This is very interesting, I am assuming that unless there is a color blind
society, The opinions of blacks will always be rediculed. Color is the
ultimate barrier of black freedom. Amina is most certainly right.

>From: "Ceesay, Soffie" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: FW: [ChatAfriK] Amina Wadud Confronts Hecklers
>Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 06:54:23 -0500
>
>Muslim Issues - 'I am a Nigger, and you will just have to put up with my
>blackness,' Professor Amina Wadud Confronts Her Hecklers in Toronto.
>
>Professor Amina Wadud Confronts Her Hecklers in Toronto
>
>By Tarek Fatah
>
>TORONTO - Her voice quivered. Barely concealing her anger, Professor Amina
>Wadud's words bellowed across the hall, "I am a nigger and I can't do much
>about it." Wadud, who was speaking to a Toronto audience on Sunday, was
>responding to a questioner who asked her to address internalized racism
>within the Muslim community and if that had anything to do with the
>hostility she had faced from a section of the crowd.
>
>The 300 people, who had packed Toronto's Noor Cultural Centre to hear the
>internationally-known scholar of the Qur'an and the role of women in
>Islam, froze in stunned silence as they digested the impact of her words.
>Eyes piercing towards her hecklers, Wadud leaned forward and stared down a
>group of men at the back of the hall.
>
>"Usually I wear the hijab, and when I am wearing it, most Muslims do not
>consider me African–American; I pass off as a South Asian," she said.
>"But
>when they see me without a scarf, they can see my African locks and they
>know I am Black and suddenly their attitude changes. The fact is I am a
>nigger and you will just have to put up with my blackness."
>
>This time, part of the audience erupted in applause, cheering her every
>word. Others started walking out hurling insults, and two men were heard
>jeering her, "You are just another CIA agent."
>
>---------------------------------
>
>Amina Wadud, Professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth
>University and author of Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from
>a Woman's Perspective, was speaking as part of a series sponsored by York
>University and the Noor Cultural Centre that has brought a number of
>academics to speak on the current state of Islam and the Muslim world.
>
>Wadud's reputation preceded her, resulting in standing room only in
>Toronto's most progressive mosque, the only place in Canada where men and
>women pray side-by-side in separate enclosures
>
>Midway through her speech titled "The Qur’an, Women and Interpretive
>Possibilities," Wadud waded into the minefield by addressing some
>difficult passages of the Qur’an. Breaking the ultimate taboo in the
>Muslim narrative, she stated that despite the fact the Qur’an explicitly
>asks for cutting off the hands of thieves, she did not agree with the
>Qur’an. She said she understood that this was a very difficult subject to
>talk about, but she would be dishonest to herself if she did not express
>her views.
>
>She maintained that as a Muslim with Allah close to her heart, in all
>honesty she could not continue with the hypocrisy of lying about how she
>felt about some verses of the Qur’an.
>
>The basis of her talk was "How to be God's agent (khalifa) on Earth; to be
>a moral agent of the Creator." In this context, she presented four ways of
>looking at Qu'ranic verses which Muslims find difficulty dealing with. She
>identified the four methods as: (1) The literal readings of the text, (2)
>The legalistic arguments that constrain how verses are applied, (3)
>Reinterpretation from alternative perspectives, and (4) Saying "No to the
>Qur'an" when one disagrees with it.
>
>Pursuing the last point, she declared that she could not intellectually or
>spiritually accept some things in the Qur'an, for example some of the
>hudud punishments like the cutting of hands or the permission to beat
>one's wife. She made it clear that she was denying neither the religion
>nor the revelation. "It is the Qur'an," she said, "that gives me the means
>to say no to the Qur'an."
>
>However, many in the audience were completely unprepared for her honesty.
>
>She had barely finished her talk when a long line of people lined up at
>the microphone to ask questions. One woman, who identified herself as a
>professor of Arabic Language at a Toronto University, took the mike and
>started lambasting Wadud, suggesting that she had come to her conclusion
>because she did not understand Arabic and that she had misread the Qur'an,
>saying, "You know only one verse of the Qur’an." Instead of a question,
>Wadud was subjected to a rant that was largely incomprehensible. The
>professor continued, accusing Wadud of supporting illicit sex, when Wadud
>had made no such reference.
>
>"That is the most idiotic nonsense I have ever heard," Wadud replied.
>
>When Amina Wadud referred to the 9/11 tragedy and the fact that some
>Muslims deemed it Islamic to crash planes into buildings and kill innocent
>people, a section of the crowd interrupted her. "What about Israel killing
>Palestinians," they yelled. One middle-aged heckler said, "She is a CIA
>agent." Other men and women lined up at the mike to accuse her of all
>sorts of things.
>
>Another man, angered by Wadud's 9/11 remark, came to the mike and lectured
>Her. "Let me remind you that no Muslim was involved in the 9/11 attack."
>Wadud did not dignify his remark with a response.
>
>One young man, with his oversized shirt hanging out, mimicking a rapper,
>took the mike out of its stand, twirled around, and started addressing the
>audience, with his back towards Wadud, accusing her of not knowing the
>Qur'an.
>
>Wadud responded to this outrageous display of rudeness by intervening and
>saying, "This young man is uncomfortable with what I have said and so
>instead of asking a question, he wishes to give a speech... why don't you
>come up on the stage and I will go and sit in the crowd." Then she stepped
>down from the podium and asked the young man to take her place, which he
>did. Holding the mike in his hand, he harangued her and said she did not
>know enough about Islam.
>
>One questioner apologized to Wadud for the rudeness of some members of the
>audience, suggesting very few Muslim men had ever seen or heard an African
>American woman in charge and in command. She responded that as a black
>woman, she knew what it is to have one's views rejected, she thundered to
>an applause that started with a few hesitant claps and then rolled across
>the hall.
>
>Every time she used "nigger" to describe herself, most of the lighter
>skinned members of the audience became visibly disturbed, squirming in
>their chairs, perhaps uncomfortable at how she was destroying their middle
>class comfort zone.
>
>When an Indian man told Wadud that he understood racism, she replied, "No
>you don't understand. You are not Black; you don't know what it is to be
>Black."
>
>Addressing Wadud, a woman with peroxide blonde hair and hip hugging jeans
>said, "Even though I am not a practicing Muslim, I believe you do not know
>proper Islam."
>
>"Your response is not new to me," Wadud replied. "When I wear a hijab, I
>don't look African and my words are measured with politeness; however,
>when my hijab is not covering my hair, I become Black and my words lose
>all value."
>
>The straw that broke the camel's back came when Wadud, answering a
>question, criticized Canada's proposed Shariah laws and expressed support
>for same-sex marriage.
>
>A deeply troubling aspect of the audience's reaction was that it was
>clearly divided along ethnic lines. Arabs largely behaved as one group
>heckling her, while South Asians bandied together in supporting her. The
>few white Muslims stuck quietly with each other. And in a telling
>indication of the profound divisions within the community, it appeared
>that Wadud may have been the only African in the room, although Africans
>account for about a quarter of Toronto's Muslim population.
>
>Ahmed Bayoumi, an Egyptian-Canadian Physician who sat through the entire
>lecture, reacting to the heckling said, "I find it fascinating that people
>would question Wadud’s ability to speak Arabic because she has moved from
>an interpretative understanding of the Qur’an to a literalist one. The
>argument seems to be that if she can explain away troublesome verses by
>resorting to nuance or obscurantism, her Arabic must be fine, but if she
>accepts the meanings of the text at face value, well she must have lost
>her previous fluency."
>
>Describing Amina Wadud's lecture as "revolutionary and liberating,"
>Bayoumi said, "I think Wadud is absolutely right. It's wonderful if you
>can live with legalistic or interpretive explanations. I cannot. It was
>liberating for me to hear somebody of Amina Wadud's stature say that she
>also cannot, not as an excuse for wanting to perform bad acts, but from a
>perspective of trying to be a true moral being and God's agent."
>
>The knee-jerk reaction to being reminded of our internalized racism is
>predictable: complete denial. Racism governs our behavior, yet we are
>oblivious to our own prejudices and tribalism. With noted exceptions, I
>saw this in action on Sunday. I heard repeatedly from Arabs in the
>audience that Amina Wadud does not understand Arabic. Instead of debating
>the merits of her argument, many invoked and sought refuge in their ethnic
>and linguistic superiority.
>
>Then there is the predictable reaction towards converts. If the converts
>are white, all of us, Arabs and South Asians, simply go complete gaga, but
>if we run into Black converts, we treat them at best in a condescending
>manner with barely concealed disrespect, as demonstrated Sunday night in
>Toronto.
>
>Abbas Syed, an Indo-Canadian who witnessed the entire episode summed it
>best. "When a white person converts to Islam, we try to make him the Imam
>of the mosque. But when a Black woman converts to Islam, we expect her to
>run the mosque day care for children during Jum'a prayers. Amina should
>have worn the Hijab; people would have mistaken her for a dark Pakistani."
>
>Tarek Fatah is host of the weekly TV show, "The Muslim Chronicle" that
>runs on CTS-TV in Canada and Bridges TV in the US. He is a member of the
>Board of Directors of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America.
>
>
>Forward Ever (by any means necessary)!
>Karen C. Aboiralor
>
>
>Disclaimer:
>Please note that views and opposing views expressed in ChatAfriK forum are
>the rights of individual contributors. Mutual respect for people's views is
>the corner stone of our forums. Freedom of speech and expression is our
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