African American Islam

Promoted to the front page. Originally published 2008-11-02

Had a stirring discussion with a Ph.D. from Stanford on a very little recognized phenomena in Islam: Light skinned blacks posing as "Arabs." Islam demands many things of its followers and unfortunately, one of them is passing the color test. African-Americans are familiar with this side of life; during the days of Jim Crow, well-off blacks in "Society" used what was called the "paper bag test" to decide who was acceptable, color-wise, to be in their clubs and fraternities. This meant that a black person whose skin color was darker than the generic brown paper bag was "too dark" to be allowed admission to proper society.

Me and Bashir preparing to jump the broom.

At last! I can cast aside my obsessions with color schemes and caterers.