Constructing Masculinity: Interactions between Islam and African-American Youth Since C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America

Abstract

Using oral history interviews conducted at The University of Iowa after September 11, 2001, Black autobiographies, and recent social-scientific and cultural studies of African-American masculinity, this article evaluates from contemporary and historical perspectives, identity formation among Sunni Muslim converts and second generation Muslims involved in hip hop culture. The article also discusses visual representations in television and cinema that frame youth conversion experiences.

Keywords:

• 9/11
• black masculinity
• C. Eric Lincoln
• conversion experiences
• hip hop
• identity formation
• Malcolm X
• Mos Def
• Sunni Islam
• Talib Kweli

Notes

C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America, 3rd ed. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994), p. 25. An earlier version of this article was presented in the Afro-American History Group at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, November 22, 2004.

Ibid., pp. 79–80.

Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Engaged Surrender: African-American Women and Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), p. 5. Paula Giddngs, When and Where I Enter (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), pp. 317–318. Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

Ellis Cose, The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America (New York: Washington Square Press, 2002), p. 15. There is a blossoming literature on twentieth-century and contemporary African-American men. See the following select works: Alfred A. Young, Jr., The Minds of Marginalized Black Men (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004); Steven Estes, I am a Man: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press 2005); Maurice O. Wallace, Constructing The Black Masculine (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002); Marlon Ross, Manning the Race (New York: New York University Press, 2004); Phillip Brian Harper, Are We Not Men (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Herb Boyd and Robert Allen, eds., Brotherman (New York: One World, Ballantine Books, 1995).

Rudolph P. Byrd and Beverly Guy-Steftall, eds., Traps: African-American Men on Gender and Sexuality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. xiii and xv.

Rouse, Engaged Surrender, p. 5.

Ishan Bagby, Paul M. Perl, and Bryan T. Froehle, The Mosque in America: A National Portrait: A Report from the Mosque Study Project (Washington, D.C.: Council on American Islamic Relations, 2001), p. 21. This report does not count African-American participation in proto-Islamic communities, such as the Nation of Islam.

The information in this article is part of a larger oral history project of interviews that I have conducted with African-American Muslim men in California, New Orleans, Chicago, Boston, and Iowa since the early 1990s.

Ian Fricke and Charles Ahearn, Yes Yes Y'all—The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop's First Decade (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), p. 76.

Grandmaster Flash, “Foreword,” The Vibe History of Hip Hop, Allan Light, ed. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), p. viii.

Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), pp. 34–35.

Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate (New York: The New Press, 1999); David Cole, No Equal Justice (New York: The New Press, 1999); Also see the articles in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 2:1 (Winter 2002), which focus on the theme, “Racing Justice: Black America vs. the Prison Industrial Complex.”

Kobena Mercer, “Endangered Species: Danny Tisdale and Keith Piper,” Artforum 30 (Summer 1992), p. 75 and Thelma Golden, Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994), p. 19. Also see: Haki R. Madhubuti, Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? (Chicago, Third World Press, 1990); Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson, Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America (New York: Lexington Books, 1992); Michelle Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of Superwoman (New York: Dial, 1979).

Eithne Quinn, Nuthin' but a “G” Thang: The Culture and Commence of Gangsta Rap (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Tricia Rose, Black Noise, p. 100. Michael Eric Dyson, Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2001). Nelson George, Hip Hop America (New York: Penguin Books, 1998); Imani Perry, Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); Cheryl L. Keyes, Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002).

Charise L. Cheney, Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2005), p. 6.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., 21.

Ibid., 19.

Anthony B. Pinn, ed., Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music (New York: New York University Press, 2003), p. 14.

Fricke and Ahearn, Yes Yes Y'all, p. 44.

Ibid., p. 55.

Joseph D. Eure and James G. Spady, eds., Nation Conscious Rap (New York: PC International Press, 1991); Todd Boyd, The New H.N.I.C. The Death of Civil Rights and The Reign of Hip Hop (New York: New York University Press, 2002), pp. 150–151; Juan M. Floyd-Thomas, “A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip Hop,” Noise and Spirit, Pinn. ed., 51–61; Ernest Allen, Jr., “Making the Strong Survive: The Contours and Contradictions of Message Rap,” Droppin' Science: Critical Essays on Rap and Hip Hop Culture, William Eric Perkins, ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996).

See Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience, Second ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 234–235 for details about U.S. immigration laws and Muslim immigrants in the late twentieth century. Yvonne Haddad, “Muslim Communities and the New West,” Middle East Affairs Journal, 5: 3–4 (Summer–Fall, 1999–1420), p. 14.

Haddad, “Muslim Communities and the New West,” p. 17.

Jay Z's CDs include: Reasonable Doubt (Roc-A-Fella, 1996). In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (Roc-A-Fella, 1997). Hard Knock Life, Vol. 2 (Roc-A-Fella, 1998). The Dynasty: Roc La Familia (Roc-A-Fella, 2000). The Life and Times of Sean Carter, Vol. 3 (Roc-A-Fella, 2001); MTV Unplugged (Roc-A-Fella, 2001). The Blueprint 2 (Roc-A-Fella, 2003).

Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star (Rawkus Records, 1998, 2002).

Obie Clayton and Joan W. Moore, “The Effects of Crime and Imprisonment on Family Formation.” Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society, Obie Clayton, Ronald B Mincy, and David Blankenhorn, eds. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003), pp. 85–86. S. Craig Watkins, Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Spike Lee with Ralph Wiley, By Any Means Necessary (New York: Hyperion, 1992). “The Inmates of ‘Oz’ Move into a New Emerald City,” The New York Times, July 15, 2001: 24, pp. 33.

South Central (Warner Brothers, 1992).

Nathan McCall, Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America (New York: Random House, 1994); Sonyika Shakur, Monster: The Autobiography of a L.A. Gang Member (New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1993); Alex Haley and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 1965); Robert Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Aminah McCloud and Frederick Thaufeer al-Deen, A Question of Faith for Muslim Inmates (Chicago: ABC International Group, Inc., 1999).

Interview with Khalid, October 8, 2004.

Hishaam Aidi, “Jihadis in the Hood: Race, Urban Islam, and the War on Terror,” Middle East Report 224 (Fall 2002), pp. 38–40; Floyd-Thomas, “Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African-American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop,” pp. 49–70. Yusuf Nuruddin, “The Five Percenters: A Teenage Nation of Gods and Earths,” Muslim Communities in North America, Yvonne Y. Haddad, and Jane I. Smith, eds. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), pp. 109–132; Brett Johnson and Malik Russell, “Time to Build,” Source: The Magazine of Hip Hop Music, Culture, and Politics, 158 (November 2002): pp. 118–122. The Five Percent Nation (The Nation of Gods and Earths) was founded in Harlem by Clarence 13X in 1964. They focus on the esoteric literature of W.D. Fard and believe that all Black men are gods. They see themselves in the five percent of African-Americans who are the “poor righteous teachers” of their race. In their beliefs, Harlem is Mecca and Brooklyn is Medina. Felicia M. Miyakawa, Five Percent Rap: God Hop's Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).

See Garbi Schmidt, Islam in Urban America: Sunni Muslims in Chicago (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), chapter 4 on the Muslim Student Associations. Currently, there are an estimated 15–20 African-descended Muslims on The University of Iowa campus.

See Marcus K. Hermansen, “Teaching About Muslims in America,” Teaching Islam, Brannon M. Wheeler, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

McCloud and Thaufeer al-Deen, A Question of Faith for Muslim Inmates, p. iii.

Interview with Musa. “Islamic Influence and Identities in Hip Hop,” Musa's research paper, n.p., December 2002.

Interview with Khalid, October 8, 2004.

Interview with A.J., February 26, 2002.

Mos Def, Black On Both Sides (Rawkus, 1999).

Ibid.

Nas, Stillmatic (Ill-Will Records, 2001).

Ibid.

Ibid.

Interview with Khalid, October 8, 2004.

For studies of the African-American Church in the post–Civil Rights era, see: Anthony B. Pinn, The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003); R. Drew Smith, ed., New Day Begun: African-American Churches and Civic Culture in Post Civil Rights America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003); and Long March Ahead: African-American Churches and Public Policy in Post Civil Rights America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).

Interview with Khalid, October 8, 2002.

Ibid.

Edward Rothstein, “The Personal Evolution of a Civil Rights Giant,” The New York Times, May 19, 2005, pp. B1, B7. C. Gerald Fraser, “Manning Marable's Project to Restore the Legacy of Malcolm X,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Summer 2001). Lewis V. Baldwin and Amiri YaSin Al-Hadid, Between Cross and Crescent: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Malcolm and Martin (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002).

Interview with Dirul, October 7, 2002.

Bagby, Perl, and Froehle, The Mosque in America, pp. 17, 21.

Nas, Stillmatic (Ill Will Records, 2001).

DPZ, Turn Off the Radio, The Mix Tape, Vol. 1 (Holla Black, 2002).

Public Enemy, Revolverlution (Koch Records, 2002).

See Jamillah Karim, “Between Immigrant Islam and Black Liberation: Young Muslims Inherit Global Muslim and African-American Legacies,” The Muslim World 95/4 (October 2005): pp. 497–513.

Interview with Dirul, October 7, 2002.

Interview with A.J., April 2 and 9, 2002.

Interview with Dirul, October 7, 2002.

Interview with A.J., April 2 and 9, 2002.

Interview with Khalid, October 3, 2002.

Yasue Kuwahara, “Power to the People Y'All: Rap Music, Resistance, and Black College Students,” Humanity and Society 16/1 (1992): p. 56.

See Manning Marable, The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2002), chapter 10 and Cornel West, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004), chapter 6; Hishaam Aidi, “Let Us be Moors: Islam, Race, and ‘Connected Histories,’ ” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, 7/1 (Winter 2005): 36–51.