou ligada a um futuro blue.
Yesterday morning when I woke up, I looked at life and I startled myself. I am more than 20 years old. I have more than a thousand questions without answers. I'm tied to a blue future.
And while I do not believe I'm tied to a blue future, there were all of those ways, over the past few years, that I realized that I was not my 20 year old self. I am not who I was when I began this journey to be a physician, to be a better Muslimah, to make my own contribution to social justice.
I'm not 20 years old anymore. My grandfather is not on this earth anymore and my brother is an adult with autism who is unemployed, unskilled for most vocations and lives at home with my aging parents. I am a family physician continuing a very separate life on the West Coast, away from my aging parents and away from my brother. My personal life bears harsh realities that I did acknowledge, in a highly dramatized form at 20 years old, but that are more eminent now, as I begin to make plans for marriage and a family of my own.
At the same time, I'm not 20 years old anymore and I don't look for ways to save the world at every turn, in every crevice and with every issue. I'm looking for very specific ways I can make an impact in matters that I care most about and that I know most about.
I'm not 20 and I'm not premed, I'm a family physician. I don't love a man absently who I have no access to, I love one who is here, on earth, with me, who is not a character I created but a real man who doesn't always follow the ideal script for our lives but who is here regardless. I don't look outward for my Muslim identity, I look inward.
So I begin this two months off before starting work period resuming Ramadan (Ramadan Mubarak to all) after the Feminine Interruption. I return to focusing on The Compassionate.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Hater hater hater hater hater
As salaam alaikum,
I started reading The Root (theroot.com) after my previous relationship, and my SO at the time was into all things black. All things pan-African and all things African diaspora. I mean, it's no wonder--we met at a pan-African book club hosted by mutual friends. It only had to be. Except, in spite of being the one who actually has black American ancestry, he was blacker than I was. I didn't read The Root or Grio as my main news sources, after all. And it was always off-putting for me to see only stories about black people--as if only news stories involving black people mattered to black people.
Maybe I really wasn't black enough.
Though it's by far not my only news source, it's one of the more consistent news sites I visit. I get most of the rest of my news from my Facebook newsfeed and the front page of NYT or The Seattle Times in the coffee shops I visit a couple of days a week.
I don't have television.
Anyway, this was a long preface.
One of the stories I love to read in The Root is that of young adults of color excelling in academics or in their early careers. Reading these pieces make me almost certain that I want to home-school my future children, insha'Allah. Seriously, it seems like children who are home-schooled really have their potential unlocked.
Occasionally, there will also be a story about a young person who got accepted to all of the Ivy League schools for college. I'm impressed that this happens more than once, but then again, I never met anyone who applied to all Ivy League schools.
The first two articles of this type that I'd seen in the last two weeks were about first or second generation African students. One was Nigerian American, the other, Somali American. I've come to almost anticipate in the comment section at least someone pointing out that these are African immigrants, and then stating a variation of the following sentiments:
(1) "Slave-descended success does not equal non-slave-descended success." I put this in quotes and I must call it out because this was blurted in a Facebook discussion by one of my acquaintances, who was one of my smart and hardworking classmates in public health school. She said this in response to an article I posted about Nigerians being the most educated immigrants in the country. I think she didn't know that I was, in fact, only half Nigerian and the other half "slave-descended." I asked her which success I benefited from, either or none at all. The more tactful version of this comment is, "I'm proud of this young person, but their circumstances are different, being an African immigrant. They came here as a child, so their formative years were not marred by the effects of American institutionalized racism like their African American counterparts."
Okay.
(2) "If only young black kids/students could stop [fill in the blank of some stereotypical assumption about black students], they could be achieving these things, too."
(3) African first- and second-generation students are taking "the slots" meant for African American students at these schools.
There are probably others I have missed.
I'm used to these things, and, knowing that I probably shouldn't be wasting my time reading comments sections, anyway, I move on. Or so I think.
Then, today, I read an article about an African American student whose family lost everything in Katrina who overcame this loss and went on to get into 8 Ivy League colleges. I looked at her first and last name. She did not seem like a first- or second-generationer. I scrolled down to the comments section, expecting to see someone say, "Now, here is the story I'm looking for. Congratulations to this young woman!"
Instead, I see a comment, full of vitriol, that does not merit paraphrasing and makes little sense. The young woman wanted to study literature and political science. Great. Those are great majors for pre-law, I would think. Instead, this commenter said something about the majors guaranteeing that she would stay in her parents' home until marriage, harkening to a history at HBCUs of women entering college to marry the HBCU men, snarky comment about high echelon blacks, as this person assumes this woman's parents must be, etc.
And the title of this post is my reaction to that comment.
I realized that there is a group of never-satisfied people who will take this story and despair at the fact that the person is African immigrant or immigrant-descended and thus not "real" black. There is someone else who will dismiss and individual as being part of a so-called disconnected black social class, even if they do not have that data.
This is why I loved the "Player Haters Ball" skit of the Chappelle show so much. Hate for no reason. Hate because you're breathing. Hate with no data. Hate because you can.
And this is the semi-benign (because no hate is ever benign) hating-on, as opposed to the always damaging actual hate that I'm speaking to.
I guess those who think of the stories in an only positive light, like myself, are not the ones commenting.
One of black people's favorite words (at least the black people I grew up with) was accolades. Okay. Can we not give accolades where accolades are due? Seriously. Let's stop bickering about how we should celebrate young African first- and second-gens less because their success means less and its supposedly achieved on the backs of African Americans. Because no it doesn't and no it's not. I am Nigerian-American and I am African-American. I live both perspective simultaneously. Ask me anything.
Maybe if we celebrated one another with genuine pride, we could learn from one another and make this place a better place for all of our children, because seriously, right now, this country is pretty shitty for black people. An African surname will not save any of us from a racist too blinded by our hues and browns to see our humanity.
Maybe we wouldn't have turned our back on Martin Luther King and left him vulnerable and left him assassinated.
Maybe we wouldn't have assisted in the killing of brother Malcolm.
And on and on.
So, in summary, I'm tired of the hate. This is ridiculous. Yes, I do want to hear the story of the kid raised by a hard-working single mom, or who grew up below 100% poverty line, or who struggled through the grittiest ghettos or survived the most dilapidated of school districts get accepted into all the Ivy league schools he or she applied to, but more than that, I want to hear about the adults on the other side of their college education finding careers to help make a difference in ways that are meaningful to them in their communities and in society in general. Because that's where it counts.
And if we're stuck back at being less proud of Africans or disdainful of rich blacks, then I have to quote my mother in telling us, "That's why [we] ain't runnin' nothin'."
I started reading The Root (theroot.com) after my previous relationship, and my SO at the time was into all things black. All things pan-African and all things African diaspora. I mean, it's no wonder--we met at a pan-African book club hosted by mutual friends. It only had to be. Except, in spite of being the one who actually has black American ancestry, he was blacker than I was. I didn't read The Root or Grio as my main news sources, after all. And it was always off-putting for me to see only stories about black people--as if only news stories involving black people mattered to black people.
Maybe I really wasn't black enough.
Though it's by far not my only news source, it's one of the more consistent news sites I visit. I get most of the rest of my news from my Facebook newsfeed and the front page of NYT or The Seattle Times in the coffee shops I visit a couple of days a week.
I don't have television.
Anyway, this was a long preface.
One of the stories I love to read in The Root is that of young adults of color excelling in academics or in their early careers. Reading these pieces make me almost certain that I want to home-school my future children, insha'Allah. Seriously, it seems like children who are home-schooled really have their potential unlocked.
Occasionally, there will also be a story about a young person who got accepted to all of the Ivy League schools for college. I'm impressed that this happens more than once, but then again, I never met anyone who applied to all Ivy League schools.
The first two articles of this type that I'd seen in the last two weeks were about first or second generation African students. One was Nigerian American, the other, Somali American. I've come to almost anticipate in the comment section at least someone pointing out that these are African immigrants, and then stating a variation of the following sentiments:
(1) "Slave-descended success does not equal non-slave-descended success." I put this in quotes and I must call it out because this was blurted in a Facebook discussion by one of my acquaintances, who was one of my smart and hardworking classmates in public health school. She said this in response to an article I posted about Nigerians being the most educated immigrants in the country. I think she didn't know that I was, in fact, only half Nigerian and the other half "slave-descended." I asked her which success I benefited from, either or none at all. The more tactful version of this comment is, "I'm proud of this young person, but their circumstances are different, being an African immigrant. They came here as a child, so their formative years were not marred by the effects of American institutionalized racism like their African American counterparts."
Okay.
(2) "If only young black kids/students could stop [fill in the blank of some stereotypical assumption about black students], they could be achieving these things, too."
(3) African first- and second-generation students are taking "the slots" meant for African American students at these schools.
There are probably others I have missed.
I'm used to these things, and, knowing that I probably shouldn't be wasting my time reading comments sections, anyway, I move on. Or so I think.
Then, today, I read an article about an African American student whose family lost everything in Katrina who overcame this loss and went on to get into 8 Ivy League colleges. I looked at her first and last name. She did not seem like a first- or second-generationer. I scrolled down to the comments section, expecting to see someone say, "Now, here is the story I'm looking for. Congratulations to this young woman!"
Instead, I see a comment, full of vitriol, that does not merit paraphrasing and makes little sense. The young woman wanted to study literature and political science. Great. Those are great majors for pre-law, I would think. Instead, this commenter said something about the majors guaranteeing that she would stay in her parents' home until marriage, harkening to a history at HBCUs of women entering college to marry the HBCU men, snarky comment about high echelon blacks, as this person assumes this woman's parents must be, etc.
And the title of this post is my reaction to that comment.
I realized that there is a group of never-satisfied people who will take this story and despair at the fact that the person is African immigrant or immigrant-descended and thus not "real" black. There is someone else who will dismiss and individual as being part of a so-called disconnected black social class, even if they do not have that data.
This is why I loved the "Player Haters Ball" skit of the Chappelle show so much. Hate for no reason. Hate because you're breathing. Hate with no data. Hate because you can.
And this is the semi-benign (because no hate is ever benign) hating-on, as opposed to the always damaging actual hate that I'm speaking to.
I guess those who think of the stories in an only positive light, like myself, are not the ones commenting.
One of black people's favorite words (at least the black people I grew up with) was accolades. Okay. Can we not give accolades where accolades are due? Seriously. Let's stop bickering about how we should celebrate young African first- and second-gens less because their success means less and its supposedly achieved on the backs of African Americans. Because no it doesn't and no it's not. I am Nigerian-American and I am African-American. I live both perspective simultaneously. Ask me anything.
Maybe if we celebrated one another with genuine pride, we could learn from one another and make this place a better place for all of our children, because seriously, right now, this country is pretty shitty for black people. An African surname will not save any of us from a racist too blinded by our hues and browns to see our humanity.
Maybe we wouldn't have turned our back on Martin Luther King and left him vulnerable and left him assassinated.
Maybe we wouldn't have assisted in the killing of brother Malcolm.
And on and on.
So, in summary, I'm tired of the hate. This is ridiculous. Yes, I do want to hear the story of the kid raised by a hard-working single mom, or who grew up below 100% poverty line, or who struggled through the grittiest ghettos or survived the most dilapidated of school districts get accepted into all the Ivy league schools he or she applied to, but more than that, I want to hear about the adults on the other side of their college education finding careers to help make a difference in ways that are meaningful to them in their communities and in society in general. Because that's where it counts.
And if we're stuck back at being less proud of Africans or disdainful of rich blacks, then I have to quote my mother in telling us, "That's why [we] ain't runnin' nothin'."
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
They Don't Care About Us
Salaam,
As much as I love the Brasil version, this one is the more powerful. No wonder it was banned in the US at the time (and still is?).
And bashed in the NYT. How can saying that "they don't care about us" be bigoted. I don't understand that. To say that such an expression is bigoted is to evoke shame in one who reveals that their benevolent leader is less than caring.
No, "they" don't care about "us," and if we sleep too long, no movement, no matter how strong will keep "them" at bay from destroying "us."
Throughout history, that is the way it is. By time, man is in loss. We have to be constantly vigilant to protect ourselves and those we love from essential slavery, whether it is physical, emotional or mental.
I hear people have been playing this during marches. Some of us just now realizing what's been going on under our noses for some time.
As much as I love the Brasil version, this one is the more powerful. No wonder it was banned in the US at the time (and still is?).
And bashed in the NYT. How can saying that "they don't care about us" be bigoted. I don't understand that. To say that such an expression is bigoted is to evoke shame in one who reveals that their benevolent leader is less than caring.
No, "they" don't care about "us," and if we sleep too long, no movement, no matter how strong will keep "them" at bay from destroying "us."
Throughout history, that is the way it is. By time, man is in loss. We have to be constantly vigilant to protect ourselves and those we love from essential slavery, whether it is physical, emotional or mental.
I hear people have been playing this during marches. Some of us just now realizing what's been going on under our noses for some time.
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