Over the past few months, the war against Black America has ignited the streets and the hears of people of conscience throughout the world.
“Abolition” seems to be on everyone’s lips… but what does it mean? What does it require from us?
Here’s what we do know—liberation for those who suffer racist policing and incarceration can’t wait. For Muslims and allies alike, this Eid al-Adha 2020 is a great opportunity to bring the conversation on police violence and inhumane incarceration home.
It’s time to start practicing for a future where safety is no longer defined by the enforcement of racist laws, but something much much better that is within our grasp.
Since the protests to the murder of George Floyd started, our communities have been speaking up about anti-Black racism with more honesty and openness than ever.
In Policing Is Haram we embark on courageous, vulnerable conversations on police divestment, community safety, and the collective healing of solidarity with our families and community leaders. We try to compassionately bring our people with us into a discourse on abolition—to disrupt our people’s associations of police with safety.
Some of the contributors include Yasmin Yonis, a Muslim Movement Chaplain for Justice for Muslims Collective in Washington DC, Hoda Katebi, an Iranian-American writer, organizer, and creative educator, Zuhdi Masri, the store-owner of Yeatman Market in St. Louis and father of Palestinian-American Black Lives Matter activist and shaheed (martyr) Basem Masri.
This Eid al-Adha—join us and ordinary Muslims across the country in the deeply vulnerable and necessary work of reflecting, unlearning, and transforming what safety means.
We cannot stand on the sidelines amidst the growing calls to defund the police. The rights that MASA communities enjoy in this country are built on the foundations of the hard-fought victories of the Civil Rights Movement led by Black folks.
All people, including non-Black Muslims, have a responsibility to support the Movement for Black Lives. And we can’t leave our families and communities behind by joining the movement just by ourselves.
Have any of our family members called the cops on Black folks? Do our religious leaders request police officers station themselves outside our Masjids during Eid prayers, posing a real danger to Black Muslims in our community? Are we committed to dismantling anti-Black racism enough to compassionately call our loved ones in?
This Eid, use Policing Is Haram as a multimedia resource to engage those often-difficult conversations with loved ones.
Eid Mubarak!
In solidarity,
Nahid, Sijal, Lau, and the MPower Change team
For more info visit https://www.mpowerchange.org/
