Loading ...OPINION: Arab-American Muslims have a race problem
In February, after three Arab-American Muslim students were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, young Muslims across the country mobilized. They organized vigils, launched a successful nationwide canned food drive to feed the homeless in their honor and continue to do other great work in their memory. But just two months earlier, when 15-year-old Somali Muslim Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein was brutally murdered in Kansas City, Missouri, as he left his mosque, there was no collective outrage over his death — no vigils, no call to service in his memory, no op-eds asking for justice in national outlets.
In April, as public anger in Baltimore spiked over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the Islamic Society of North America framed the mostly peaceful protests as devolving into “wanton destruction, thievery, looting and arson.” Although the group updated its inaccurate statement after a handful of American Muslim writers and activists called foul, the fact that such a long-standing Muslim community institution could be so off base on the continued systemic violence being perpetrated against African-Americans is indicative of a deeper problem that goes far beyond the leadership of any one Muslim organization.
Put simply: South Asian– and Arab-American Muslims have a race problem. To understand the extent of that problem, look no further than how black Muslims are treated in American Muslim communities.
Black Muslims, which include African-Americans and immigrants from African countries, make up nearly a quarter of American Muslims. Yet they are often left out and ignored by their co-religionists. African-American Muslims in particular are segregated out of mosques dominated by South Asian– and Arab-American Muslims. Referring to black Muslims as abed, or “slave,” is commonplace among some Muslim communities, and many South Asian– and Arab-American families discourage if not outright forbid their children to marry them.
None of this is new. American Muslims constitute the most racially diverse religious group in the country, yet there is a long history of intrafaith racism against black Muslims. The roots of this racism are multifaceted. Immigrants from South Asia come to the U.S. with a host of cultural beliefs and remnants of colonial thinking that place a premium on lighter skin. For example, India, home to 180 million Muslims, has a skin-whitening-cream market worth $500 million annually. Immigrants from the Middle East hail from a region whose slave trade commoditized at least 10 million Africans, particularly women, over millennia. Saudi Arabia and Yemen abolished slavery only in 1962, and today, there are frequent reports of abuse and exploitation of African and Asian domestic workers throughout the region.
Source: america.aljazeera.com