Towards a Black Muslim Ontology of Resistance – The New Inquiry

Towards a Black Muslim Ontology of Resistance – The New Inquiry: "Around the same time three young Arab Muslims were murdered in their Chapel Hill home, a Somali Muslim man was shot through the door of his apartment in Fort McMurray, Alberta. While Deah, Yusor, and Razan’s deaths trended worldwide, Mustafa Mattan’s murder was barely a passing blip outside of the Somali community. In a thought-provoking article co-written by UCLA Professor Khaled Beydoun and Muslim Anti-Racist Collaborative cofounder Margari Hill entitled “The Color of Muslim Mourning,” the authors pointedly ask the Muslim community who they prioritize and why. “Deah’s fundraiser for dental supplies for Syrian refugees went from $20,000 before his death to $380,000. In contrast, Mattan’s family still is struggling to raise $15,000 for his burial costs,” they write. The reality for today’s Black Muslims is bifurcated into a war fought on two fronts: a battle with one’s own community to be seen and respected as well as a battle to resist targeted state and vigilante violence. Black Muslims are also being surveilled, detained, and harassed by state operatives with increasingly alarming regularity. As Muslims, and as politically concerned citizens, we know the name of someone like Omar Khadr. How many of us can say the same of Mahdi Hashi, a Somali British national who has been stripped of citizenship and currently rots away in detention in Manhattan after refusing to spy on other Muslims? The Muslim community’s disinterest in his case speaks to the violence of what Frank B. Wilderson has termed “anti-Black solidarity.” Even when protecting his community, Hashi remains invisible."



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