Peace Be Unto Those Who Follow Right Guidance

According to counter-racist thinker, Neely Fuller Jr., under conditions of White Supremacy (Racism), there are only three types of people in the world:

(1) White Supremacists
(2) White people
(3) Non-White people

The relation between (1) and (2) is as follows: All (1) are (2), but not all (2) are (1).

Fuller further maintains that under conditions of White Supremacy (Racism), every white person, that is, every person belonging to type (2), is a potential racist (White Supremacist) and, therefore, a racial suspect. This is because, as C. W. Mills points out in The Racial Contract, although not every person classified as 'White' was a signatory to the racial contract [=White Supremacy (Racism)], every person classified as 'White' is, by default and by virtue of being classified as 'White, a beneficary of this contract. Put another way, being classfied as 'White' is equivalent to carrying a club-card that entitles the holder to differential privilege and treatment relative to other non-White people.

How does this "suspicious posture" stand-up, if at all, in the light of The Qur'an which is - at least, for the Muslim counter-racist - The Criterion (Al-Fur'qan)?

(49:12) O you who believe! Shun MUCH suspicion; for lo! SOME suspicion is a crime. And do not spy, nor backbite one another. Would one of you love to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You abhor that (so abhor the other)! And keep your duty (to God/Allah). Lo! God/Allah is Relenting, Merciful.

It is interesting - and, in this context, crucial - to note that in this sign/message (ayat) God/Allah (swt) does NOT condemn suspicion per se which means that suspicion is conditionally justified (and justifiable). On this basis, we can conclude that in some instances, it is both just and correct to be suspicious.

I have an ulterior motive for wanting to look into this issue at this time.

Recently, author and broadcaster, Yvonne Ridley, a white revert/convert to Islam, delivered a speech at the 2006 Global Peace and Unity Conference that took place in November in London, UK. Ridley's speech was somewhat 'radical' and 'hard-hitting' and made reference to martyred 'Islamist' ideologue Sayed Qutb and another martyr, Muslim counter-racist activist Malcolm X (Al-Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz).

Ridley is widely known to hold - and air - 'radical' Islamic/'Islamist' views and regularly comments in various media on 'hot' socio-political issues (or 'current affairs'). Earlier in the year, she attained some degree of notoriety (sic) by criticising the emergence and proliferation of the so-called "pop-Nasheed" phenomenon. In an article entitled "Pop Culture in the Name of Islam", Ridley asks the following question:

How can anyone be proud to be British? Britain is the third most hated country in the world. The Union Jack is drenched in the blood of our brothers and sisters across Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Our history is steeped in the blood of colonialism, rooted in slavery, brutality, torture, and oppression. And we haven't had a decent game of soccer since we lifted the World Cup in 1966.

I find the reference to a history - or rather, a his-story (that is, the story of White people who call themselves 'British') - that is "steeped in the blood of colonialism" [=White Supremacy (Racism)] and "rooted in slavery" [=White Supremacy (Racism)] and "brutality, torture, and oppression" [=White Supremacy (Racism)] interesting. Is Ridley a "Jane Brown" - a female John Brown or "race traitor", that is, a white counter-racist [=counter-White Supremacist]? Possibly. As the late Malcolm X, someone she claims to admire, once said, "only time will tell".

Peace