Taha Abdul-Basser ’96 speaks last night in Yenching Auditorium on the common threads of Islamic and African-American culture.
Posted on 03/01/2005 1:41:05 AM PST by Eurotwit
About 40 students turned out last night for the kickoff event of Islamic Awareness Week—a structured discourse called “Islam, Hip-Hop and Black America,” featuring two speakers who discussed the relationship between modern Islam and the African-American community. The event was co-sponsored by the Harvard Islamic Society, the Harvard Foundation, the Black Students Association, the Association of Black Harvard Women, and the Black Men’s Forum.
Adisa Banjoko, a provocative hip-hop journalist and author of Lyrical Swords, gave a 45-minute speech about Islamic influence on hip-hop cultures.
Banjoko explained that the rise in popularity of hip-hop was a result of social pressures of the early 1970s and the aftermath of 1960s civil rights movements.
Banjoko also attributed hip-hop’s rise to cutbacks in the funding for art programs in the “education establishment,” which inspired African-American youth to create new forms of art as self-expression and rebellion.
“If you’re not going to teach us poetry, I’m going to teach myself poetry my own way with my own rhythms,” Banjoko said.
But Banjoko said that African-American Christian churches immediately began to attack the fledgling hip-hop movement, creating tension between African-American youth and traditional Christianity.
“Most African-American males do not relate to the Bible and do not trust the Bible,” Banjoko said, a fact which enabled Islam to appeal to a greater segment of the population.
This fissure, according to Banjoko, produced an explosion of Islamic themes and lyrics in rap music.
Banjoko pointed to the Malcolm X quotations used in many 1980s rap songs as well as to more recent incarnations—such as the title of 50 Cent’s song “Ghetto Qua ran.”
Banjoko also noted that white musicians such as Anthrax have covered songs which feature Islamic nomenclature, including Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise.”
“Hip-hop made it cool for black kids to be smart,” Banjoko said.
Banjoko spoke after an introduction by Taha Abdul-Basser ’96, a Ph.D. candidate in Islamic Studies and an Islamic representative to the United Ministry at Harvard.
Abdul-Basser spoke about the need for further investigation into “the differential between the familiarity of African-Americans with Islam and the familiarity between the rest of American culture and Islam.”
“Whether it be my home town of New York City or any urban center, you’d be hard pressed to find an African-American who couldn’t respond to the traditional Muslim greeting,” Abdul-Basser said.
Abdul-Bassar described two theories which are often used to explain the discrepancy between African-American familiarity with Islam and Caucasian familiarity with the religion.
He called the theories: “The one fourth of them were Muslim thesis,” and the “Islam as a counter-establishment in order to spite the white majority thesis.”
The first thesis identified evidence of Islamic influence that survived from the Atlantic slave trade and the ante-bellum era, while the second thesis attributed Islam’s prominence among African-Americans to the effectiveness of such recent figures as Malcolm X.
“[Malcolm X’s] impact can barely be overstated,” Abdul-Basser said.
The two hour event, whose audience was predominately male, was followed by a session of prayer and a book signing.
—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu.
Taha Abdul-Basser ’96 speaks last night in Yenching Auditorium on the common threads of Islamic and African-American culture.
Nuclear warhead will go off in the next decade or so then it will really hit the fan.
Goodbye tolerance when that happens.
What a pantload of bullsqueeze.
I wonder if they plan on starting this off with a *BANG*!
It's considered highly anti-establishment and rebellious. That about sums it up. Look for someone to combine it with rap for the ultimate public slap-in-the-face for the future.
Are they going to mention the African-Americans who were killed on 9/11? How about the thousands upon thousands of black Sudanese who have been killed or enslaved by the Islamists? How about the hundreds of Africans who were killed in the 1998 embassy bombings? What about the African-American soldiers who have been killed or wounded fighting terrorism?
I don't get the attraction of Islam for African-Americans. Didn't the Arabs import just as many, or nearly so, black slaves as the new world? Isn't the reason you don't see any blacks in the Arab world because they castrated them all? Why would blacks be attracted to the religion of such a people? Help me out here, freepers.
In addition to the good points you make, it's worth remembering that bin Laden referred to blacks as "slaves" in that post-9/11 evening supper video that was released a couple of years ago. That pretty much says it all about where he's coming from with respect to blacks.
"...Harvard Islamic Society, the Harvard Foundation, the Black Students Association, the Association of Black Harvard Women, and the Black Men’s Forum."
Lowlife, worthless, subhuman garbage, all.
I thought Islamic Awareness Week was reserved for the second week in September.
The US military is delivering it presently.
Islamic awareness? Or Islamic self-delusion?
How about a Christian Awareness week. Where love and mercy are taught instead of murder and mayhem?
All those groups sponsored this and all they could get was 40 students.
Exactly, with OBL's little love note to AZ yesterday, if another attack of any significance occurs, I doubt that the American public is going to standstill any longer for the shenanigans that the LLL and Islamic groups have perpetrated since 9/11. When the "Are you for us are against us?" is applied within the boarders, there are going to be a lot of people who are going realize that the hate speech they are so proud of spewing without thought does have consequences. Too bad they have let their *sses overpower their mouths and brains.
When I lived in Oman it was acknowledged that African slaves were sent to China.
The Omanis were great Arab navigators and the legend of Sinbad is supposed to derive from the early voyages of Omani seafarers. One of their cargoes was slaves to China and elsewhere from the then co-Sultanate of Zanzibar (now Tanzania, the Arabs were thrown out in the '50s, I think). Silk and porcelain were back-loaded from China for trade.
In Omani society there is much evidence of African blood and slavery was only outlawed in the last century. The Sultan's personal (close) bodyguard (and families) are descendents of slave stock and totally African in appearance, but are now freemen and respected in the palace society.
There remain trading links between Oman and China and the very ancient historical relationship is celebrated.
The reason there are no African genes in China is that the slaves were emasculated in such villages as Dahlqut and Rahykut on the Salalah coast before being shipped overseas. The process was crude and the loss of life was high. I heard no mention of any female slaves, but that may have been because of a cultural issue.
Five "organizations" sponsored this event and only 40 students showed up. They couldn't get their own to show up or there must be a lot of cross membership.
Islamic hip-hop ping.
Well, that would explain the violent imagery, the hatred of women, the glorification of death, the delusion of victimhood and the hatred of America.
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