A Fathers Fear

Stone Mountain, GA—The parking lot steadily fills. Pickup trucks, motorcycles—big and loud Harley’s, vans, and cars all find spaces, filling the lot from back to front. Confederate flags, that emblem commemorating a history of subjugation and 3/5ths humanity, are on bumper stickers, flags, antennas, and draped across truck beds and back windows. A  sea of white people bubble out of their vehicles, spilling out onto the asphalt of the lot. I'm out of view, thirty yards away walking a trail with my wife and three daughters, and for the first time in my life, the sickest feeling begins rising up in my core: the dread of any man. I realize that, in this place, I can't protect my family. I feel fear. And I’m angry that I’ve been caught off guard.

From an early age, probably around 7 or 8, I was drawn to history: African American history. My parents were avid readers whose literary interests spanned multiple genres from science fiction to Shakespeare, from biographies to philosophy, from newspapers to magazines, and even graphic novels. Our home felt like our own library; it felt like books were everywhere. We had at least two sets of encyclopedias. Encyclopedias, the Google of my childhood, fascinated me: knowing that I could go into these books and entertain (and satisfy) my curiosities was an indescribable joy, which consumed hours of my childhood. Among the books that arrested my curiosity and pinned down my attention for an entire summer was the Ebony Pictorial History of Black America: a three volume set; reaching back to African civilization, on to the transatlantic slave trade—where estimates as low as 1 million and as high as 2 million Africans perished on the voyage to the Americas— to the civil rights era.These books and the pictures within shaped my sensitivities, and my perception of race and the world.

From slavery through civil rights, the accounts and pictures in the Ebony Pictorial added weight to my soul. I recall looking at a picture of the 1930 lynching of two black men (Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith) in Marion, Indiana. They were surrounded by a sea of smiling, cheering white faces, some smiling at the camera and others smiling at their lifeless bodies. The effect was felt: in the mind of a little black boy on the southside of Chicago, reading the account and looking at the pictures of those hanging bodies; in that moment, I was afraid. I looked at the white faces. Grinning. Content. Aloof. At that point in my life had I walked into a room of white people I couldn't have felt more trepidation than if I were in a cage of wild dogs, or in the middle of the ocean surrounded by hungry sharks. I saw them as mindless predators—No, for even predators only kill to eat or in defense. These people killed out of a mind numbing, irrational, blinding hate.

I imagine what I felt, next to that lot of confederate flag holders, was but an inkling of the dread  generations of Black men who time, location, and circumstance proffered the same frightfully emasculating reality to; they could not protect themselves nor their families. I imagine the fear, the hate, and the anguish that must have flowed through them in them realizing that they were outnumbered, outgunned, and even a moral victory would allude them. As a man, no matter your race or ethnicity, having your ability to protect your family from external threats compromised, compromises your manhood.

To think that for generation after generation, the black man’s physical strength mocked him. His prowess was but a botheration to himself. His marriage was a sham. His progenitorship carrying all the weight of a bull-stud mating with cows; he had been systematically reduced to nothing more than a tool.

My family and I continued to walk the trail, heading back to our car. We continued walking, out of sight of that sea of white, until reaching the main road where we saw a police vehicle parked at the entrance of the lot.  Behind the wheel was a black man. I felt a weight lift off me. He looked to be in his early twenties but could pass for a high school senior. I spoke: “Good afternoon, Officer. Can you tell me what’s going on here?” He replied that it was some sort of reenactment. The only thing running through my mind was that they could have put up a sign or something alerting the public to what was taking place. As we emerged out onto the main road, we saw other African American faces whose countenance surely mirrored our own.

The dread. The fear. The anger. Each lies under the surface, unexpectedly raising its head with jaws agape, threatening, exposing teeth which have inflicted centuries of scars, threatening the lives we live today. How far have we come? How much further do we have to go?

I think about Religion, a lot. As Imam of a masjid, I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise.  However, my thoughts aren't centered around dogma or the mechanics of religion. I spend most of my time thinking about the end result of Religion, it’s product. The G-d conscious human being.  Based on our individual faith traditions, we call ourselves by different names, but I will use believer here as an umbrella term. At the center of each belief system is a character archetype (role model), for believers, exemplifying the G-d conscious human being, in action.

These character archetypes (Christ, Muhammad, Buddha,--On them be peace), serve as guideposts for our own behavior and character aspirations. They illumine the road to self mastery. If there is any role we play in our success or failure, it begins and ends with mastery of self. Mastery comes through conscious repetition of those exercises (e.g. prayer, fasting) which place us in the footsteps of those venerated scriptural models. When put into practice, we bear witness to the power of their implementation, reaping the benefits of what G-d has made incumbent upon us.

As believers, we recognize that no matter what we call ourselves, we will never be able to call ourselves done, or finished. We should see our faiths and their models of character as ways to  chart-- as well as correct-- our courses through life. The ongoing result of the Believers application of faith is an elevated consciousness. This consciousness manifests itself not only in moments of solitary reflection, or repentance, but through our displayed sensitivities--words-- and deeds in the public space.

Perhaps, by seeing one another as brothers and sisters in faith, struggling toward the same goal, we might better the world by bettering ourselves.

Clean Up

The person covered in dirt is the one most in need of a bath. We don't stop washing our hands, our faces, our feet, ourselves out of fear that we might get dirty, again. Everything gets dirty, yet it's our commitment to removing the dirt from ourselves, to washing the dirt away, that should define our lives, not the moments we fall into the dirt.

As people of faith trying to live a life in harmony with scripture and prophetic character, one of the first things to be done away with is the All or Nothing attitude; believing that unless you are living the perfect life each and every day makes you are not a disbeliever, or that holding onto your identity as a person of faith despite your mistakes and shortcomings makes you a hypocrite. If this is how you think, you are defeated before you begin.

I personally know of people raised in believing families, who self identify--albeit in private--as Muslims or Christians, but publicly remain silent regarding their faith out of embarrassment over the current state of their lives. To me, the most important possession of any person of faith, is a deep core belief in the mercy of G-d. That mercy gives us the space we need to move from momentary failures to lasting successes. Accepting G-d's mercy in our own lives allows for our redemption when we have fallen.