You First: Getting Rid of The "No Snitching" Policy

The infamous "No Snitching" policy: the practice of not talking to, cooperating with, or reporting criminal activity to the police is highlighted as one of the biggest obstacles police have in trying to fight crime in Black and Brown inner city neighborhoods. Some of our nation's most prominent police department leaders point to this lack of community cooperation as a major barrier to them being able to effectively do their jobs.

According to an article in the USA Today, "Chicago's homicide clearance rate – the percentage of cases in which police arrest or identify a suspect – fell from 17.1 percent in 2017 to 15.4 percent during the first six months of 2018. If that rate holds through the end of the year, it would be the sixth consecutive annual decline." These stats, in my opinion, are clear testament to the lack of trust community members have in the police. It might not be the only factor, but it would be foolish to dismiss it as an insignificant one.

One Monday in August of 2018, Chicago was coming off a torrid weekend of gun-violence marked by 12 homicides and 66 shootings. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson both called on community members to come forward to help get shooters off the streets. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but see the irony in these types of appeals where police try to cajole community members into trusting them, in one breath, and then castigate those same community members in the next, calling them part of the problem.

Since we're asking for help, who's going to help stop police shootings of unarmed Black men? *crickets*
As it is, I can't think of any group that has held as tightly to the "No Snitching" policy as have our nation’s police. It’s not enough that residents of communities are forced to endure police violence, perpetrated against them by “rogue” officers, but then they have to deal with the betrayal of police silence by those officers who know that their silence continues to put communities at risk.
Silence is the mortar holding the bricks of the blue wall together, and an obstruction separating the police from the communities they serve. Because of this separation, police have little (if any) credibility in communities of color, other than what they carry with them as individuals-- and that character currency often only extends to those who know these men and women on a personal basis.

More often than not, the woman or man of integrity donning the uniform sees their conscience muted, their moral imperative to speak truth to power forgone, and realizes they are not part of a force for justice. They are here to maintain the status-quo, through their (mis)use of power. The 2014 murder of 17 year old African American Laquan McDonald by former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke put the Chicago Police Department's no-snitching policy on full display for not only Chicago, but for the world to see. The footage that sparked outrage in Chicago, and across the nation, was almost never seen.

Freelance journalist Brandon Smith filed a suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the Chicago Police department after they denied his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request; Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama ordered that the video be released and what followed afterwards was a clear indictment of the no-snitching culture embedded in the CPD.
Not only did the video footage show McDonald walking away from police when Van Dyke arrived on the scene, but it also showed him being shot 16 times. Some of those shots riddled his body as he lay on the ground, already dying. Van Dyke claimed Laquan lunged at him, and three other officers corroborated this fiction; the footage proved otherwise. But, I won’t rehash every “i” that wasn’t dotted, or “t” that wasn’t crossed; that’s been done enough already. My point here is simple: The people who were supposed to be upholding the law stood by and did nothing, said nothing, as a young man was senselessly murdered. And to send a clear message to the Black and Brown communities impacted by Police violence (and to all people of conscience-- in general) that justice will not consider them as her patrons, a lenient 7 year sentence was given to Van Dyke, and the three officers who tried to protect his (Van Dyke’s) lies were all acquitted.

"some, just turn a blind eye..."

Some officers, don’t go as far as writing false reports; some, just turn a blind-eye to the bigot, the thief, the abuser, the murderer beside them, simply because that individual wears a badge. I’d venture to say that is the reality of most of our “good police” and because of their silence they resign themselves to a vacuous existence devoid of moral power and will continue to exercise the only power available to those who subvert justice: the hated power of tyrants. To those police officers who truly aspire to serving the people, with honor and dignity: we, the people, respond to your suggestion that we change the no-snitching culture in our communities much like a pair of playground youth goading each other to perform some random daring act of bravery-- “You first.”



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A Chicago Shooting Afterwards

His Precedence Might Be Worse Than His Presidency

It is not Donald Trump's presidency that worries me so much as it is his precedence. I do not mean to make light of  the ravage of mental illness  when I say that every individual who's been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, to have sociopaths tendencies, or with bipolar disorder, or even Alzheimer's will point to Trump's presidency as grounds for joining the political fray.  He is the all bets are off President. He has brought change to Washington, and has made it unrecognizable.

There is nothing that can go without saying, nothing we can assume to be common knowledge, not during a Trump presidency. Trump is the most prolific liar the country has ever seen. Like a college frat boy going on an alcohol escapade--commonly referred to as a Bender--Trump goes on "Fact-Benders", and I think is literally intoxicated by his lies.  For the most part, his lies border on ridiculous, the incomprehensible or the just downright dumb. However, Trump makes up for the quality of his lies with the mind numbing volume with which he serves them up; over the past 10 months, Trump Fact-Checkers might have the highest rates of carpal tunnel among all occupations in the country.  From his inane assertions that former President Obama was not a U.S. Citizen, or that he was spied on by said administration, to his comments about the size of his inauguration crowd being the largest in history, he is a ridiculous, dangerous, man.

This Trump presidency is a memorial to the confluence of greed and opportunism that gripped, just about, every major news outlet in the country who propped him up and, whose incessant, coverage suggested that he be taken seriously as a viable option for our nation's highest elected office. Shame on you. May sleep elude you and if it should find you may you dream of killer oranges that tell you they're apples.

 

The Hateful Hooded Faces Surrounding Black America

Black people, do not doubt for a moment; these people want you dead or subdued. There should be no question that, if given the opportunity (and guarantee of immunity) they would end your life, or take your freedom. 

The fact that they emerge from the shadows of cyberspace, shrouded by anonymous usernames, serving as their virtual hood and robe, should come as no surprise to you. You should also conclude that they walk among you in the light of the real world: taking coffee orders, writing citations, entering verdicts, grading papers, coaching little league, interviewing applicants, preparing food, putting out fires, deciding creditworthiness, or addressing the nation from the Oval Office. 

The memes of today, so widely circulated among bigots and xenophobes are a precursor to the violence they intend to, or wish they could, inflict upon you and I. 

The anonymity of yesterdays domestic terrorist, secured by that hood and robe, has not been done away with; in fact, it has merely taken on a new expression reflective of today's always connected, always on, social media reality, and it's just as capable of instilling terror and suspicion into those caught in its trap. 

Across the continents of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat these homegrown terrorist find opportunities to express their hatred for Black people. They do so in their own virtual gatherings and on the public post they happen across, there they erect digital equivalents of burning crosses and watch as the fire frightens and angers the unsuspecting folk who've caught their attention. 

Historically, cross burnings have foretold the deadly acts of violence against African Americans, committed by America's worst citizens. They were a grim signpost that said you were on the road to midnight abductions, tortures, castrations, burnings, and lynchings. 

Whether posting a photo-shopped picture of former first lady, Michelle Obama's head cropped onto a gorilla's body, or showing video of a pediatric nurse manipulating a newborn African american baby like a marionette as gangsta rap plays in the background, or video of a white police officer sitting atop the chest of an African American grandmother, raining punches down on her face, these all transmit the disdain and hatred held for African Americans. 

No matter what their expression of hate for you is, take it seriously. African American’s must take the threat these people represent seriously, and take every opportunity to unmask them, to pull off their robes and hoods. Remember, their hoods went on when our chains came off. 

The transition from centuries of being the possessions upon which the prosperity of white America was built to being free and able to join in the quest for liberty and prosperity was not a smooth one. In 2017, our United States of America still has not come to grips with its shameful treatment of its African American population: from chattel slavery, to freedom, to being terrorized for being free. There has been no remuneration for the millions of descendants of the millions of enslaved persons of African descent whose portion in life was taken from them and added to the coffers of others. 

Today, a pattern of state sanctioned violence against African American people persists. Across the United States unarmed Black men continue to be gunned down by Police, and each time the result is the same, Not Guilty; the effects of these continued miscarriages of justice are frustration and anger; these are two powerful potential catalyst for transformation, and that possible transformation, that leveling of the playing field is terrifying to America's homegrown terrorist. 

So, it should come as no surprise that the system is being employed against you and I; we now learn the FBI has stated that Black Identity Extremist are the new U.S. Terrorist threat. Really? This, after the largest mass murder committed on U.S. soil, perpetrated by a white man, Stephen Paddock? This, even in light of the fact that the majority of domestic terrorism in the United States is committed by White males--who by the way, have no connection to Islam? These realities are not lost on me, nor do I believe they are lost on you. 

So, whether violence is delivered via agents of the state, or by its private citizens, who somehow continue to escape scrutiny, the goal is the clear. Assume the worst, because they have given you no reason to believe otherwise. 

Image credit
Brady Street Protest by Robert W.
https://flic.kr/p/fLrM2f

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.

Designer Jeans

Imagine: You feel life slipping away with each breath. You feel the weight of your heart growing heavier with each beat. During this realization comes your final thoughts and words. You look around for familiar faces, a husband, a wife, a sister, or a brother, a child, even a friend and you ask...you ask about your collection of...of designer jeans...What? I know, that's totally out of place. Who, in their right mind, would be thinking about clothes, shoes, cars,--you know all the stuff we place so much importance on during our lives-- in their final moments?


What's interesting to me, and I know many have made the point previously, is that clarity seems to come when we see the end of things, coming near. Life is very much like a good book; we enjoy it, yet dread the finality of that ending punctuation. Knowing that the final period is coming, we take stock of everything we've experienced up to that point. We gloss over the trivial, and highlight the major moments. We look back at our failures, and own our victories, and quite possibly we may still harbor feelings that we could have done more. So what does any of this have to do with the title Designer Jeans? Everything.

We continue to find (or have heaped upon us) ways to stratify ourselves. From where we live, to what we drive, to what we wear, these are all used to assign a value to the owner. And, because we are willing participants in this determination of value we, in turn, devalue the true measure of a life's worth. Go through any "impoverished" area of any major U.S. city and you will find, young and old, walking about,wearing shoes-clothes--and jewelry--  that might suggest they are visitors from some far off affluent suburb. This is not the case. This is the effect of the culture of devaluation. No one wants to be poor. Everyone wants to be rich, and the surest way for a poor person attempting to avoid being judged as less than is to fool the world (in their estimation) by putting on, what they believe to be, the clothing of the rich.

Clothing has, and continues to serve multiple purposes. Our clothes can denote our professions (i.e. military, police, doctors, mail carriers, etc.); our clothes serve as a protection from the elements, and our clothes can also beautify us. But, to make a lowly determination of a persons worth as a human being based on the clothing they wear, and treat them as such, might turn out to be one of those things we'd like to take back when we take stock of our life's journey. Knowing what value G-d places on things gives us the guidelines on how to value and what to value. Of clothing G-d says:

"O children of Adam! We have indeed sent down to you clothing to cover your private parts, and (clothing) for beauty, and clothing of righteousness, that is the best. This is of the signs of Allah (G-d) that they may be mindful." Qur'an 7:26

The clothing of righteousness. The clothing of G-d conscious character is the best, and preferred clothing. To be impoverished, wearing tattered clothing, but to have G-d consciousness is better than being draped in designer originals, while forgetting the Most High. If this thinking was the basis of our struggling and how we place value, we would not waste time pretending to be something someone else wants us to be, but would exert every effort in becoming what we were made to be.

Today, let's appraise and live with the clarity we expect to have on the day we breathe our last breaths, looking back over our lives.