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African American Muslims and the LAPD

Kamilah Pickett on December 11, 2018

The following article by Nick Shindo Street was originally published on September 18, 2018, on BOOM California, an online media publication dedicated to highlighting vital conversations about social and cultural issues in California. The views expressed and the programs described do not necessarily reflect the views of Sapelo Square or its editorial staff and is reposted here in the interest of capturing the diverse conversations occurring within the Black Muslim community. 

LAPD n MuslimsImage credit – Nick Shindo Street

Earlier this year, the ILM (Intellect, Love and Mercy) Foundation in Los Angeles, Ca., convened a group of sixteen Black Muslim community organizers to prepare for a public forum between the Black Muslim Community in South Central and the Los Angeles Police Department. That initial meeting morphed into a training that centered what the organizers called a “stories to solutions” framework — a way of articulating problems and demands that steered the conversation away from both “unproductive rancor” and a kumbaya circle that would avoid hard truths. The subsequent community gathering at Masjid Bilal Islamic Center was the first of its kind in recent memory and organizers envisioned it as a starting point for further community dialogues that would provide agency for Black Muslims to assert some semblance of control in their community.

You can read about that conversation here.

LAPD n Muslims 2.jpgImage credit – Nick Shindo Street

 

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Top Billin’: Muslim Cool on Left of Black

Rashida James-Saadiya on November 20, 2018

By Sapelo Square

This week, we invite you to watch to an episode from “Left of Black,” a weekly Black Studies webcast hosted by cultural critic and professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University, Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. In this episode, Sapelo’s Senior Editor Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer discusses how she uses cultural anthropology and hip hop to explore the intersections of race, Islam and popular culture; most notably in her book Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States. She also explores these topics through her one-woman show, Sampled: Beats of Muslim Life. This performance piece, which fuses theater, poetry, and movement, was inspired by George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum and for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuff by Ntozake Shange.  

During this engaging interview, Dr. Abdul Khabeer shares her own relationship with hip hop and reminisces about the songs she grew up on, such as “Top Billin’” by Audio Two, and discussing their collective impact on her personal development. For example, she shares how hip hop artist Jean Grae’s cathartic storytelling offers a pathway to explore the art of lyricism outside of a masculine paradigm. In addition, she shares how both cultural and religious identities have formed her perspective. In particular, Abdul Khabeer credits her travel outside of the United States as the impetus for her to explore religious, racial and cultural identities among American Muslim communities through hip hop.

Check it out below!