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Thursday, June , 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR

The Arab/Muslim role 
in dismantling Anti-
Black racism

MAYA MOKH
MiC Staff Writer

I address my community not from a place 
of guilt, as I, too, have been there and found it 
to be unproductive and paralyzing. I address 
my community from a place of love and 
urgency. 
We non-Black Arabs, especially those of 
us with proximity to whiteness, have played 
an immense role in the anti-Blackness and 
colorism which pervades our communities 
and contributes to the degradation of Black 
people. Those of us who live in Dearborn are 
especially separated from Detroit by just a 
few miles and a lifetime’s worth of oppres-
sion, subjugation, ignorance and stark differ-
ence in worldviews. We Arabs and Muslims 
need to stop playing the “we’re all minori-
ties” card and get to work. 
It should not take Black people dying for 
us to care about Black lives — anti-Black rac-
ism is what this country was founded upon 
and has its roots in every corner, every sys-
tem, every institution and structure. And it 
does not start or end with the United States. 
The roots of anti-Blackness in Arab com-
munities can be traced to the Arab Slave 
Trade. Its effects are still prevalent with 
the corrupt system of domestic work in the 
Arab world, akin to modern day slavery. The 
branches can be seen in the lingering and 
ever-present anti-Blackness many of our 
communities harbor, which Susan Abulhawa 
also details in her article, including the idol-
izing of lighter skin and European beauty 
standards. 
Another branch is the colorism which 
exists in our own communities, reverberat-
ing the harmful message that lighter is bet-
ter. Additionally, especially for Arabs and 
Muslims in Dearborn, racism can be seen in 
the interactions between us and Black people 
in our community, the use of Arabic racial 
slurs, the way gas station and store owners 
treat their Black customers, the stark divi-
sion drawn between Dearborn and Detroit 
and the villainization of Black people begin-
ning with the older generation and trickling 
down into ours and the ones below us. It 
can be seen how even Black Arabs and Mus-
lims are treated in our very own communi-
ties. There is a certain superiority complex 
among lighter skin, Levantine Arabs. 
What’s very disheartening is the fact that 
many Arabs and Muslims are able to vehe-
mently denounce Israel and the IDF’s abu-
sive treatment of Palestinians, empathizing 
with and raising awareness for the Pales-
tinian struggle. Yet they fail to realize that 
American police are often trained by the 
IDF, adopting their brutal techniques and 

A Native perspective on 
political resistance and 
force

ANA MARÍA SÁNCHEZ-CASTILLO
MiC Staff Writer

With the tribal erasure of the sovereign 
Native state we saw the beginning of a long 
series of United States law infringing on 
the basic human rights of Black and Native 
Americans. It is fitting that this conversation 
starts from a place of shared resistance. The 
concept of civility must be deconstructed 
and the illusory security of the American 
police force must be illuminated. 
Now and in the upcoming weeks, I intend 
to frame the police state as a continuation 
of Black and Native American genocide and 
enslavement. I hope the intertwining histo-
ries can help to tell a story which weakens 
the foundation of the white institution and 
propels the correct narrative of Black and 
brown lives. 
Don’t talk of the success of civility in the 
same breath as genocide and murder. 
The loss of Black lives is an afterthought 
second to the vehicles of protest, so since 
when was it a priority to take the moral high 
ground? Why is it that the oppressed are 
expected to be passive at the hands of bru-
tality? When history has only given result 
to those who have a greater capacity for vio-
lence than the oppressor.
White institutions continue to run pro-
ductively and efficiently despite nonviolent 
resistance. Institutions such as the police 
force, prisons, and universities work to dis-
mantle Black power out of fear that the white 
grip on enslavement will loosen along with 
the position of white supremacy. These insti-
tutions operate under systems that grew 
from the colonial history of violence, loot-
ing of sacred objects, ransacking of lives 
and the stripping of physical and psycho-
logical dignity. Institutions of the sort must 
be destroyed along with all functions that 
uphold them. As for people shifting the focus 
off of murder and onto the destruction of 
goods, understand these goods are symbols 
of violence and oppression, the capitalism 
which killed and destroyed livelihoods with-
out ramifications. Police stations and luxury 
stores have become mocking symbols of the 
material interest of the white institution, and 
have been protected at the expense of Black 
lives and Black and brown liberation and 
equity, their destruction holds incredible 
political weight. 
Don’t talk about the success of nonvio-
lence. 
It is few and far between the reckless and 
excessive displacement and war on Black and 
brown lives. 
I come from the Lipan Apache tribe of 
Texas. My people died warriors, fighting in 
defense of the land and ideals we grew from. 

My people were murdered, their country 
lazily blundered to build white industries 
stained with Black blood on the bones of the 
Indeginous.
We are alive today because of the revolu-
tions that came before us and because of the 
blood lost fighting for the honor of the land 
pillaged by white colonizers or mass mur-
derers. The fact of the matter is the United 
States was designed for things to operate 
on oppression - the system is working as it 
was intended to, it is not broken, the goal is 
to break it. Issues we see now have endured 
hundreds of years of movements and have 
cost the lives of millions upon thousands. 
This is obvious and those extreme numbers 
must be answered with extreme action. 
As consequences to enduring oppression 
Benjamin Ginsberg explains how, “looters 
deviate from the norms [of white violence] 
because they have reached the limits of their 
endurance and in giving bent to their nor-
mally suppressed rage strike out indiscrimi-
nately”. It is horrific to see a normalization 
of state violence while criminalizing the sup-
pressed anguish of Black and brown commu-
nities, but we must not be deterred. 
The battle takes place on the ground and 
virtually. Linked are organizations accept-
ing donations to release freedom fighters and 
support the Black Lives Matter movement. 
Crowdsourcing is being matched by major 
companies and has the potential to make a 
major impact in continuing the momentum 
towards liberation and a just state. Your dol-
lar holds an influence as does your vote and 
both are integral efforts. Email the Min-
neapolis Police Department and demand 
George Floyds murderers be charged to the 
fullest extent. Sign as many petitions as you 
find productive, such as the Justice for Floyd 
petition. No one is asking for everyone to 
take the stance of getting on the front lines 
protesting, risking bodily harm, but in order 
to avoid scattering the reach of efforts it’s 
important to remain unified in resistance. 
Validate and uphold the efforts of other free-
dom fighters. Fight whether it be physically, 
virtually or both, find a vehicle to join efforts 
and press the gas full speed.
As a culmination of the cries of the war-
riors that came before us, we are a million 
souls on fire, a fire that courses through our 
veins, a fire we must light the streets with - 
hopefully this fire burns the path to justice. 
Some people may just want to watch the 
world burn, some are upset to see their com-
munities destroyed, the bottom line is people 
are angry for one reason or another, and 
tired of explaining why everyone should be.

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militaristic nature. They fail to realize our 
struggles are intersecting and how we are 
hypocrites if not standing with our Black 
brothers and sisters in their fight for jus-
tice. The same government we criticize for 
its treatment of us, we must criticize for its 
ongoing and inhumane oppression of Black 
people since the inception of this country. 
The same way we denounce the War on Ter-
ror, we must denounce the War on Drugs and 
recognize its role in destabilizing the Black 
community, beginning a system of criminal-
ization and subjugation.
I attended a Facebook Live event by Mus-
lim nonprofit Wasat, “The Way of Iblis: Rac-
ist Violence and Capitalist Excess” which is 
part of a series called “Breaking the Idols of 
Our Time.” Dr. Bilal Ware began by speak-
ing about God’s love for humanity which is 
proven throughout the Qur’an. He explains 
that in the Qur’an, as well as the Bible, God 
creates through speech.
“He has only to say unto a thing: Be, and it 
is” but “humanity is made with a caress, and 
animated with a kiss, in contradistinction to 
other things that are made with speech” 
He then goes on to discuss the origins of 
racial violence from an Islamic perspective, 
beginning with the fall of Satan for refus-
ing to bow down to Adam due to arrogance 
and feelings of superiority. This arrogance 
was rooted in bodily composition and origin, 
as Satan believed he was superior to Adam 
because he is made of fire, while Adam is 
made of clay. The fact that we as human 
beings, all made of the same fragile and fleet-
ing bodily composition have created a hierar-
chical system that ranks some above others 
and treats them accordingly is evidence of 
sickness of the heart. 
But that sickness, whether we are aware 
of it or not, lives on in fragments of various 
sizes, in our hearts and our communities, 
and it is on each and every single one of us 
to spend our lives eradicating that sickness 
where we see it. This includes but transcends 
intrapersonal and interpersonal racism and 
goes back to the origins — the laws, poli-
cies and corporations which keep it in place 
and how we are contributing to them. The 
resources to learn about these origins and 
how we can do our part are endless and we 
need to be reading and watching relevant 
content, not solely relying on social media to 
educate us with brief stimuli we are likely to 
soon forget. 
The other “Satanic force” Dr. Ware refers 
to its capitalist excess — America’s insatiable 
obsession with greed and wealth.”

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