where is she?

i love to make lists

i have decided to make a list of some of my all-time favorite songs/spoken word performances.  why you ask?  i really like lists...and feel the need to tell people about myself through insane lists--its kameelah in a neat little package, just add a little water and heat for 5 minutes.

First 25 in an unknown number of installments—here we go…

-wali ali, “rasta man”

-a tribe called quest, "award tour"

-postal service, "nothing better"

-floetry, “i'll die”

-roots and erykah badu, “you got me”

-talib kweli & hitek, “africa dream”

-talib kweli & hitek, memories live”

-talib kweli & hitek, “love speakeasy”

-bob marley, “waiting in vain”

-bob marley, “africa unite”

-gil scott-heron, “johannesburg”

-gil scott-heron, “is that jazz?”

-john coltrane, “after the rain”

-frank sinatra, “for once in my life”

-amir sulaiman, “danger”

-atmosphere, “lovelife”

-atmosphere, “denvemolorado”

-atmosphere, “like today”

-billie holiday, “strange fruit”

-brother ali, “star quality”

-nina simone, “black is the color of my true loves hair”

-little brother, “whatever you say”

racial tension in islam

In the days leading up to when I go see Amina Wadud, the Muslim woman who lead Friday prayer in NY last year, I decided to read up a bit on her, and here is a great article.  While I disagree with her on some points, I think that she provides excellent insight into the very real racial tensions within Islam.  What most struck me about this article was how much her own experiences resonate with my own.  As a black Muslim woman I am often confused as 1) an east africn, north african or south east asian immigrant (??..i know!) 2) muslim revert 3) a member of the nation of islam 4) just a black muslim who knows nothing about the religion

read the article:  its good stuff....

http://www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2005/02/i_am_a_nigger_a.php

WHAT TO the American slave is your 4th of July?

What is the 4th of July to a Slave?

By FREDERICK DOUGLASS

[A Speech to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society on July 5, 1852]

WHAT TO the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy--a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Fellow citizens, the murderous traffic [the slave trade] is today in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.

Fellow citizens! The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a byword to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes.

daytime vs. nighttime