Triple Minority: Black Muslim Women in America

I’m giving a talk at the end of this month on the experiences of Black Muslim women in America. Insha’Allah, I plan on outlining the historical development of Islam in the Black American community and Black women’s roles in the American Muslim community. Much of my talk will draw heavily from two works: Carolyn Moxley Rouse’s Engaged Surrender and Jamillah Karim’s American Muslim Women. I believe are great follow-ups to Sherman Jackson’s work, Islam and the Blackamerican. They are intriguing ethographic works offering insight into both the experiences of Black Muslim women, the challenges they face in gendered spaces that privilege men over women and in a society that often views them with pitiful contempt. They complicate notions that Muslim women are buying into their own oppression, by showing how becoming Muslim was an empowering act that challenged the racism, sexism, and classism in American soceity. I really liked how both studies shed light on the ways in which Black Muslim women participate in Quranic exegesis and interpret Islamic beliefs and practices.At the same time neither study glosses over the challenges many Black women face within the Muslim community and society at large. What is more important is that these studies provide so much more insight into the actual workings of communities than a study from the top up. For anybody interested in the history and the current condition of Black American Muslims, you should really read these works. In fact, you should encourage more studies about Muslim women. I hope that there is somebody with the training and sensitivity of these authors to do an in depth study of the Black Muslim women within the Salafi movement. I do think that there should be work done on how masculinity is constructed in the American masajid….

I’m reading a lot of blogs by Muslim American women in general, and Black American Muslim women in particular to gain insight into life experiences that may reflect my own or differ in multiple ways. In an effort to get a better sense of the issues that Black Muslim Women face in America, I am making a general call for input. I am developing a non-scientific survey to get a sense of what are our primary concerns. Is it discrimination in the broader society as Muslims, within the Black Muslim community as women, within the broader Muslim community as Black women? Are we concerned about marriage, raising children, economic disparities, losing our children to drugs and gang violence, lack of resources, access to Islamic education? In the meantime, feel free to comment and let me know your greatest concerns. Believe me, my talk will also high light many of the rewards of being Muslim in America. If you don’t want to focus on the negative, please feel free to write what you want people to know about you.