Brooke, who I gather from her use of the royal “we” in her blog post is white gets it started though with some specious in-group generalizations:
Many white people are not trustworthy.
Many white people are arrogant.
White people are flakey (in comments).
Elsewhere, Bin Gregory weighs in with some further thoughts on an exchange he had a few years ago with Umar Lee, who said that one cannot be Muslim and be white. To convert is to lose your ‘white privilege’ pass. Alienation is widespread in the US, BG says, and Muslim conversion confers no special status.
American culture is fundamentally alienating: there is a huge number of white men who are totally alienated from any sense of community or culture or belonging, without becoming muslim, without having done anything to consciously remove themselves before feeling that way. In other words, the feeling of loss, disconnection and emptiness at the heart of so many young white people isn’t a disconnection from any mythical white brotherhood but a disconnection from the awful shallowness and emptiness that is modern American life.
Not only is alienation widespread, but it is celebrated. From youth culture to Hollywood heroes, the cool kids are always the ‘outsiders.’ Alienation confers status. The insight I would bring to this is that adopting an ‘alienated’ identity – converting to Islam, for example – is a quintessentially Western, American thing to do. It may not be the primary or most important reason, but it is coded into our culture. I’m applying this observation to whites such as Umar, Brooke and myself, but reveling in alienation is a shared culture now to greater and lesser degrees among Americans of many (I’m not prepared to say all) racial and ethnic backgrounds.
aziz 5:46 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
this might be a stupid question, but how are we defining “white” ? perhaps a better way of getting at what I’m getting at is, what is specific about these arguments about white identity that can’t be applied equally well to, say, affluent asian americans?
frankly I think that “white privelege” has it backwards. its more about “specific races and social classes lack of privelege”, ie an absence for blacks and other ethnicities that are outwradly very “different” (in which muslims also can fit) rather than any positive benefit to being white.
razib 7:48 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
right. many turks, persians and arabs identify as white. *because they are white physically* the issue is whiteness is being conflated with other things (mainstream american culture).
bingregory 8:51 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
Well I think that’s it exactly, and what I tried to tease out in my post. The conflation of whiteness with mainstream culture winds up causing a lot of pain and confusion to white-skinned people who find themselves outside that. I don’t disagree with the “reveling” – the piercing/tattooing subculture seems to begin and end with self-satisfaction about not being like others – but I think for plenty of other people it’s a not a pleasant sensation and they’d move past it if they could.
Willow 6:41 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
Lord save us, I am so done with white convert identity discussions. Identity is the rock on which the soul founders. There are so many more useful things we could do than contemplate ourselves.
bingregory 8:56 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
Kindly forward your comment here
Brooke 7:37 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
It’s unfortunate that you have chosen to misrepresent this carnival and are only further complicating issues of racism and nationalism within the Ummah by dismissing necessary dialogue as self-indulgent. You should consider why you took the most loaded content of the entire post and repeated it here without any contextual explanation.
“You see, this white privilege carnival could very easily be a giant rantfest about how if feels to have your white privilege card revoked **(or seemingly so), and though that could be very self-satisfying, I think there is a possibility for this endeavor to be much more thought-provoking.”
johnpi 8:16 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
You wrote:
Maintaining or discarding White American cultural norms.
FactObservation: Many white people are not trustworthy and they are arrogant—does that change or remain when we become Muslim?This is your full paragraph/bullet point. You made a declarative statement that many whites are untrustworthy and arrogant – to the point of meriting a racial reference. There is no ‘context’ there that limits the assertion. If anything, the stricken through “
Fact” makes the assertion even stronger.Are you saying that if we took into consideration some larger portion of what you wrote that it would change the meaning here? Please explain to me how. Provide the contextual limitations that I missed and I will acknowledge error.
But if you mean that if we broaden the context far enough that we take in the good intentions of your larger piece, that it would obscure your declarative statement here? Don’t think so.
You should consider why you took the most loaded content of the entire post
You should consider why you loaded in the loaded content in the first place…
Umar 9:01 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
Let me give you one example. St. Louis has the largest Bosnian community in America. They are physically white but in St. Louis people do not consider them white. In Russia those from the Muslim regions even if white are called “blacks”. In the world of boxing there was always talk of the “great White Hope” who would come and save boxing by being the heavyweight champion ( hence the popularity in the 1980’s of Gerry Cooney). Today the heavyweight championship is shared by the white Ukrainian brothers, Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, but they do not fit the bill.
Like I stated before I believe that white is based on what you are not and not on what you are and someone who lives a life according to the sunnah is one of those things you cannot be. I know of one young white man who was murdered in prison just for being white and a Muslim and I have experienced many problems myself from whites over my Islam.
Regarding Willow I do kind of see what you are saying; but I think whites run from their whiteness when it is so important to who they are. Many of the whites who disagreed with what I had written themselves have adopted other cultures, which is the case for most white Muslims I know, and many will not even say they are white. They will say ” I am human” or ” I am white” and in this they are somewhat conforming my argument while verbally disagreeing with it.
The reasons white Muslims don’t want to talk about race is because they don’t want to draw attention to their whiteness and act like it has no bearing on who they are. But, when you look at it, how many white Muslims do you know married to other white Muslims? Of all the white Muslims I have met over the years I only know of two such couples. Then ask yourself how many white Muslims do you know walking around speaking in Desi accents, only eating Arab food, or whatever?
I believe that to be Muslim and to be a white American is not possible from a sociological standpoint. However, once entering Islam, whites tend to gravitate to certain places.
The bulk of white Muslims are from liberal educated backgrounds and I only know of a handful of white Muslims from working-class or poor background like me. Most have some level of “white guilt” ( if they are male they tend to be about as manly as these guys on American Idol) and have somewhat of a love for political correctness and moral and cultural relativism. So, once in the deen, many gravitate towards those Muslim movements which allow them to not alter their lifestyle and not change their liberal world view to conform to Islamic teachings.
The Last Poets said ” the white man has a God complex”. I think this is true and that is why you see white Muslims gravitating to progressive Islam and fringe deviant groups; because they are too arrogant to submit but rather believe they are a gift to the ummah and the ummah is in need of the liberal white man’s ( and woman’s) saving grace to reform it ( and they often get used by those trying to throw white faces out to the media or those with inferiority complexes in the community like many here on TalkIslam who went to the university and got pimped). So, you see them filtering Islam through the West.
Not only are a lot of white Muslims too arrogant to submit and thinking they are smarter than everyone else; but many, in the “I’m spiritual and not religious mode” are too narcissistic to worship anyone but themselves and do not want to curtail their behavior to comply with the shariah. They are too good, too enlightened to submit like some dumb dark creature of the Third World in need , as they see it, not of the mercy of Allah but of the white man’s knowledge . Most, at the end of the day, only worship themselves and like the millions of young secular educated brats you will find in yuppie neighborhoods like Williamsburgh Brooklyn and Hyde Park Chicago they see themselves as the center of the universe. Many were raised by hippie parents who never told them no and never spanked that butt. So, in Islam, they also cannot accept no that’s haram.
They reek of arrogance ion many ways that they do not see. African-American as a rule never had a problem with Islamic orthodoxy, using Arabic phrases and names, and changing their names; but all of these things many white converts I think are too arrogant to do. They say ” I’m not some ni%#$ from East St. Louis who is going to run around calling myself Mustafa I am Blake!” and while the whole ummah says Allah many white converts see themselves as too good for that.
Pi.info 9:19 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
You wrote:
Just an observation before I’m off to sleep, but I don’t see that at all: In general, I see white Muslims as the wired-up-tightest of the conservatives around. Progressives, liberals, etc are a minority within the minority of Muslim whites.
pi.info 9:24 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
Off the top of my head, visible leaders on the progressive/liberal end of spectrum tend to be black, South Asian and Iranian – and disproportionately female.
bingregory 9:17 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
How many white Muslims do you know married to other white Muslims?
Boatloads. You need to get out more.
Then ask yourself how many white Muslims do you know walking around speaking in Desi accents, only eating Arab food, or whatever?
None. Maybe I need to get out more.
razib 9:43 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
lol. the desi accent part is funny. WTF!?!
Willow 9:50 pm on May 20, 2009 Permalink |
Umar I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but I think your dedication to this whole Arabic name thing is talismanic. Most Arabic names have completely secular meanings. Your name, for instance, means ‘urbane’. Zeinab is a kind of small, fragrant tree. Layth and Osama are both names for different aspects of the lion. (I think layth is the reclining lion and osama is the roaring lion, or something.) Uthman means a man from a noble tribe. The bulk of the original Muslims had non-religious names, and the Prophet did not ask them to change them when they converted. In fact, he gave most of his children secular names. (Umm Kulthum means ‘mother of the plump-faced’.) He only made people change if they had explicitly pagan names, like Abdel Shams.
So I think if your original name was Diana or Freya or Krishna, ie after a polytheistic deity, you’d have an obligation to change it upon conversion. But there’s no doctrinal reason to change it otherwise.
Also, throwing around Arabic phrases is not the same as speaking Arabic, as I have seen many self-righteous converts discover when they actually land in an Arab country and realize there’s more to the language than inshallah ya akhi.
It’s also arrogant to act like this religion is a gang, in which gang colors and gang names matter more than belief and niyyat. So you’re definitely right that arrogance is a disease that affects many white converts, but you should probably have the good humor and good graces to include yourself in that category.
aziz 6:29 am on May 21, 2009 Permalink |
let me also add to that, that there are plenty of very good names like Daniyal and Yusuf and Sarrah and Maryam which are both Christian and Islamic alike. The difference in spelling, ie Daniel vs Daniyal, is essentially trivial, because its more a reflection of how the name is spelled in Arabic vs modern English. There isn’t any “true” spelling – the names honor the individuals whom we revere, and thats the main point. Arguing over spelling trivializes whats important.
razib 2:18 pm on May 21, 2009 Permalink |
mehmet? muhammad? the argument about names is often frankly asinine.
thabet 1:48 am on May 23, 2009 Permalink |
Also some names as used/pronounced by Indo-Pak Muslims.
plimfix 12:17 am on May 21, 2009 Permalink |
The problem I have with all this is essentialism. My understanding of the term ‘black’ is that it was viewed as a kind of strategic essentialism – uniting various BME groups under a common cause of racism. But there is no equivalent cultural movement among ‘white’ people – although I suppose it could be argued that (male) WASP power is hegemonic in the global North… (but then what about Obama?) For example – except for a few loonies, no one has ever talked about ‘white consciousness’. Even so, it’s not quite the same – this whole kerboodle seems to imply ‘black’ and ‘white’ are comparable cultural categories. I would argue they are not. I am also dubious that one can meaningfully tease out cultural categories such as ‘colour’ as wholy distinct from ethnicity, class, gender, nationality and so forth.
I wonder who much this is tied up with Muslims in the USA. The Muslim community thing is completely different in the UK. Outside of London, Muslim populations (50% of Muslims in UK) tend to live in formerly industrial inner-cities traditionally occupied by immigrant and/or poor white communities. Faced with decades of racism, many remain astonishingly insular. Among Pakistan Muslims, cousin marriage remains common. Moreover, some Muslimicities are more associated with particularly ethnicities, e.g. Barelwi = Pakistani, Deobandi = Gujerati, although there is a tendency rather than a divide. Anyone converting from outside of this communities who doesn’t either marry into them or effectively ‘convert ethnicity’ is likely to remain an outsider unless they seek out a status position.
Safiya Outlines 7:08 am on May 22, 2009 Permalink |
Salaam Alaikum,
I think we need to be a bit careful about branding the discussion of certain issues as navel gazing.
Blogging is essentially a self indulgent pastime anyway. Anyone here saving lives with their blogging? Thought not.
As for being done with certain issues, it’s great if you feel you’ve worked through x issue and you don’t feel it’s relevant to you, for other people it may be very relevant to them, particularly if they are new to the deen.
White privilege is not so much an issue of identity, as one of interaction. When you are socialised with the belief that yours is the mainstream, correct view, it will impact how you relate to other people.
I’m getting increasingly disappointed with how much silencing is going on in the Muslim Blogosphere. Popular techniques include:
Muslimer-than-thou card,
The Haraam police schtick,
Only Allah Can Judge (so shut up),
You’re Not a Scholar
Have Some Adab
What You’re Saying Is Something I Said 5 Years Ago, So It Bores Me, So I don’t Think You Should Talk About It.
We just lack compassion for each other, hence the unwillingness to listen to each other.
aziz 9:26 am on May 22, 2009 Permalink |
i dont see any “silencing” going on. critique yes, but not “silencing”.
and if anyone tries to use any of those techniques here at Talk Islam, then they are not going to get very far. I certainly don’t think john’s post employed any of the above.
Safiya Outlines 5:51 pm on May 22, 2009 Permalink |
I think dismissing something as naval gazing, i.e unimportant and not worthy of discussion, is silencing.
aziz 5:05 pm on May 23, 2009 Permalink |
we can agree to disagree. you are equating honest critique with censorship; in such a case, perhaps you are self-silencing, but no one is actually preventing you from expressing yourself.
public writing that brooks no critique may as well be private. You can write in your diary or a private blog if you like; but if you publish it forthe world to see, then expect that it will be considered critically.
thabet 2:09 pm on May 22, 2009 Permalink |
Silencing has happened on the internet:
1. Govts using the law to crackdown on bloggers, etc.
2. Rich and powerful people using libel laws to get blogs shutdown.
Brooke 12:51 pm on May 22, 2009 Permalink |
Safiya – Get thee back into purdah with your navel gazing!
pi.info 7:40 am on May 23, 2009 Permalink |
Salaams Brooke,
I wasn’t trying to be censorious of the topic. I had actually just read sunnisisters hilarious send-up of “Muzzle blahgging topics” that Mr. Moo had reposted over at Tariq’s blog. One of the topics she makes fun of is identity conversations. I liked that piece so much I kind of picked up that voice/perspective when i wrote about what you were doing. Also, I was a little put off by the material we exchanged about earlier so that primed me further to “distance” myself with ironic perspective.
Willow 12:12 pm on May 23, 2009 Permalink |
Opposition–even when it’s dismissive–is not the same as silencing, imo. Debates get lively and often personal around here on a regular basis, but no one is threatened with harm or ostracism or takfir, all of which are real forms of silencing. (If somebody engages in one or more, we boot the offender.)
A good argument will stand up to–or even above–opposition. You don’t have to cry foul and claim the game is unfair in order to make your point. Get in there and convince PI he’s wrong! He can take it.
Safiya Outlines 7:00 pm on May 23, 2009 Permalink |
Salaam Alaikum,
I think it’s indicative of a real malaise in the Muslim blogosphere that not takfiring even has to be mentioned. People shouldn’t takfir, full stop.
I think dismissing someone’s argument is an entirely different to critiquing it. With a critique, you are at least assessing the person’s point and providing a response, with a dismissal, that process doesn’t even take place, hence there’s no real dialogue. If you refuse in dialogue with someone, you are effectively silencing them.
Back to the original point, White Privilege is not about identity, it’s about the socialisation of white people in society and how it effects their interactions with people of colour (and I go into detail about this in my contribution).
So to dismiss the carnival as an identity issue, is short sighted. P.I was engaging with what he thought the carnival was, rather then the reality of it.
I do feel that white privilege is a real issue amongst converts, and it’s one we do have to deal with. Particularly as some converts are overly fond of wallowing in their ‘othered’ status and deny they have it. If someone has an argument as to why white converts don’t need to asses their privilege, I would be interested in hearing it.
pi.info 5:52 am on May 24, 2009 Permalink |
I think dismissing someone’s argument is an entirely different to critiquing it. With a critique, you are at least assessing the person’s point and providing a response, with a dismissal, that process doesn’t even take place, hence there’s no real dialogue. If you refuse in dialogue with someone, you are effectively silencing them.
First, you don’t dismiss someone’s argument by posting it on your page. That’s actually a form of discussion promotion.
Further, I offered to correct errors if Brooke could point me to where I was wrong, so engaged and had an exchange. In my opinion your description doesn’t match what actually happened upstream.
Here’s an example of something similar from Umar’s front page:
Umar is saying here that TalkIslam is a site that he reads, that is part of what he thinks about and where he goes to get inspired to write new blog posts – even though he blasting us in his usual “shock and awe” style. If Umar could put together a New York Times of the Muslim blogosphere we’d be there. Thanks Umar.
It’s also true that when Umar wan’ts to lean back in his chair and drift away in a cloud of inspiration with thoughts of gay orgys dancing in his head, he comes to the alleged Turkish bath that is TalkIslam. So far as I know, Umar is the only person who has ever come away from this site talking about gay orgys, so I think that’s Brother Umar’s problem, not TalkIslam.
bingregory 8:53 pm on May 24, 2009 Permalink |
Hah! UmmZ just jinxed the whole thing, that’s all. Oracle indeed. Have you read Brooke’s explanation of the untrustworthy thing? It wasn’t at all what it seemed from her perhaps hasty original statement. Give it a read.