Experiences of Anti-Blackness in Islamic Educational Spaces: Implications for Islamic Teacher Education
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Review of the Literature
2.1. Mis-Education, Re-Education, and Education in the Era of Post-Colonial Religion [12]: Sister Clara Muhammad Schools and Islamic Schools after 1960
2.2. Anti-Blackness and Aspirational Whiteness
2.3. Anti-Racist Pedagogy
3. Methodology
3.1. Interviews
3.2. Data Analysis
3.3. Setting
3.4. Participants
4. Results
4.1. Singling Students Out
“In the school setting, kids are being treated differently. I don’t know. My brothers and sisters, they, complain about being treated differently than the other children…they would do something, and the other kids would also do something, but the teacher would mainly pick on them. Like they get in trouble from it.”
I think what was hurtful to me was when he was finally called the n-word, it was in that space…Yeah, yeah and it was a shock. I look back now that I am fifty-four and I should’ve handled it better. My memory is poor now, but something happened at the school where the hours I think became such that we couldn’t go there cause we needed, we were both either working or in school and we needed the hours to be what they had been and the hours were shortened somehow at the school and so we pulled him out regretfully. But I think what [we] might have taken away was ‘wow, that was a really not so nice space for him.’ And I was living in an apartment complex and a Pakistani lady asked why we weren’t at the school anymore and I told her, and she was a little older than me and she chided me and she said, “the school doesn’t belong to that family or that child who said that. What’s wrong with you? You know it’s bigger than that. You don’t deprive your child of religious or the Muslim experience or the masjid experience just because of that one incident”. And I understood at the time that she was correct.
So, I’m a Somali female raised in many different countries and Arab attitudes to African people or Black people, when they’re bad—you know that fact, that racism exists, was not news to me. We’d lived in Egypt. We’d lived in Yemen. Um, um, (pauses) I love the Arabic language, I love Arabic culture. I don’t blame the people. I’m not saying (pauses)…but the fact that there are racialized ideologies out there and that you could be impacted by that was nothing new to me. And I just think, I’ll be honest with you, I think you are (pauses)…what hurts is that when you don’t expect it in the places and spaces…I don’t—you know if it happened on the streets of [the city of research]—alright. So, as much as I’m acting all sophisticated, ‘ah, these things happen’, clearly, we ran for the hills and never looked back.
4.2. Unwanted
N: We’re in a country that’s struggling with race. Why would we assume that, that we are immune as a Muslim community? Right? And for our children’s sake if nothing else I think we’ve got to just develop language and be okay with that and not assume perfection and not front. You know what I mean? I, I just think it’s crazy to be saying that there are no problems. What we should be saying is ‘but we work on them’.R: Right.N: And I think that, to do, to have that conversation in the masjid, it’s to help our children further figure out how to navigate this culture. As having people, when you add, if you were to add an immigrant identity to a Muslim identity, right? And in addition to that you’re Black—those are three things that they are navigating. So, I think the masjid could be a very cool place to help students think this through, but I think ignoring it is the most toxic thing we can do.R: Do you think it has been slightly ignored?N: Oh yeah! People don’t want to deal with it at all. I never even bothered bringing it up [to institutional leaders]. I just disappeared.R: Yeah, that’s right, your own experience.N: Yeah, yeah, yeah that’s to the degree that I didn’t expect—I didn’t even give them an option to fix things. I just assumed, ‘Oh, like that is it? Oh well’.
At one time, the Somali community—all of them withdraw their kids. Because they [members of the school board] come [up] with a plan…they sat down and they said, ‘you know what, [the school], all the kids going there are African kids. Arab kids—maybe [there is] only ten. So, they say, ‘what’s the benefit for us?’ You see? Honestly, they sat down, and they talked about this. They said, ‘you know what? These African kids that are going there, most of them are Somali kids. Their parents won’t afford to pay if we raise the tuition…’ So, everybody withdraw their kids…And [the school] was like seven kids. I’m like, ‘now happily you guys can enjoy your school’.
5. Discussion
5.1. Anti-Blackness and the Absence of Safety
5.2. Islamic Educational Spaces and Anti-Racist Pedagogy
5.3. Future Research Directions
6. Conclusions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Name | Family Origin | Time in U.S. | Approximate Age Range |
---|---|---|---|
Muhammad | Sudan | 10 years and has lived in various other parts of the Middle East | Mid–late 30s |
Yusuf | Burundi | 12–15 years | Late 30s |
Mansour | Senegal | Almost his entire life. His family came when he was a toddler. | Late 20s to early 30s |
Hamza | Somalia | 13 years | Late 20s to early 30s |
Asif (Member of family) | Somalia | 35 years in the city but has lived in other parts of the U.S. and world | Late 40s |
Naima (Member of family) | Somalia | 20 years in the city but has lived in other parts of the U.S. and world | Early 50s |
Mustafa (Member of family) | Somalia | 26 years in the city but has lived in other parts of the U.S. and world | Early 50s |
Yahye (Member of family) | Somalia/U.S. | Almost entire life | 20s |
Yacquub (Member of family) | Somalia/U.S. | Almost entire life | 20s |
Khadija (Member of family) | Somalia | 20 years in the city but has lived in other parts of the U.S. and world | Elderly |
Hafsa (Member of family) | Somalia/U.S. | Lived in the city off and on for 7 years and lived in various other countries | Early 20s |
Hammad | Ghana | 11 years | Late 30s to early 40s |
Kaamil | Sudan | Lived in the city for two years, also lived in another state and the Caribbean | Early 30s |
Muhsin | Sudan | 5 years | Mid to late 30s |
Mahmoud | Sudan | 13 years | Mid 30s |
Juan | U.S. | Entire life | 50s |
Hashem | Sudan | 4 years and has also lived in the Middle East and Europe | Early 40s |
Tahir | Senegal | 8 years | Early 30s |
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González-Doğan, S. Experiences of Anti-Blackness in Islamic Educational Spaces: Implications for Islamic Teacher Education. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 1160. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13111160
González-Doğan S. Experiences of Anti-Blackness in Islamic Educational Spaces: Implications for Islamic Teacher Education. Education Sciences. 2023; 13(11):1160. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13111160
Chicago/Turabian StyleGonzález-Doğan, Shyla. 2023. "Experiences of Anti-Blackness in Islamic Educational Spaces: Implications for Islamic Teacher Education" Education Sciences 13, no. 11: 1160. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13111160