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Islam and the Blackamerican
by Sherman A Jackson
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Sherman Jackson offers a trenchant examination of the career of Islam among the blacks of America. Jackson notes that no one has offered a convincing explanation of why Islam spread among Blackamericans (a coinage he explains and defends) but not among white Americans or Hispanics. Theassumption has been that there is an African connection. In fact, Jackson shows, none of the distinctive features of African Islam appear in the proto-Islamic, black nationalist movements of the early 20th century. Instead, he argues, Islam owes its momentum to the distinctively American phenomenonof "Black Religion," a God-centered holy protest against anti-black racism. Islam in Black America begins as part of a communal search for tools with which to combat racism and redefine American blackness...
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"I think that Sherman Jackson is one of the most important intellectuals in the United States right now. He’s an African American who converted to Islam. He is saying to Muslim immigrants in the United States: “We African American Muslims have a problem with you. You are coming with an Islamic understanding from the Arab world and you want to buy into the American dream and just show Islam is kind and nice and that we share your values.” But he is saying that there are cultural problems and socioeconomic injustice and that you can’t get a sense of what’s really happening in the United States if you don’t understand the very deep tension between blackness and whiteness. What he’s saying here is that it’s beyond a religious problem. It’s a racial problem, which is based on power and history, and a political and social system which is based on structural discrimination. He’s questioning the Muslim leadership in the United States and saying that the new Muslim immigrants are not getting it right. They are forgetting history. It is informed by their experience as black Americans. I think this is very important. It’s not a new version of Islam – it is Islamic principles understood within a specific environment. What Sherman is saying is that racial issues and the very long history of discrimination are very important. He argues that if immigrant Muslims are not aware of this, they will do exactly the same to their fellow Muslims as the whites are doing to the blacks. And this is exactly what is happening. Today the African American Muslims are not working with the new immigrants. This is not because of a different understanding of Islam, but it’s a class issue. You have new Muslim immigrants who are very privileged within society and the African American Muslims are saying that not only are they second-class citizens with the whites, but now they are second-class Muslims amongst Muslims."