mohammadalisalih.com Blog

The Valley Club, a suburban private summer preserves on a leafy hillside outside Philadelphia, opened in 1954, as years of pressure to desegregate the city’s public pools neared success.

This year, it looked as if the municipal pools might not open, given Philadelphia’s budget woes. So Alethea Wright, the director of Creative Steps day camp reached a contract with the Valley Club, and on the Monday before July 4, her 65 children — black and Hispanic, kindergartners to seventh-graders — jumped into the cool water.

Within minutes, she said, they were racing back to her, saying they had overheard people making racial remarks about them. “A couple of the children ran down saying, ‘Miss Wright, Miss Wright, they’re up there saying, “What are those black kids doing here?” ‘

The Club president John Duesler said: “There is a lot of concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion . . . the atmosphere of the club.”

Later, he changed his explanation in a statement that read like this: “We had originally agreed to invite the camps to use our facility, knowing full well that the children from the camps were from multi-ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that we underestimated the capacity of our facilities and realized that we could not accommodate the number of children from these camps. All funds were returned to the camps and we will re-evaluate the issue at a later date to determine whether it can be feasible in the future.”

COMMENTS:

1.”WSC” (Whites Superiority Complex), in my vocabulary, refers to situations when Whites behave arrogantly because they are more civilized than other races. I believe the arrogance part is somewhat natural as people tend to feel superior over those who are less civilized, less educated, less affluent and less beautiful. But, by adding “complex,” I try to qualify this arrogance as not healthy, not correct and not moral.

2. I am a Northern Sudanese, and in Sudan we, the Muslims/Arabs, are more civilized, educated and affluent than the tribes of the South. Yes, we have this superiority feeling, and, yes, it is a “complex” because it shouldn’t be.

3. So, in America, I understand the feelings of Mr. John Duesler and other Whites at the Valley Club. I understand the subtlety, the silence, the quick eye contacts, the what-is-going-on and, when afraid to be heard by others, the stop-that, and, when discovered by others, the you-shouldn’t-have-said-that.

But, it is not correct, for them and for us.

Conservative Republicans were outraged at Supreme Court nominee, Sotomayor, because she said “wise Latina” could be smarter than White men and because, apparently throughout her adult live, and especially at college, she confirmed her identity as a proud Latina. This outrage seemed to be based on the assumption that whiteness is not, in itself, a distinct identity.

Being White, for these Conservatives, seemed to be a neutral condition and a natural thing. And, so, any “identity,” say being Black, Brown or Yellow, female or gay, seemed to be judged by them against their supposedly “objective” standard.

Three years ago, Justice Alito, during his hearings, talked about the impact of his background as the son of Italian immigrants on his rulings. So, why couldn’t Sotomayor mention that her Puerto Rican background might be relevant to her work?

Conservative Sen. Jeff Sessions said, with a straight face, that heritage and experience could have no bearing on a judge’s work.

Sotomayor’s” wise Latina” speech meant that everyone had a unique personal history that had to be acknowledged before it can be overcome, if it had to be overcome.

Actually, from my experience, it shouldn’t be overcome. .

Yes, justice is supposed to be blind. But for most of history, it hasn’t been. In America, it is probably an irony that women, Blacks and Latinos are acutely aware of how the view of justice has evolved, or been forced to evolve.

Suppose I was nominated to the Supreme Court, I wouldn’t wait for someone to ask me before I declared the following:

1.My color (and weight, hight and the shape of my nose, lips and ears) didn’t have anything to do with my identity.

2. The core of my identity is my faith. Because I am a Muslim, it is, of course, Islam, but I could have been a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, or could have been worshipping a cow, a statue, a tree – or myself. Anyway, there is a faith that I strongly believe and use it as a guide in my life.

3. Because the faith I believe in is, as I see it, built on freedom and justice, I will do my best to interpret the law accordingly. Therefore, it seems difficult for me to understand how a judge could be “neutral.”

4. If a judge should be “neutral,” why did the Supreme Court, interpreting the Constitution, issue the “separate but equal,” and half-a-century later, interpreting the same Constitution, declared that it was wrong?

President Obama’s speech marking the 100th anniversary of the NAACP’s founding was described by some a “tough love” message to Black Americans.

A century ago, when the NAACP was founded, there were lynchings, race riots and Jim Crow segregation in the South. Today, all of that is fast-receding history. Some, Blacks and some murmuring Whites, wondered whether there was still a role the NAACP.

Obama said there were two roles: (1) nationally, advocacy. (2) locally, mentoring children and improve performance in schools.

Obama embodies three trends among Black Americans

First, he is the son of a Kenyan immigrant.

Second, he is biracial; the product a Black-White marriage that was, long time ago, was illegal in many states.

Third, he belongs to a new generation; not post-race, but less race, and less pre-occupation with color.

Obama said: “If we haven’t already reached this point, we’re getting close to reaching it, where there are going to be more African Americans in this country who never experienced anything remotely close to Jim Crow than those who lived under Jim Crow.”

Eugene Robinson, a “Washington Post” Black columnist whom I said, many times before in these writings, that he suffered from Black Inferiority Complex (BIC) because of his pre-occupation with Black color, seemed to have been mellowed because of this Obama factor.

He wrote: “But we have to accept this new reality, because I can’t argue with Obama when he says that black America’s growing diversity is ‘all for the good.’ “

Obama added: “One of the ways that I think that the civil rights movement weakened itself was by enforcing a single way of being black — being authentically black. And, as a consequence, there were a whole bunch of young black people — and I fell prey to this for a time when I was a teenager — who thought that if you were really ‘down’ you had to be a certain way. And oftentimes that was anti-something. You defined yourself by being against things as opposed to what you were for you.”

Three cheers for Obama.

Henry Gates, Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale. MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, acclaimed historian, Harvard professor and PBS documentarian. One of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997, and holder of 50 honorary degrees, was arrested by a Cambridge, MA, White police. Gates didn’t have his house key, after returning from a trip to China, and thought of entering through the back door, and that was when a neighbor apparently thought he was a burglar, and called the police.

Gates and the police gave differing accounts of what happened next.

Racial profiling became a national issue in the 1990s, when highway police on major drug delivery routes were accused of stopping drivers simply for being black.

But, Greg Ridgeway, who has a Ph.D in statistics and studies racial profiling for the RAND research group, said: “You’re never going to be able to (statistically) prove racial profiling. There’s always a plausible explanation.”

Black Congressman Danny Davis didn’t agree, but didn’t disagree. He had no doubt that profiling is real: He said he was stopped while driving in Chicago in 2007 for no reason other than the fact he is black.

Some people pointed out that Gates might have violated the cardinal rule of avoiding arrest: Do not antagonize the cops.

Apparently Gates shouted: “Are you not answering me because I’m a black man in America?”

COMMENTS:

1.Many times, I expressed my sadness and anger at Black Americans because of their general pre-occupation with their color.

2. Many times, I said that my color doesn’t have anything to do with my identity.

3. If I looked at myself as Black, others, in a way or another, will do the same. Also, I would tend to explain things that happen to me, good or bad, on the basis of my color.

4. I am glad that President Obama is bringing a new message to Black (and White) Americans. But, because of this pre-occupation of Professor Gates with his color, I am still sad and angry.

YASEN YASEN, JUBA:
“I have already sent you several messages concerning the situation in South Sudan. Messages from someone who is living in the South and not theorizing from an armchair in New York. The South IS independent now (de facto), and will be de jure by January 2011, possibly before. The Southerners have already and unequivocally made up their minds. Independence and nothing but Independence. They do not call it Separation. Let me give you some examples to illustrate my point:

1.The curricula and textbooks in the first 12 years of pre-university education are now either Kenyan or Ugandan and not Sudanese.
2.The courts use the Kenyan/Ugandan laws as well as the common sense of the judge concerned but not Sudanese laws.
3.The anthem and flag of the SPLM is used to the exclusion of the Sudanese ones in ALL occasions.
4.The Parliament of the South has not so far promulgated a single law. It is a debating society and only discusses laws passed by the Khartoum Parliament and to annul them and make them void for the South.
5. Official correspondence in Arabic from Khartoum is not read and is shoveled into the garbage basket. Nobody reads any document in Arabic. 6. Mosques are forbidden henceforth to raise the Azzan from a microphone and heavy taxes are levied on them.
6. No Arabic is allowed in the University of Juba.
7.The galabia and the tobe are nowhere to be seen.
8. Arabi Juba is on its way out and will soon be extinct.
9. Kabli or Wardi are unheard of.
10. Mulah and Kisra are no longer eaten.
11. Northern Sudanese culture has been muffled and trampled on. They say: we are free, man.
12. The telephone code is that of Uganda.
13. Israeli companies control 90% of the hotel industry in Juba.
14.The Government of South Sudan is buying massive quantities of arms and the shipment hijacked by the Somalis has now arrived in Juba and will be sent to Abeyei.

Last Friday in Kadougli (which will be part of South Sudan Republic) Silva Kiir said that separation with peace is better than unity with war. He meant that if the plebiscite resulted in unity, then there will be war. What other proof do you need, Mohammad? This statement sums it all.

And on and on and on. Come for a week to see for yourself. You will be my guest. Tell me if you need a return air ticket. You will wish to come through Nairobi and not Khartoum, so that the security people will not be on your heels.

But you look like an Obama.”

BLACKS INFERIORITY COMPLEX:
MARION BARRY OF WASHINGTON

Former Washington, DC, mayor, Marion Barry, is an example of a Black man who, not only suffers from “BIC” (Blacks Inferiority Complex), but also exploited, profited from and deepened it among his Black supporters. Notwithstanding his early Civil Rights activities, somehow and somewhere after that, he strayed morally, more and more, until now, about half-a-century later, he became the joke of the city he was a mayor of.
Mostly, it has been womanizing and other corruptions that it involved caused or encouraged.
In 1991, he told a local Black magazine, “Sister 2 Sister”: “Womanizing has become an integral part of my life.” He added that he had rarely been without a woman, any woman, by his side, and that he, many times, brazenly flirted with other women in front of his wife (should have said “wives”). In the same year, he said on Sally Jessy Raphael Show: “It got to be more than casual. It got to be excessive.”
Worst, most of his women seemed to be his type:
1.Wife Mary went to jail for 15 months.
2. Wife Effi said he had a drinking problem.
3. Wife Cora is getting a divorce.
4. Friend Karen went to jail rather than testify about his drug use.
5. Friend Rasheeda conspired with the FBI to have him arrested while smoking crack and asking for sex.
6. Friend Kim donated a kidney.
7. Friend Donna got a contract from the city and was struggling between him and her ex-husband.
COMMENTS:
1.This immigrant from Africa, after few years trying to identify himself with Black Americans, found them too much preoccupied with their color, slavery and discrimination. Not to minimize the psychological effects of these factors, I believe there will be no way out for someone whose identity is his color.
2. It took me many years to liberate myself from this inclination and to realize that the core of my identity is my faith. Lest no one says I am talking about Islam, I believe faith could be any thing: God, a cow, a statue, a tree, ancestors, and even ones oneself.
3. I feel sad and angry that generations of Washington’s Black children have been growing up, looking for role models and finding a mayor, or a former mayor, like Barry.

Rachel Swarns of “The New York Times,” Robin Givhan of “The Washington Post,” Newsweek’s Allison Samuels, Darlene Superville of the Associated Press and Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson found themselves, one recent day, covering Michelle Obama, realizing or not that they were all black.

Howard Kurtz, a White, of “The Washington Post,” had the courage to talk about the 200-ton gorilla in the room.

Henderson had written: “African American women say Michelle will upend age-old stereotypes of the angry black woman who can’t find a good man, or keep him when she does.”

Givhan had said her beat was “really rich because there is that element of race that has not been there before … No one noted all the white chicks covering Laura Bush.”

Henderson had noted that her degrees include a bachelor in African American studies and a master in American studies, and added: “I’m sure I bring that knowledge just from my education.”

Swarns said: “There are types of experiences as an African American woman that we may have shared.”

Callie Crossley, an African American commentator based at Harvard University, said: “There’s a great amount of pride at seeing a professional black woman in the spotlight.”

Samuels said the first lady, unlike such celebrities as Beyoncé and Halle Berry, was “a very dark brown” whose beauty should be “celebrated.”

Kurtz, the White journalist, said: “It is hard to imagine a White journalist making that observation.”

COMMENTS;

1. This immigrant journalist from Africa, in Washington for 30 years as a foreign correspondent for Arabic newspapers and magazines in the Middle East, was, from the beginning, surprised because of the pre-occupation of Black Americans with their color. At first, I was surprised, then saddened, then angry. That was why I started this series on BIC (Blacks Inferiority Complex).

2. That apparently cosmopolitan, urbane and sophisticated Black journalists were so pre-occupied with theirs and Michelle Obama’s color makes me more angry, maybe hopeless.

3. Because I have come to believe that my Black color doesn’t have anything to do with my identity, and that the core of my identity is my faith (whatever faith), I feel I have climbed to a higher moral ground.

An Arab immigrant who came to America in his thirties, I, until this day, thirty years later, can’t sing one full American song. I know few words from songs like “Strangers in the Night” and “Born in the USA,” and a little more from some Christmas songs.

I still remember many old Sudanese songs, and, thanks to the Internet, I listen to some of them on “Radio Omdurman,” the Sudanese national radio. Actually, I recently started writing down lyrics of songs I used to sing and write down when I was in intermediate school, about 50 years ago.

So, my relation to Michael Jackson is that of a reporter, not a fan. Throughout the years, I wrote about him, not about his songs. And he had been one of the examples in my pieces under “Black Inferiority Complex.”

What is that?During the 1990′s, my second decade in America and after I became a citizen and started looking for an identity in my new homeland, I was surprised, then confused, then saddened and then became angry because of the pre-occupation of Black Americans with the color of their skins. Also because of one result of that: I noticed a general feeling of inferiority complex in their relations to Whites.

In this context, I wrote about Jackson’s bleaching of his skin and fixing of his nose. He seemed to have been embarrassed by being Black. Then came his song, “Black or White,” which I thought was a sort of hypocrisy because if it didn’t matter what color he was, why did he want to look like a White.

Add to that his personal problems, like awkward behavior, military uniforms and the way he had children.

But, when he died, I, for the first time, carefully listened to some of his songs and found that they were mostly about love, joy and peace. Also, I appreciated his creativity on stage, like in the video “Moonwalk.” I said to myself this man must have happily entertained the hundreds of millions of people who bought his records, CD’s and DVD’s.

So, after his death, I am trying to be fair to him: despite his personal problems, he was a very creative entertainer. Even in the subject of race, I realized that he contributed enormously to narrow the gap between Blacks and Whites. Like Rev. Sharpton said, long before Tiger Wood in golf, and long before Obama in politics, Jackson had proved that culture superseded race. Jackson’s songs have entered hearts, minds and homes of hundreds of millions of Whites, Browns, Yellows and many other rainbow colors.

I even revised my opinion of his “Black or White” song after I read its lyrics. Like the following: “I took my baby. On a Saturday bang. Boy, is that girl with you? Yes we’re one and the same. Now I believe in miracles. And a miracle has happened tonight. But, if you’re thinking about my baby. It doesn’t matter if you’re Black or White.”

Iranians-Americans were reported to be very excited watching the drama in their native country. Some said they felt proud, in relation to American stereotypes of Iranians as ayatollahs and shadoors.
1. Hussein Banai, student at Brown University who left Iran 13 years ago: “I’ve never seen so many people outside the country being so viscerally engaged.”
2. Nika Khanjani, grew up in Texas and now in Montreal : “All my formative years, I dreaded the reaction when people would find out I was Iranian. It was so vilified, and it’s like vindication right now.”
3. Babak Talebi, organizer of WhereIsMyVote.org, from McLean: “When it became clear that people inside Iran were not letting this go without dissent, we were just like, ‘We have to do something.’ ”
4. Goli Fassihian, of Iranian-American Council: “You’re seeing for the first time the Iranian coming out in you, whether you’re full Iranian or half or a quarter.”
COMMENTS:
1. I am glad some Iranian-Americans started feeling proud. Especially because of the negative American stereotypes of the Iranians, of a group of ayatollahs and shadoors.
2. I, a Muslim immigrant, found the best way to face stereotypes of Muslims is to worship freedom. And to believe that freedom should be the core of every faith. And to believe that faith should be the core of every identity.
3. I believe freedom is the core of Islam (and Judaism and Christianity). The First Freedom: God ask people to look at the creations around them, and think: how and why. This is not different from “The Creator” in the Declaration of Independence. I believe an American Muslim should identify him/herself as a believer in freedom, the core of both Islam and America.
4. But, an “Iranian” is not a “nationalist Iranian”. (As a “Sudanese” is not a “nationalist Sudanese”). The most “nationalist” and “patriotic” is the one who LIVES in his/her country, and SACRIFICES for the sake of freedom there. The top American “patriotic” is the one who SACRIFICES life, like those who are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
5. Iranian-Americans should push the cause of freedom in Iran , but they cannot be more “nationalist” and “patriotic” than the Iranians in Iran .

For years, in these series under “Black Inferiority Complex,” I, an immigrant from Africa, have been struggling to liberate myself from two things in America :

(1) from having my color as part, let alone as the core, of my identity,

(2) from being P.C. and not able to criticize most of the Black Americans who seem to me to have their color as the core of their identity.

That was why in 2007, when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas published his autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son,” I criticized his Inferiority Complex and his pre-occupation with his color, as shown many times in the book.

Now, as the Latina Sonia Sotomayor is joining Thomas in the Supreme Court, I can’t but notice their two different identities, especially from a racial point of view.

Sotomayor celebrated being Latina , calling it a reason for her success, while Thomas said he had succeeded despite the obstacles of being Black. Sotomayor said being a woman of Puerto Rican descent was rich and fulfilling, while Thomas said being a black man in America was a searing experience.

Sotomayor grew up in the Bronx speaking Spanish and Thomas in Georgia where Blacks mixed English with Gullah, a language of the coastal South. So, according to “The New York Times,” when both entered college, “they realized they still sounded unpolished, and although both were honors students in high school and considered themselves qualified, to prove their critics wrong, they studied with special determination.”

Thomas’s childhood was marked by bitterness and isolation. He was taunted not only by classmates at his all-white high school but also by blacks, who called him “ABC,” for “America’s Blackest Child,” on account of his very black skin.

In Princeton , Sotomayor’s thesis was a gift “To my family … for you have given me my Puerto Rican-ness … To the people of my island, for the rich history that is mine.”

On the other side, Thomas wrote in his autobiography about his increasing alienation when he was in college: “I began to think of myself as a man without a country.”

Some of his black classmates were losing their way, and he wrote of “these gifted young people being sacrificed on the altar of an abstract theory of social justice.”

At Yale, he felt out of place from the moment he arrived and only became more disaffected. He had listed his race on his application and later felt haunted by the decision.

“I was among the elite, and I knew that no amount of striving could make me one of them,” he wrote. Friends recall that he insisted on dressing like a field hand, in overalls and a hat.