The latest Pew poll of American Muslims shows that by and large, the overwhelming amount of American Muslims condemn terrorism and have an unfavorable view of Al Qaeda. Aside from distorting the findings of the poll to suggest that American Muslims are extremists, there is concern on the Right about some of the poll's findings among black Muslims. Namely, this.
Fewer native-born African American Muslims than others completely condemn al Qaeda. In addition, younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified. Nonetheless, absolute levels of support for Islamic extremism among Muslim Americans are quite low, especially when compared with Muslims around the world.
As always the truth is more complicated than a poll. More after the fold.
Crack was antrax back then
back when
police was Al-Qaeda to black men.
Jay-Z
What do I say to a dead cop's wife?
cops kill my people every day
that's life.
Talib Kweli
Right wingers have made the leap that because black Muslims don't compeletely condemn Al Qaeda, that this is synonmous with support for Al Qaeda. The truth is more complicated. According to the poll, while almost 3/4 of both non-black and black Muslims believe the U.S. anti-terror policy singles out Muslims, black Muslims are twice as likely to say they have been singled out by police, threatened or attacked.
The simply "double-minority" doctrine doesn't fit here however. Both of the rappers I quote above are non-Muslims, but they both express an understanding about American power in the black community that transcends religious differences.
It makes sense that a race of people who have lived in this country for centuries are more likely to be judgmental than people who had to sacrifice God knows what to get here. We are more likely to be judgmental and also less likely to take advantage of the American dream immigrants latch onto with such passion. There are obstacles, but the dream is ours to be had as much as, if not more than, it is anyone else’s.
The fact is black people have been on the receiving end of American power and brutality for years. Four hundred years of slavery and apartheid, and incessant moral justifications for each mean that black folks may be less likely to see American intentions and actions as morally pure, and the battle between America and Al-Qaeda as one between absolute good and evil. These abstracts have been used too often against black people for us to swallow them completely.
Then there is the contrast between the language of the Bush Administration and what we see on the news. While Bush is quick to emphasize that the war in Iraq is against Al-Qaeda, there can be no question that those suffering most from the American occupation are innocent Iraqis who have no ties to terrorism. Given the contrast Bush's insistence on describing the decision to go to war in Iraq in moral terms, what may look to many Americans like a foreign policy blunder looks to black folks like history repeating itself.
The moral contradiction between American outrage over terrorism and its support of policies that target civilians was pointed out by Glenn Greenwald days ago.
As Kenneth Ballen noted in The Christian Science Monitor in February of this year, Americans express greater support for "attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria." Make of that what you will -- and its meaning is debatable -- but those are just facts.
Its not that black folks or black muslims, support Al Qaeda. It's that after feeling the hard edge of American agression for four hundred years, we're probably less likely to buy that the killing we do is any different from the killing they do.