DEARBORN, Michigan: In her job as a refugee case manager, Fatimah Farooq would come to work in a hijab and speak with her clients in Arabic. Nonetheless, she found herself being asked whether she was Muslim.
It’s not easy, Farooq says, navigating her dual identities as black and Muslim.
“I’m constantly trying to prove that I belong,” said Farooq, who now works in public health. “It’s really hard not to be an outsider in a community — especially today, in the current times.”
Many Muslims are reeling from a US presidential administration that’s cracked down on immigrants, including through the introduction of a travel ban that suspends new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries and is now tied up in court. But black American-born Muslims say they have been pushed to the edges of the conversations — even by those who share the same religion.
They say they often feel discrimination on multiple fronts: For being black, for being Muslim and for being black and Muslim among a population of immigrant Muslims. Farooq, whose Sudanese parents came to the US before she was born, said her own family used to attend a largely African-American mosque but then moved to a predominantly Arab one — yet in both cases still felt like “outsiders.”
The identity issues have rippled into social media with Twitter’s #BeingBlackAndMuslim and @BlkMuslimWisdom formed in recent weeks to amplify stories of black Muslims, whether it’s to praise Mahershala Ali, who is black and became the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar, or to express concern over the lack of black speakers at a recent Islamic conference. Tensions are also being aired at community town halls, with panelists questioning why there hasn’t been more involvement from Arab and South Asian Muslims in Black Lives Matter events.
In response, activists say they’re seizing the opportunity to unite Muslims of all backgrounds.
Kashif Syed, who lives in the Washington, D.C. area, grew up in a family of South Asian Muslim immigrants around Detroit that was insulated from black Muslims. Now that he’s part of a young professional Muslim community, he’s trying to honor the experiences of others.
“We’re seeing increasingly visible threats to Muslims across the country now — it’s an important reminder of what black communities have endured for generations in this country,” said Syed, who volunteers at Townhall Dialogue, a nonprofit fostering discussions about US Muslim identity. “I can’t really think of a better time for non-black Muslims to start examining how we got here, and what lessons we can learn from the hard-won victories of black communities from the civil rights movement.”
Organizer Shamar Hemphill, a black Chicago native who works for the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, said Republican President Donald Trump’s executive orders such as the travel ban have made organizers “quadruple” efforts to form alliances, including recent calls for Muslim groups to attend and organize around Martin Luther King Jr. Day events.
“We’re not going to allow any policy or federal piece of legislation to separate us and isolate us. We’re going to come together and protect each other,” he said. “It’s also a great opportunity because it brings us out of our silos.”
Other attempts at unity have been made over the years. Imam Zaid Shakir at the California-based Zaytuna College, a liberal arts Muslim college, has delivered lectures about similarities between the Prophet Muhammad’s farewell sermon and King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations holds events around the birthday of Malcolm X, a Nation of Islam member who came into mainstream Islam. And IMAN in Chicago has celebrated hip hop, featuring Muslim rappers like Grammy-winner Rhymefest.
Asha Noor, whose family fled Somalia’s civil war when she was a baby, helped organize a town hall after Trump announced his first travel ban in February, which blocked travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries and put the US refugee program on hold. That ban has since been replaced with a newer version.
Noor said she feels there’s less attention paid to the plight of refugees from her native Somalia and Sudan, the two African countries in Trump’s executive order. She sees it as part of a “continuous erasure of the black Muslim experience.”
“Black Muslims often face a two-front challenge, both within the community and the larger American society,” said Noor, who worked for Take on Hate, a campaign challenging discrimination against Arabs and Muslims. “You can never be too sure if assaults or micro-aggressions are coming because you’re black, Muslim, or both.”
Central to the issue, experts say, is that Islam is largely portrayed as something foreign. That’s a misconception University of San Francisco professor Aysha Hidayatullah encounters when teaching an “Islam in America” class where she looks at Islam’s presence in America from the slave trade to civil rights — something that is a surprise to many of her students.
“It’s a class that is focused mainly on recovering the black memory of Islam in this country,” she said. “That’s the element that’s forgotten.”
Compared with the general population, US Muslims are more racially diverse with a larger percentage born abroad. There’s disagreement on how many millions reside in the US, but it’s commonly accepted that American blacks represent about one-third of Muslims in this country.
Many came to the religion through the Nation of Islam, which veers from mainstream Islam on several core teachings, leading many immigrant Muslims to consider it too divergent from their faith. But Imam W. Deen Mohammed transformed the movement after taking it over in the 1970s and gradually moved his thousands of followers toward mainstream Islam, while Louis Farrakhan took leadership of the black separatist Nation of Islam.
Despite the history of blacks in the Muslim faith, Tariq Touré, a Maryland writer and activist, says South Asian and Arab narratives still dominate the conversation.
“It’s disheartening, because black Muslims can’t even get a word in as to how they’re navigating all of this,” said Touré, who’s black. “We really struggle with it all — the bridges that have been burned and the barriers that have been built within the Muslim communities when it comes to race.”
Abdul Rahim Habib, an American-born college student, said even his close friends assumed he converted to Islam because they didn’t associate being black with being Muslim. That’s even though the 21-year-old’s Nigerian father and grandparents are Muslim. While growing up in Chicago, he could remember moments when Arab Muslims refused to greet him with “As-Salaam-Alaikum,” a wish of peace customary among all Muslims.
“A lot of our Arab brothers and sisters didn’t really care about being brothers and sisters until this point when they started having problems,” he said.
Black Muslims aim for unity in challenging time for Islam
Black Muslims aim for unity in challenging time for Islam
Yale graduates stage pro-Palestinian walkout of commencement
- Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, denied that his nation was trying to mislead the world. Backed by China and others, he called the vote “a unique moment of truth for our Western colleagues”
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut: Scores of graduating students staged a walkout from Yale University’s commencement exercises on Monday, protesting the Israeli war in Gaza, Yale’s financial ties to weapons makers and its response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Ivy League campus.
The walkout began as Yale President Peter Salovey started to announce the traditional college-by-college presentation of candidates for degrees on the grounds of Yale’s Old Campus, filled with thousands of graduates in their caps and gowns.
At least 150 students seated near the front of the audience stood up together, turned their backs to the stage and paraded out of the ceremony through Phelps Gate, retracing their steps during the processional into the yard.
Many of the protesters carried small banners with such slogans as “Books not bombs” and “Divest from war.” Some wore red-colored latex gloves symbolizing bloodied hands.
Other signs read: “Drop the charges” and “Protect free speech” in reference to 45 people arrested in a police crackdown last month on demonstrations in and around the New Haven, Connecticut, campus.
The walkout drew a chorus of cheers from fellow students in the crowd, but the protest was otherwise peaceful, without disruption. No mention of it was made from the stage.
Yale is one of dozens of US campuses roiled by protests over the mounting Palestinian humanitarian crisis stemming from Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip following the bloody Oct. 7 cross-border attack on Jewish settlements by Hamas militants.
The University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony altogether, and dozens of students walked out of Duke University’s commencement last week to protest its guest speaker, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who has supported Israel throughout the war in Gaza.
ACADEMIC WORKERS STRIKE UC SANTA CRUZ
Fallout from a violent attack weeks ago on pro-Palestinian activists encamped at the University of California, Los Angeles, reverberated on the UC Santa Cruz campus on Monday as academic workers there staged a protest strike organized by their union.
Much of the student activism has been aimed at academic institutions’ financial ties with Israel and US military programs benefiting the Jewish state.
Protests in sympathy with Palestinians have in turn been branded by pro-Israel supporters as antisemitic, testing the boundaries between freedom of expression and hate speech. Many schools have called in police to quell the demonstrations.
At UC Santa Cruz on Monday, hundreds of unionized academic researchers, graduate teaching assistants and post-doctoral scholars went on strike to protest what they said were the university’s unfair labor practices in its handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The strikers are members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 4811, which represents some 2,000 grad students and other academic workers at UC Santa Cruz, and about 48,000 total across all 10 University of California campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Last week, the UAW 4811 rank-and-file voted to authorize union leaders to organize a series of “standup” strikes through the end of June on individual or groups of UC campuses rather than across the entire university.
The Santa Cruz strike marked the first union-backed protest in solidarity with the recent wave of pro-Palestinian student activists, whose numbers, according to the UAW, include graduate students arrested at several University of California campuses.
Union leaders said a major impetus for the strike was the arrest of 210 people at the scene of a pro-Palestinian protest camp torn down by police at UCLA on May 2.
The night before, a group of pro-Israel supporters physically attacked the encampment and its occupiers in a melee that went on for at least three hours before police moved in to quell the disturbance. The university has since opened an investigation of the incident.
The strikers also are demanding amnesty for grad students who were arrested or face discipline for their involvement in the protests.
UC Santa Cruz issued a statement saying campus entrances were briefly blocked in the morning by demonstrators, prompting the school to switch to remote instruction for the day.
The University of California has filed its own unfair labor practice complaint with the state Public Employee Relations Board asking the state to order a halt to the strike.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Drexel ignore call to disband as arrests nationwide surpass 3,000
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- Students and others have set up tent encampments on campuses around the country to press colleges to cut financial ties with Israel
PHILADELPHIA: Pro-Palestinian protesters ignored a request by Drexel University’s president to disband their encampment on Monday as arrests linked to campus demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war surpassed the 3,000 mark nationwide.
Drexel’s campus remained on lockdown, with classes being held virtually as police kept watch over the demonstration on the school’s Korman Quad. Many Drexel employees were told to work from home.
In a statement issued a day earlier, Drexel President John Fry said as many as 60 protesters were at the encampment, lambasting it as “intolerably disruptive to normal university operations.” He said there were “serious concerns about the conduct of some participants, including distressing reports and images of protesters subjecting passersby to antisemitic speech, signs and chants.” Fry threatened disciplinary action against Drexel students participating in the protest.
The Drexel Palestine Coalition responded on Instagram late Sunday that “it is slander to accuse the encampment of ‘hateful’ or ‘intimidating’ actions when we have done neither.” The group accused Drexel and city police of harassment and intimidation. A pro-Palestinian group of faculty and staff blasted Fry on Monday for shuttering campus facilities and said the encampment was “not disruptive to learning.”
The Drexel protesters’ demands ranged from the university administration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and divesting from companies that do business with Israel, to abolition of the Drexel police department and termination of the school’s chapter of Hillel, the Jewish campus organization.
No arrests were reported.
Students and others have set up tent encampments on campuses around the country to press colleges to cut financial ties with Israel. Tensions over the war have been high on campuses since the fall but demonstrations spread quickly following an April 18 police crackdown on an encampment at Columbia University.
More than 3,000 people have been arrested on US campuses over the past month. Campuses have been calmer recently, with fewer arrests, as students leave for summer break. Still, colleges have been vigilant for disruptions to commencement ceremonies.
At the University of California, Santa Cruz, graduate students went on strike Monday as part of a rolling, systemwide protest over how administrators have responded to pro-Palestinian encampments, including arrests of protesters at the Los Angeles, San Diego and Irvine campuses.
The encampment at Drexel, which has about 22,000 students, was set up after several hundred demonstrators marched from Philadelphia’s City Hall to west Philadelphia on Saturday. Nearby, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, university and city police arrested 19 demonstrators Friday night, including six Penn students.
On Monday, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner declined to charge four of the Penn protesters, citing a lack of evidence submitted by campus police. Krasner’s office approved misdemeanor charges against three others. The remaining 12 arrested Friday night were given citations for failing to disperse.
Penn’s main commencement ceremony, meanwhile, was held under tightened security and a ban on flags and signs. There were no disruptions.
But dozens of students walked out of Yale University’s commencement ceremony Monday, some waving Palestinian flags. Yale said in a prepared statement that “a number of graduating students chose to peacefully walk out during the ceremony. University staff helped guide these individuals to an area outside the event space, and the ceremony continued as scheduled.”
Wesleyan University in Connecticut said it has reached agreement with student protesters to review possible divestment, with meetings scheduled for later this month and in the fall. Wesleyan President Michael Roth announced the deal over the weekend and disclosed that 1.7 percent of Wesleyan’s endowment was invested in aerospace and defense businesses, but that none were directly involved in the manufacture of weapons.
As part of the agreement, Wesleyan protesters cleared their encampment on Monday, according to a school spokesperson.
The Associated Press has recorded at least 82 incidents since April 18 where arrests were made at campus protests across the US At least 3,025 people have been arrested on the campuses of 61 colleges and universities. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, while Israel’s military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
What is the ICC and why it is considering arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The International Criminal Court could soon issue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, more than seven months into the war between the two sides, based on a request by the court’s chief prosecutor.
Karim Khan said that he believes Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The ICC was established in 2002 as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.
The Rome Statute creating the ICC was adopted in 1998 and took effect when it got 60 ratifications on July 1, 2002. The UN General Assembly endorsed the ICC, but the court is independent.
Without a police force, the ICC relies on member states to arrest suspects, which has proven to be a major obstacle to prosecutions.
Netanyahu said last month that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.” He said that while the ICC won’t affect Israel’s actions, it would “set a dangerous precedent.”
WHAT IS THE ICC?
The ICC’s 124 member states have signed on to the Rome Statute. Dozens of countries didn’t sign and don’t accept the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and other crimes. They include Israel, the United States, Russia and China.
The ICC becomes involved when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute crimes on their territory. Israel argues that it has a functioning court system, and disputes over a nation’s ability or willingness to prosecute have fueled past disputes between the court and individual countries.
In 2020, then US President Donald Trump authorized economic and travel sanctions on the ICC prosecutor and another senior prosecution office staffer. The ICC staff were looking into US and allies’ troops and intelligence officials for possible war crimes in Afghanistan.
US President Joe Biden, whose administration has provided crucial military and political support for the Gaza offensive, lifted the sanctions in 2021.
The ICC has 17 ongoing investigations, issued a total of 42 arrest warrants and taken 21 suspects into custody. Its judges have convicted 10 suspects and acquitted four.
In its early years, the court was criticized for focusing on crimes in Africa, but now it has investigations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
WHAT IS THE ICC’S RELATIONSHIP TO ISRAEL AND PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES?
The UN General Assembly raised the Palestinians’ status in 2012 from a UN observer to a nonmember observer state. That opened the door for the Palestinian territories to join international organizations, including the ICC.
The ICC accepted “The State of Palestine” as a member in 2015, a year after the Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction.
The court’s chief prosecutor at the time announced in 2021 that she was opening an investigation into possible crimes on Palestinian territory. Israel often levies accusations of bias at UN and international bodies, and Netanyahu condemned the decision as hypocritical and antisemitic.
Khan, the current ICC prosecutor, visited Ramallah and Israel in December, meeting Palestinian officials and families of Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
Khan called Hamas’ actions “some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address,” and called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
Khan said “international humanitarian law must still apply” in the Israel-Hamas war and “the Israeli military knows the law that must be applied.” After the visit, Khan said that an ICC investigation into possible crimes by Hamas militants and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office.”
WHO ELSE HAS THE ICC CHARGED?
Last year, the court issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Russia responded by issuing its own arrest warrants for Khan and ICC judges.
Other high-profile leaders charged by the court include ousted Sudanese strongman Omar Al-Bashir on allegations including genocide in his country’s Darfur region. Former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was captured and killed by rebels shortly after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest on charges linked to the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in 2011.
Biden: What’s happening in Gaza is not genocide
Washington: US President Joe Biden denied Monday that Israel’s war in Gaza was genocide, as he slammed an “outrageous” request by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Israeli leaders.
“What’s happening is not genocide,” Biden told a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House as he discussed the conflict sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
His remarks referred specifically to a case at a different tribunal, the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is dealing with allegations by South Africa that Israel’s war in Gaza is genocidal.
But he also amped up his criticism of the ICC, a separate war crimes court, saying that “we reject” ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s bid to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its defense minister.
Khan also sought the arrest of top Hamas figures including the Palestinian militant group’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and political chief Ismail Haniyeh.
“Whatever these warrants may imply, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas,” Biden told the audience in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Biden pledged “ironclad” support for Israel, adding that “we stand with Israel to take out Sinwar and the rest of the butchers of Hamas.”
The US president further vowed to free hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 attack “come hell or high water.”
Hours earlier, he had issued a written statement saying that the ICC warrants were “outrageous.”
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Biden’s expression of support comes despite recent tensions over Israel’s war in Gaza. Washington recently withheld a shipment of bombs to Israel in a bid to warn it off an offensive in the southern city of Rafah.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned separately that the ICC prosecutor’s move “could jeopardize” ceasefire talks to end the Gaza conflict.
“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful,” Blinken said in a statement.
US lawmakers were reportedly considering a legislative response punishing the ICC amid bipartisan fury among Republicans and Democrats.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the court’s “baseless and illegitimate” decision.
He accused Biden of a “pressure campaign” against Israel, saying the country was “fighting a just war for survival.”
Biden faces political pressure on both sides ahead of a November election clash with Donald Trump, with pro-Gaza student protests roiling US campuses while Republicans accuse him of failing to fully back Israel.
The White House refused to comment on whether the United States could take retaliatory action, including sanctions, against the ICC if it targeted Israel.
In 2020, the administration of then-president Donald Trump targeted the ICC with sanctions over its investigation in Afghanistan, but the Biden administration later lifted them.
However Washington’s ambiguous position over the court is reflected in the fact that it has backed the ICC’s attempt to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday that the United States “will continue” to assist the ICC in its investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, despite denouncing the Israel move.
Trump trial prosecution rests, closing arguments next week
NEW YORK: Approximately five weeks, 19 witnesses, reams of documents and a dash of salacious testimony later, the prosecution up against Donald Trump rested its case Monday, handing over to the defense before closing arguments set for next week.
The defense called its first witness, the paralegal of Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, to kick off their case that sees the former president accused of covering up hush money payments to a porn star over an alleged encounter that could have derailed his 2016 White House bid.
Monday featured extended quibbling among the legal teams that, along with the upcoming holiday weekend, means closing arguments that the judge had hoped could start Tuesday are now set for next week.
The defense then called lawyer Robert Costello, who was not a potential witness until Cohen testified at length about exchanges with him.
Trump’s team wanted to question him about the credibility of Cohen, who he has assailed in the past.
The door also remains open for Trump to take the stand, a highly risky move.
Experts doubt he will opt to testify — there’s no requirement to — in his criminal trial, the first ever of a former US president, as it would expose him to unnecessary legal jeopardy and forensic cross-examination by prosecutors.
But Blanche has raised the prospect his client could step up as a witness.
On Monday, Blanche finished his third day of questioning Cohen after hours of at times digressive, at other times bruising, exchanges.
Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer turned tormentor, recounted last week how he kept Trump informed about $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s lawyers set out to paint Cohen as a convicted criminal and habitual liar, recalling his time in prison for tax fraud and lying to Congress.
Blanche also probed Cohen’s loyalty to Trump and then to the prosecution, looking to show jurors that the former fixer is self-serving and willing to go to great lengths to accomplish his aims.
Blanche vied to goad Cohen, who has a reputation for a short temper that could have hurt him on the stand — but the witness largely maintained his composure, dulling the questioning at moments by voicing confusion or nonchalance.
Cohen’s story has generally lined up with Daniels and David Pecker, the tabloid boss who said he worked with Trump and Cohen to suppress negative coverage during the Republican’s 2016 White House run.
After Blanche finished with him the prosecution returned for redirect, with prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asking what the whole experience has meant for him.
“My entire life has been turned upside down,” Cohen said, genuine emotion in his voice. “I lost my law license, my financial security... my family’s happiness... just to name a few.”
Trump meanwhile has complained his 2024 election campaign for another White House term is being stymied by the weeks-long court proceedings, which he has to attend every day.
He did so again Monday, complaining to journalists that he’s “not allowed to have anything to do with politics because I’m sitting in a very freezing cold, dark room for the last four weeks. It’s very unfair.”
Branding the case as politicized, a coterie of leading Republicans have stood in the wings behind him as he gives remarks to reporters outside the courtroom.
The growing list includes several lawmakers eyeing Trump’s vice presidential pick, including Ohio Senator JD Vance and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
The defense also hopes to bring in an election campaign finance expert but calling of that witness was under dispute.
The prosecution has voiced opposition, saying only the judge should explain how the law applies.
When the jury begins deliberating, the often juicy testimony will likely linger — but they will also have stacks of documents to consider.
The charges hinge on financial records, and whether falsifying them was done with intent to sway the 2016 presidential vote.
