Dr. Sherman Jackson - Islam and Race An American Perspective - UF Islam Awareness Month 2011

By Abdal Hakim Jackson | 2026-01-13T19:24:15.273959+00:00 | Topic: Muslim Identity

Islam and Race

Islam and Race: An American Perspective

Dr. Sherman Jackson - University of Florida Islam Awareness Month 2011

Opening Address

Of course, the French might have been able to dispense with explicit references to race, because unlike the early Americans, they could assume the races of their vast majority. Be that as it may, America's founding fathers' explicit naming of whiteness as a legal prerequisite would have far- reaching social, cultural, political, and even psychological effects.

On the one hand, as Matthew Frye Jacobson points out, America would embrace, and I quote here, "the distinctly racial understanding of difference and equality."

Historical Context of American Racial Identity

At the same time, however, as Richard Dyer would observe, the very existence of a racialized criteria laden not only with legal, but with powerful social, cultural, and economic advantages would engender in every newcomer to this country - this land of immigrants - an inexorably positive social attraction toward American whiteness.

To quote Dyer, he says the following: "Because whiteness carries such rewards and privileges, the sense that a border that might be crossed and a hierarchy that might be climbed has produced a dynamic that has involved people who have had any chance at all of participating in it."

Now, as mentioned, by 1870, blackness, or African descent, would also be identified as a qualifying characteristic for United States citizenship. But blackness by this time, and henceforth, could be recognized as carrying few of the fringe benefits of whiteness. As a result, between 1878 and 1952, when race was dropped as a consideration for citizenship, virtually none of the immigrants who ascribed to American citizenship based their claim to eligibility on their status of African descent, although one could have become a citizen by proving that one was of African descent. Rather, all but one of the 52 applicants whose cases were heard in American courts argued as though to prove that they were white.

The Invisible Nature of Whiteness

Even those who had already succeeded in gaining recognition as white feared the possibility of losing it. Thus, in response to a court's initial refusal to recognize Syrians as white, a prominent Jewish leader expressed his fear that if the Japanese and Syrians were definitively declared Asians, quote, "it will not be a far step to declare Jews Asian."

As Sarah Baltiara demonstrates in her book story, "A Study of Early 20th Century Syrian Immigrants," all world conceptions of difference that had been rooted in religion were quickly Americanized and gave way to a new racial awareness and became increasingly invested in whiteness.

Being invested in whiteness, however, was and is not the same as being invested in race. For as Richard Dyer points out, and I quote here, "to say that one is interested in race in America has come to mean that one is interested in any racial imagery other than that of white people." In other words, it is only non-whites who are understood to be raced.

Whiteness, in a sense, comes to constitute the invisible race. This has a number of serious implications. First, race is largely a non-white category and a non-white concern. Second, whiteness is the invisible American race. To be white is to be normal, to be a product not of history, but rather of nature. This would enable white people to speak for humanity as a whole.

Critique of Universal Human Rights

And by the way, I've been doing some reading lately concerning critiques of human rights as a construct. And one of the major critiques of the movement for that human rights construct is that it essentially identifies the European movement as a universal movement. It empowers Europeans to speak for humanity as a whole.

And what they understand to be rights must be accepted as rights in a universal context for all peoples. Raced people, on the other hand, can only speak for their particular group. Thirdly, and this is one of the implications of all of this, to pursue, therefore, and accept induction into American whiteness is not to engage in any political act, nor to assume any role in any political contest.

One is not taking part in contestations between whites and non-whites. Rather, what one is simply doing is assuming one's natural role in the social, political order of America. This is the trajectory followed by America's Muslims from the Muslim world.

The Challenge for Muslim Immigrants

And yet, 9/11 and its aftermath has presented Muslims who immigrated from the Muslim world with a very unique and unanticipated challenge. Simply stated, Muslim immigrants to the United States are not only socially non-white, they are also legally and socially non-black.

On this reality, one might say that they are, in fact, socially unraced. For many Muslims, this is not only problematic, it is actually normative. For them, race is the peculiar, odd, and thoroughly unacceptable obsession of bigoted American rednecks and hyper-sensitive blacks.

However, if Jacobson and other scholars are right, and America invariably operates on the basis of a distinctly racial understanding of difference, then race must, at least as a matter of fact, be recognized as an operative aspect of American reality. Muslim immigrants may be unraced in the sense that they are indifferent towards or opposed to an explicitly racial, i.e. non-white, commitment. But this does not mean that Americans as a whole will not socially racialize immigrant Muslims.

And to the extent that such social racialization is inevitable, Muslims may be remiss in remaining racially agnostic and refusing or failing to explore the implications, liabilities, and opportunities that attend this predicament. Yet an exploration that limits itself to the role and power of American whiteness is bound to fall short, given the myopic vision of race that whiteness tends to promote. Thus I have argued that one must look beyond whiteness to the role and impact of American blackness in American social political history and identity formation.

Five Implications of American Blackness

Now as with race in general, and I hope you are listening very carefully here, I must pause here for another explanatory note. My point in highlighting the function of American blackness is emphatically not to elevate black Americans above any other people, certainly not in terms of any inherent quality that black Americans might be presumed to possess as a biological race. In fact, my focus here is not on American blackness as a biological fact, but rather as a historical fact and an inextricably American social political experience.

As an American phenomenon, blackness has been part of the experience of both blacks and whites. In fact, more than any other factor, it has contributed to the very meaning and function of whiteness itself. It is in this capacity that American blackness not only informs American self-understanding, it underwrites a number of immovable American realities, sensitivities, tendencies, norms, and possibilities, all of which are summarily obscured by a single-minded focus upon American whiteness.

Given the limitations of space, I will limit myself here to a brief exploration of five implications of American blackness.

First: Multiple American Racial Authenticities

First, American blackness represents not simply the possibility, but the actual fact of multiple American racial authenticities. Here, in fact, the utility of lumping America together with Europe as collectively the West reaches its point of diminishing return.

For while whiteness may remain the primary racial connotation of America, it is not the only racial identity that connotes America. Martin Luther King Jr., Snoop Dogg, Muhammad Ali, and countless others are equally connotative of America. In fact, not only do these personalities connote America, they connote only America, not the West, and not even Africa, at first glance.

Indeed, one is reminded here of the powerful insight of James Baldwin, and I quote here, "Negroes do not exist in any other country." All of this is another way of saying that, unlike their presence in Europe, blacks in America thoroughly frustrate the agenda to limit America to a single racial authenticity. Indeed, they represent the fact that there are at least two racially authentic Americans.

And this is perhaps why it is primarily white people and black people who are now routinely asked the question, where are you or your parents from?

Second: Inalienable American Belonging

Second, American blackness represents the possibility of inalienable American belonging tied to a social, i.e. not just legally recognized right, and expectation to dissent. Simply stated, black Americans are both a publicly recognized identity in difference that was forged by a centuries-long experience in America.

While Arabs and Indo-Pakistanis also have American identities in difference, the perception is that the supporting elements in these identities were largely brought to America from without.

Now, on this perception, the more Arab or Pakistani Americans endorse their native folk ways or idiosyncrasies, for example, speaking Arabic or Urdu, eating Vietnamese food or whatever, the less American they are likely to be perceived to be by the founding culture. By contrast, the more black Americans speak Ebonics, or black English, the more American, as opposed to African, they are perceived to be. Hence, whereas American belongingness and authenticity for black Americans is easily recognized by their degree of divergence from the American cultural norm, it is precisely their acumen at conforming to that norm that confers belongingness and authenticity upon Arabs and Indo-Pakistanis.

Third: Non-White Western Authenticity

Third, even as it represents the reality of non-white American authenticity, American blackness provides an entree into the possibility of non-white westernness. This is a controversial issue, and many black Americans remain resistant to this thesis. Much of this fades, however, on the recognition that black routes, that is, the routes that one takes to black Americanness, are as informative for black Americanness as are black roots, i.e. Africa.

Equally vindicated is the recognition that as westerners, black Americans are not mere consumers of some prefabricated western civilization, but rather co-producers of western civilization as the masses around the world have presently come to know it. In the case of the U.S. in particular, American pop culture, for example, in the view of many around the world, constitutes America's most productive export. This pop culture would be unimaginable absent the contributions of black Americans. Thus, I. Mostafli, for example, once referred to black Americans as Afro-Saxons, and Amiri Baraka and Leroi Jones would speak of the transformation of black Africans into a western people.

None of this is to argue, of course, that black westernness is identical to white westernness, but this is precisely the point. Black American westernness constitutes an alternative modality of westernness, ultimately a different way of understanding, of being, feeling, and thinking western.

Fourth: American National Conscience

Fourth, American blackness fundamentally informs the national conscience of America. In this capacity, it contributes in a major way to denying Americans the kind of innocence required to create and exploit troubled peoples. Troubled peoples are those who are deemed to possess such incontrovertibly negative qualities that those who criticize and demand change in them enjoy the luxury of seeing themselves as totally justified, being motivated neither by prejudice, interest, nor ignorance, but by unspoiled conscience alone. From this perspective, all of the labor falls upon the troubled people, that is to change what is wrong about them, while the critics are called upon to do nothing but monitor the efforts of their presumed inferiors.

To be sure, America has produced troubled peoples in the past, and it is blackness more than anything else that reminds her of this unlovely fact. To deny racism, on the other hand, that produced blackness, is to afford America the luxury of innocence born of historical amnesia, thus facilitating the enterprise of creating yet another troubled people. In fact, shorn of the reminder of blackness, it will likely be easier to shift the blame for any mistreatment achieved to the new troubled people, for as every negative stereotype hurled at the Negro could be traced to the model of oppression and to the machinations of what America herself had created, no such stigma might attach to warning Americans about terrorists, violent extremists, Islamofascists, and threats to national security.

Fifth: American Quest for Redemption

Finally, American blackness is at the heart of America's inexorable American quest for redemption, as liberal enlightenment principles that have come to define the modern universe have cast a haunting indictment over her past, a past according to American mythology that was supposed to be enlightened from the beginning. This must be understood, however, in light of the important corollary I mentioned previously. In fact, if whiteness is invisible as essentially a non-race, blackness is the quintessential American race.

Racism in America is thus quintessentially an anti-black offense, first and foremost. At the bottom, the American quest for redemption is essentially a desire to rewrite its racist past. Now there are two competing approaches to doing this.

First, and this one is favored by conservatives, is to deny the basic fact of the past by shifting responsibility for the plight of black Americans entirely to black Americans. This is partly achieved by holding up the example of other socially non-white groups who have excelled in America while being under entirely different circumstances. The second approach, and this is favored by liberals, is to try to undo the effects of the past by more effectively integrating black Americans into positions of power, wealth, and influence.

From both approaches, however, it is ultimately blackness that humbles America, pricks her conscience, and reminds her that even when she is most sure of herself, proudest and most satisfied with her achievements, most certain of her might and the righteousness of her cause, she remains capable of great evil and nonsensical judgment, for which she may ultimately need to redeem herself.

Implications for Muslim Immigrants

My point, in what I have said so far, is neither to encourage immigrant Muslims to reposition themselves as blacks, nor to imply or to suggest that they can actually do so. My point is simply that understanding America through the prism of race, and most specifically American blackness, provides

Question and Answer Session (continued)

Question 2:

Thank you for your presentation. I have a question about the relationship between race and Islam. You mentioned that Islam has to engage race in America. I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that. I'm also wondering if you can talk about the relationship between race and Islam in the Muslim world. I'm wondering if you can talk about the relationship between race and Islam in the Muslim world. I'm wondering if you can talk about the relationship between race and Islam in the Muslim world.

Dr. Jackson's Response:

Well, I think that the relationship between race and Islam in the Muslim world is a very complicated one. I think that there are a lot of different ways that race is understood and experienced in different parts of the Muslim world. I think that there are some places where race is not a very important factor in people's lives. And I think that there are other places where race is a very important factor in people's lives. I think that it's important to remember that the Muslim world is a very diverse place, and that there are a lot of different ways that people understand and experience race.

I think that in America, race is a very important factor in people's lives. I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects their lives. I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects the lives of other people in America. I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects the lives of other people in the Muslim world.

I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects their lives. I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects the lives of other people in America. I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects the lives of other people in the Muslim world.

I think that it's important for Muslims in America to be aware of the ways that race affects Document

That was Arabia. And not only Arabia. Islam had to go to all of these different countries and process these cultures in light of its own religious sensibilities. Out of which you get this beautiful collage of what became Muslim cultures and societies. I see no reason why that process should stop at the shores of the Atlantic.

That process has to continue here in America. And one of the things that hinders that process is that, again, America is very unique among Western democracies. This is the only democracy that has a major segment of the Muslims coming from an indigenous population.

You don't have that in the West. You don't have that in France. You don't have that in England. They're all immigrants. Here, black Americans were born and raised in America from the beginning of the century.

A major constituent of the American Muslim community. Why has the cultural genius - and I mean that in a very neutral way - of American Muslims, including black Muslims, been suppressed? I think that what we need to understand is that part of the future of Islam in America will be determined not simply by the disapproval of that norm at some level, but whether or not Muslims can actually produce a livable, social, and cultural order. That, more than anything else, will determine the future of this community in America.

Question 2:

My question is, for Muslim Americans to invest in blackness, how much that process will require them to internalize the historical realities of black America, including the suffering and the oppression, and how much of that, in that process, will there be potential for mistrust between black Muslims and non-black Muslims?

Dr. Jackson's Response:

Well, I don't propose that this whole enterprise is a problem-free, easy enterprise to undertake. By the way, I'm glad you asked that question. I'm not a politician, but I'm glad you asked that question.

Because I do want to make it clear. It's not important to me that immigrant Muslims internalize as a part of the black experience. It's important for them to understand the black experience, but to understand the black experience not simply as a black experience, but as an American experience.

This happened in America. This is our history. This is who we are.

Now, how do we position ourselves as Muslims? To recognize that fact, and to make sure that our contributions are such that we go in a positive direction from the standpoint of us, as opposed to a negative kind of direction. If you ask any number of black Americans about the way... I'm always going over the number of whites that I encounter on a daily basis who see clearly, straight to the point, the racial underpinnings of Islamophobia in America.

That this is not something new. Muslims who came to this country and ignored America did not understand the persistent effects of racism. That this kind of tendency exists in our society.

And that we don't collectively conduct ourselves in a way to minimize the negative effects of that if we're targeted again. That's what I think that Muslims have to understand. I also think, however, that you know, Muslims come to America and enjoy untold advantages.

And I've lived in the Muslim world for years. So, I know. And I can tell you, when I go abroad, you can take my shoes, you can take my money, don't take my passport.

I don't know if you know what a passport is. But, don't mess with that. Because I'm going home.

So, Muslims enjoy untold advantages. Muslims have to recognize, however, just like the Prophet did when he went from Mecca to Medina, that in the same way that I fully partake of the advantages of America, I am also responsible for the failings of America. And I am also involved, therefore, in that quest to make right, and to do right, by all Americans.

Not simply here to take, take, take, take, take. And not contribute to the cumulative record of America's attempt to live up to its own ideals. That's what I think is important about Muslims' understanding of the black experience.

A white American Muslim told me this. Do you remember the Proposition 51 thing that was going on? The Browns and the Blounts? Oh, that's right. That was overshadowed by your own local event.

Anyway, a white American Muslim said to me that, you know, Muslims somehow don't seem to quite understand. They think that Islamophobia is something new. The reality is that there has always been a bigoted environment in America.

The Civil Rights Movement sent that bigot into rehab. Now he's back out and he's loose again. So a white American Muslim says to me, what we have to understand is that this exists.

And collectively we have to make our contribution to making sure that the bigots don't get out of rehab. And it might not be you. It may be somebody else.

It's still a bigot that's still a liability for all of us. And I'll say something here that's not often popular in certain circles. You know, there's people like Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish rabbi, who I'm often extremely admirable of.

I admire the rabbi. He's the man who came to America after Jews had succeeded in gaining admission into American whiteness could have said to himself, I'm white. Let me go.

Do my thing. And yeah, I know some bad things happened out there, but that's not my issue.

This man marched with Martin Luther King. And that is the moral authority of Muslims that I believe you can bring to bear. Not just about Muslims. But about anybody who's a victim of that bigotry that's been running around in our country virtually from the beginning.

I hope that answers your question.

Additional Comments from Dr. Jackson:

...of identifying with that previous black experience will anchor some in the minimization of how significant that was compared to what this is. You know, compared to what Muslims experience today is not the same as what black Americans experienced before. And to what extent will that correlate with... I think that we make a mistake by just focusing on the suffering or the discrimination that certain people are suffering. That's important.

Yes, but I think we have to focus on where that comes from. We have to focus on the patterns of knowledge.

We're not the first ones. It's been going on from the beginning. Don't believe me? Ask the Chinese.

Ask the Catholics. Ask the Jews. Ask the Armenians.

Ask them all.

Final Question:

I really appreciate what you had to say. In my experience it's been that America is less of, I always thought that America is one. That there isn't one race versus one creed versus one anything that qualifies America.

That it's more of a unified unit. That the Statue of Liberty and the Constitution, that's America. Out of many, one, that's America.

And in fact, over the course of American history, you know, there's always been another. It's really easy to point at someone else and say, that's the bad guy, that's the bad guy. But it's my understanding that it's the ideal of out of many, one, that we're all one people.

And that the best way to exalt the American ideal is to elevate the human community. And that not to focus just on one identifying feature. But as I was saying just recently, yes, that's the ideal, but that's not how it happens.

Because it's happening time and time again. And, yeah, we're all the same. Well, almost, almost.

Dr. Jackson's Final Response:

You know, I think that the melting pot metaphor is so seductive that it often passes without any kind of serious examination.

I mean, if America is a melting pot, who controls the fire? You know, who controls how fast we melt, what we melt into, and what that fire ultimately is? Because when we say the result is uniform, somebody has to define that form.

I mean, why do Jews change their names? Not that Jews have to change their names. All kinds of people. Why? What was wrong with their name? Why do they have to change their name to become something else before it can be admitted into the form? When we think of this form as harmless, it's not harmless.

And why do we so mindlessly, in many instances, endorse this notion of from the many, one? How about from the many, many? I'm very serious about that. This is not just a joke. I mean, I'm a black American.

That's a very deeply rooted American identity. There are white Americans who have a very deeply rooted American authentic identity. And that's all right.

And we have nothing to do with each other. He's not me, and I'm not him. What's wrong with that? We don't have to be the same to be American.

We, you know, I mean, imagine that. Every restaurant you go to serves the same food. So I think that part of what I would like to see us do is to think beyond some of those traditional ideas that we have in mind, presumably for the purpose of preserving unity.

Because, and I'll stop on this note, I really will. You know, we have to be careful about mistaking acquiescence for agreement. If you are powerful enough, and that power does not have to be manifested in terms of brute force.

It can simply be the power that comes from your ability to withdraw validation from people who need or seek validation. If you are powerful enough, you can coerce people into acquiescence. They will look like they agree, but they are simply acquiescing.

Acquiescence doesn't last forever. That's what we're seeing in Egypt right now. So I think we have to be careful about getting stuck in 19th century notions, early 20th century notions.

In ways that deny us avenues to becoming all that we can be. This is my country. This is my home.

This is where I'm going to die, Inshallah. My children and my children's children are going to die here.

But I do not think that culturally speaking, that everybody that wants to be an authentic American has to be like me. So I'd like us to consider the notion from the many, many Americans. Thank you, Dr. Jackson, so much for your informative lecture.

Event Announcements

Upcoming Events:

• Tuesday, February 15th: Screening of "Bilal Sam" - a movie about a young Muslim in high school who wants to go to college but faces financial challenges. 8 p.m. in the Red Team dormitory, co- sponsored with World Christian Youth.

• February 16th: "ISNAM 101" featuring Dr. Ali Jadata at 7 p.m. For more information about ISNAM, visit www.isnamoncampus.com

Additional Information:

• Extra credit sign-in available at the front desk downstairs

• Dr. Jackson's books available for purchase downstairs

• ISNAM Awareness Month budgets available at outside tables

• Isha prayer to be held on stage following the event

This document represents the complete transcript of Dr. Sherman Jackson's lecture "Islam and Race: An American Perspective" delivered at the University of Florida Islam Awareness Month 2011, formatted for clarity and readability.