Failure to do so costs you everything.
THE SLIPPERY SOUL OF BARACK OBAMA
BY: DERIC MUHAMMAD
I had the honor of being in New York to see our President, Barack Obama, speak at Columbia University. As usual, his thoughtful brilliance was on display as he advised America’s next generation to: 1). Always Fight for your seat at the table, 2). Never underestimate the power of your own example and 3). Perservere, no matter what obstacles stand in your way. While this was unmistakably great advice, I could not help but wonder how much our President could benefit from his own counsel.
Let’s be frank. The only thing of substance the Black community has gotten out of having a Black president is….well, having a Black president. While the image of a Black man with supreme intelligence rising to become the leader of the free world has done wonders to shatter the “plexi-glass ceiling” placed over so many Black men, the truth is if Obama is not careful he will end up as one of the biggest disappointments in the history of our sojourn in America.
Think it can’t happen? Do you remember when Rev. Jesse Jackson represented the legitimate hope of freedom for Black people. Now, unfortunately, he is the butt all jokes revolutionary; a cartoon caricature of what he once represented. While Nelson Mandela was imprisoned he was the darling of Blacks in South Africa. Not long after his release they where stabbing his picture in the streets. What I’m saying is just as Barack Obama has been touted as the manifestation of King’s Dream, if he isn’t careful he will go down in history as Black America’s worst nightmare. I’ll say it if no one else will. The sentiment of betrayal is beginning to set in among Black people regarding Obama.
Lately he’s been on his “rainbow soap box”, personally endorsing gay marriage. While it was a smart, strategic move politically he lost me and others who crammed to understand how he would back that up Biblically. Even more disturbing is the news that flocks of Black preachers have expressed support for Obama’s position. The truth is that the gay lobby is one of the most powerful, heavily feared in politics. Politics is ruled by money and votes. The Gay and Lesbian community has both. I’m not homophobic. I just can’t endorse what God forbids with a good conscience. And the fact that Obama can is a testament of how far he’s come and how “gone” he is.
How “gone” he is was evident in his countenance, as I watched him speak. When we fell in love with him, as a crack Senator-turned presidential candidate, he looked 5 years younger. Three years into his presidency he looks about 15 years older. He really is beginning to look like Morgan Freeman. Ques: Why is it that Clinton or Bush did not age as quickly or as horribly in their recent stints under the same Presidential pressures? As I studied his face he spoke of victory, yet he himself looked vanquished. I believe that he looks the way he looks because his seat in the White House is forcing him to sell his soul mustard seed by mustard seed.
Obama’s first piece of advice “FIGHT FOR YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE”, was harrowing considering Black people and their specific interests don’t have a seat at the table with the first Black president. I get tired of hearing people say, “Well he’s everybody’s president, not just Black folks’.” Shut up! My problem is that he is endorsing everyone else’s issues, except ours. Every other minority benefited from the Civil Rights Struggle, but Black people and everyone else is benefiting from the first Black president’s seating…but Black people. We fought for Barack Obama’s seat at the table and now we can’t get a seat at the table with him.
Obama’s second piece of advice was “NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF YOUR OWN EXAMPLE.” His example of educated, polished brilliance is one of the best to come from the ranks of Black America. He has unquestionable influence. But, what kind of example are you setting for our sons by giving a green light to gay marriage? Is your political gain worth the spiritual loss that we’ll take if we listen to your example.
Obama’s last piece of advice “PERSEVERE, NO MATTER WHAT OBSTACLES STAND IN YOUR WAY.” The man that we put our faith, hope and trust in is not the same Obama that we see today. He has been steered in a totally different direction. American politics can be one big suction cup disappearing the souls of men and I’m afraid that our brother is being sucked dry. He’s even beginning to look like it. It’s okay to perservere politically, but you must also perservere morally, spiritually and mentally. For what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul.
I have the right to talk this way. First of all it is my constitutional right and secondly, I voted for Obama and encouraged thousands to do the same. I am not discouraging anyone against voting for him in the upcoming election. Let’s be real. What other options do we have? Something tells me that Romney doesn’t like us.
But, if I could play a game of dominoes with the president, I would purposely deal him “all doubles” and ask him how it felt. Then I would tell him “welcome to being Black in America”, something that I don’t know if he identifies with anymore. I write this op-ed in hopes that Obama will prove me wrong. There’s still time and as long as there is time there is hope. My friends in politics probably won’t like the fact that I’ve written this about our president. Aside from the fact that I do not give a d***, if I keep silent for fear of losing political favor, then I may as well take my soul to the flea market, as well. Come on, Obama. What good is it for you to save America but in the process lose your own soul? Fight for your soul, brother. Fight for your soul.
Standing behind the pulpit, addressing his modest 25-member congregation, Imam Khalis Rashaad preaches about time management, nutrition and economic empowerment at his new mosque in Houston’s Third Ward – a largely uncharted territory for Islamic centers.
The rhetoric there is different from the more abstract spiritual sermons of its counterparts – the dozens of long-established suburban mosques in Sugar Land, Katy, Spring and Clear Lake.
Leased in a strip mall on Almeda Road, the mosque is just getting by with member fees and donations that come in through the center’s Facebook page.
No geometric designs or chandeliers adorn the ceiling, no domes or minarets mark the outside. Besides three pieces of Quranic tapestry, the walls at the three-month-old Ibrahim Islamic Center are bare.
“It’s something to have a million-dollar mosque,” said the 39-year-old resident imam, “but if you have cheap projects and cheap ideas coming out of it, it just defeats the purpose.”
That’s where the main difference with the mosque lies – its purpose.
“Our plan is to tackle those projects that many organizations don’t like to tackle,” he said, “and in the area where the most work is needed.”
Community center
While most mosques around the city function primarily as a place of worship for the faith’s five daily prayers, Friday sermon and religious classes, Rashaad hopes to revive a largely abandoned objective – that of the religion’s leader himself.
“Oftentimes,” he said, “we forget that the model of the mosque during the time of our Prophet Muhammad was not only a place of prayer.” It operated more like a community center, he said, both Muslims and non-Muslims visited the mosque to hash out social issues, seek economic advice and receive charity, food and even accommodation.
Under this model, Ibrahim Islamic Center administrators are working to launch several new programs specially catered to the Third Ward’s low-economic community including a food pantry, legal workshops, prisoner re-entry programs, nutrition and exercise programs, drug and alcohol counseling, medical workshops,and entrepreneurship and financial management classes.
“A mosque that stays within its four walls isn’t a mosque at all, it’s a club,” Rashaad said. “We have to be out in the community, meeting the vital needs of the community on their turf, on their terms.”
With the mosque just making ends meet, Rashaad currently gives his time pro bono.
“This is a part of me giving back to a community that I’ve taken so much from,” he said.
Drug dealer, dropout
Born and raised in his Christian grandparents’ home just south of Third Ward, Rashaad got mixed up with drug dealing and crime as a teenager, dropping out of high school and leaving home. After hitting rock bottom at 18, a few Muslim mentors in the area helped him stitch his life back together.
He re-enrolled in school, embraced Islam and subsequently received a bachelor’s in accounting and business management and a master’s in business administration. He now happily juggles life between his accounting practice, his imam responsibilities and his wife and two children.
Rashaad is among the first of a small but growing number of American-raised Muslims taking leadership positions in mosques. For decades, Houston mosques were staffed with immigrant imams from Muslim countries who spoke little English.
Last year, Rashaad completed Houston’s first three-year imam training course pioneered by Imam Wazir Ali, an El Paso-born Muslim who leads at a mosque in southeast Houston. The course had 10 students – all were American-born.
“The goal is to produce Muslim leaders who understand the core values of Islam and the core values of America,” said Ali, “as well as promote and uplift the basic needs for human life, growth and development.”
The Ibrahim Islamic Center’s first big project, Putting the Neighbor Back in the Hood, is set to launch in June. Mosque members will set up stations in Third Ward neighborhoods offering free professional medical check-ups, drug and alcohol counseling, nutrition advice and fresh fruits and vegetables.
“We no longer can continue to sit on the sidelines and just watch while other faith communities do the work alone,” Rashaad said.
“Please remember to keep your feet off of America’s park benches. That happens to be somebody’s bed.” -Deric Muhammad
By: Brother Deric
As salaam alaikum (Peace Be Unto You). I once read a book about a Black Panther revolutionary who loved Monday mornings. He loved Monday mornings because he believed they represented a new beginning for him; an opportunity to do this week what was not done last week. I sort of adopted this thought pattern from that book without knowing it. I feel like every Monday morning has a “starter pistol” for an alarm clock. Ready, set, GO!!! Too often we take off after the sound of the pistol not knowing exactly where we are GOING. This is why we must start every day in prayer and meditation for GUIDANCE. Our travels must take us in the direction of our purpose. If you do not know what your purpose is in life, pray hard for such a revelation. Once you find your purpose then you must find your function within that purpose. Once you find your function you must get busy and master your craft. Mastery takes WORK!!! There is absolutely no way around it. This means that we must be willing to practice, study and endure the grueling grind of task mastery when no one is looking. I once read where the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said that he wished that his students could see him in his role as a student when no one is looking. He spent hours upon hours practicing his radio broadcasts in the 70′s. He spent hours upon hours practicing his violin, beginning at 3am every day in preparation for a performance. Michael Jordan was the greatest on game night because his practice habits were insane. Tiger Woods won the biggest golf tournament in the world and was at practice at 6am the next morning. Too many of us want the success but do not want the sacrifice. We are taught in the Nation of Islam that force x distance = work. This means that we all must summon and impose our will on some object or task that is at rest and then push that object or task in the direction we desire. If you apply the force, but fail to move the object you have exerted the energy, but you have not quite worked. This week, be resolved to MOVE SOMETHING!!! Don’t let laziness, doubt, fear or anxiety cripple you. Devote yourself to the completion of something bigger than yourself this week and don’t stop until you reach that goal. This will give you confidence to tackle the next thing. Before you know it you will be moving at a fast pace toward your desired goals. This is my Monday morning jab. Ouch. I think I just got hit!!!!
TURNING YOUR OWN COMMUNITY INTO A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE
by Deric Muhammad
Once President Lyndon Baines Johnson, with Dr. Martin Luther King looking over his shoulder, signed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 Black people who had a little money couldn’t wait to move from segregated small towns into the big city. It was a privilege and an honor to make the trek from humble shanty towns like Kindleton, Texas to big shot cities like Houston so that we could live down the street from our white “brothers and sisters.”
But, by the time Black folk got moved in they jumped the picket fence to go and meet their new white neighbors, white folk had already moved. “For Sale” signs were everywhere. Real estate companies must’ve made a mint in those days. Soon after, those Black families went back to those small towns and spread the word about the inner city. The new neighborhood was now populated with the same folks from the small town they left. They all may as well have stayed where they were. White folks moved to these rural areas, renamed them “the suburbs” and bought all of the land that we left. Thirty years later in a move to reclaim the inner-cities of America, called “gentrification”, they began to aggressively repurchase urban properties owned by Black people that they lost during the sixties.
Many wondered why, two generations later, the same families that “broke their backs” to get into the inner city were now “breaking their necks” to get out. In the sixties when Blacks got a little money they moved into the city. Now it has become a trending phenomenon to say that you “got out.” Where do we go from here? The move to “gentrify” the inner city was not as easy as they thought it would be. A lot had happened in the decades that had passed since integration. The advent of “crack” cocaine and the violence, turf warfare and human casualty count it brought about turned many inner city neighborhoods into the shanty towns that our families left for a better life in the sixties. By this time we should have learned a valuable lesson. THE NEIGHBORHOOD DOES NOT MAKE THE PEOPLE; IT IS THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
We as a people have to make a conscious decision to stop running from “pillar to post” every other generation and maintain and beautify what is our own. We must stop responding to television commercials about a better life in Sugarland and make the Black community a decent community. The first thing we must do is unite and create a common agenda for the betterment of our neighborhoods. A dirty neighborhood is not a decent neighborhood. If you want others to respect your community it must be clean. You must then become watchmen of education and law enforcement.
You must pack the schools at PTA meetings and demand from elected officials what is necessary to better educate our children. Since we are nearing a 50% dropout rate we must pool our resources to create alternative education opportunities. We must meet with the police chief and advise him how our communities should be policed. We must demand the reassignment of those officers who look to abuse our youth, rather than correct them. Drug treatment facilities are a must. Little league sports teams are a must and after school programs are a must. We must partner with every pastor in the community and make sure that anyone doing business, extracting resources from the community is giving back. However, it all starts with unity. Once you truly unify, you will be amazed at the brilliance that lies dormant in your neighborhood. If we make our own neighborhoods a decent place to live there is no need to move to a nicer neighborhood. The “nicer neighborhood” will have moved to us.
(Follow Deric Muhammad on Twitter @DericMuhammad and visit his website @ http://dericmuhammad.com/)
