IBO, Brian R. Lundin [the ebook reader .txt] 📗

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Bill told Dikimbo that a truck was downstairs with a delivery for him.
“I hope you don't mind Malik, but I’ve brought a few things that will make our stay a little more comfortable. Can I have them brought up?”
“Sure,” Malik said, impressed with the young man who seemed to have so much, but was so humble and polite.
Diki left the room and returned a short time later leading two large deliverymen pushing a big box on a dolly.
“This is a big screen TV, Malik, where do you think we should put it?”
Malik suggested the center of the room. After putting the box down, the deliverymen left and returned shortly with another big box.
“That’s our entertainment center, what about a speaker in one corner and the other in the other corner to get the stereo effect?” Diki asked.
“Cool,” Malik responded.
The deliverymen got busy setting up the TV and entertainment center. After they finished and were about to leave, Diki gave each one a hundred-dollar bill.
“Thank you gentleman,” Diki said.
The deliverymen were very thankful for the tip and gave Diki a card, telling him to be sure to call them if they have any problems. After they finished hanging up Diki clothes and tuning in the television, Diki got a red and white rug from a cloth bag and a small gold compass and turned in the room. When he stopped and checked the compass again he quietly said a prayer, “Allah is great.”
Diki placed the rug near the head of his bed while Malik watched in awe. Shortly Diki said, “I am a Muslim and five times a day I pray to Allah, the one and only God. We call this ritual prayer a Salet, and this is my Praying Rug. I used the compass to make sure the head of the rug was facing east towards Mecca, our holy city. I hope my religious belief does not offend you,” Diki said sincerely.
“Don’t bother me at all, my brother,” Malik said.
The following morning before sunrise Malik was awaken by what sounded like prayers.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw Diki prostrated on the Praying Rug and reciting a prayer from the Koran.

“I’m sorry if I awaken you my brother,” Diki said. “I was doing my morning prayer.
“No problem,” Malik said sitting up on his bed.
“Are you familiar with Islam?” Diki asked.
“No, not really. I’ve read some of the Black Muslim papers and I have read some of the works of Malcolm X, but that’s about it.
“Well the Islam that the Black Muslim and Malcolm X worship is similar to ours, but not exactly the same that my people worship.
We are required to pray five times a day and I have just finished the Morning Prayer.”
“Well, I read somewhere that there is a lot of similarities between Islam and Judaism,” Malik said.
“That is so, we both believe in many of the heroes of the Old Testament. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are only a different path to the same destination.”
“Religion is some strong shit,” Malik said as he crawled back under the covers.
Doctor Ali’s Black History Class was one of the most popular courses at the university. The university and students knew he had served three years in a Virginia penitentiary for armed robbery when he was a younger, but while in prison he received a GED diploma, took some correspondence courses and received an associate degree. After his release from prison, he graduated with honors from the University of Virginia Doctorial program. Harvard hired him as an associate professor in their Black History Department and in three years, the university appointed him dean of the department. Malik and Diki decided to take Doctor Ali class and find out about their African roots.
Doctor Ali opened the first meeting of his class with a brief background and he told the class of his incarceration.
“In America people of color, especially black young men must prepare themselves to accept the inevitability for prison. For most black men, prison is the next phase in a sequence of humiliations. It is not a big deal. Many of their homies are there and if they go in standing tall, they do not have too much to worry about. I was prepared for prison, even though I was only eighteen, I walked in tall; I looked everyone in the eyes and didn’t look away. Prisons are full of people who are masters at detecting weaknesses. I remember a young black guy who came in with me. He was maybe eighteen or nineteen, well built but he was weak and before long, the johns had him. A misconception that people on the outside have is that the johns or sexual predators in prisons are homosexuals, most are not, and to have a B.I.T.C.H.… is merely their way of expressing their masculinity to the other inmates.
My first six months was hell. My cellblock held about twenty-five inmates, all black and you always had to watch your back. Lucky for me, most of my cell mates were my homeboys, so we watched each other’s back and we ruled our cell block-probably the only place in America that black men ruled, I felt like I was back in the hood with all those black familiar faces around me. Everybody put up a front, trying to be tough but in the quietness of your cell you was just a little boy. The oldest guy in my cellblock was twenty-two and his cell was next to mine. Many nights I heard him boohooing like a baby, but in the morning, he stood tall. I was scared to death and could not conceptualize being in here for three years. I went to sleep at night wishing I would wake up the next day and come out of this terrible nightmare.
Like everyone else in the joint, I was in denial. I was hoping for a miracle that would get me released, that some group of law students or a high-level white person would review my case. I hoped that they would find that I was denied a fair trial or that the police had beaten a confession out of me or my sentence was too harsh. I had my friends and family members write letters to the judge, the governor and even the president asking for a review of my case. However, as the time pasted and nothing happened, the reality set in and I settled in to do my time.
I hated the white man and blamed him for all of my problems. One day while in the yard talking with my homeboys I noticed a group of young guy gathered around this older guy named Ellis. Ellis was a lifer and was convicted of killing three people in a drug deal gone wrong. Ellis was in his mid-forties and had been in prison for twenty years. The other inmates admired him, not only by how he was handling his time but also because of his intellect and integrity. Some prisoners doing hard time, that is time in the double digits, become mentally passive, but Ellis was constantly in the library reading all types of books; law books, poetry books, books on nutrition and everything else he could get his hands on. He became so articulate and so impressed the prison administration they allowed him to teach at the institution’s school. I had dropped out of high school in my first year and I started going to his classes and was introduced to a whole body of literature and black scholars overlooked in mainstream education. He talked about the two major religions embraced by black people, Christianity and Islam. He debated with the students the relevance of Christianity in the black man’s struggle for self-determination in the United States. He believed that the white man used the black church to keep blacks in line. He asked why Jesus Christ could not be black, why was it that in the black churches there was always a picture of a white skinned, blue-eyed Jesus. The black church he said was a tool the white man used to keep blacks non-violent so whites could keep control of them. First they send in the priest and then they send in the soldiers was one of his favorite sayings. He was equally hard on Islam, especially the Nation of Islam. It seemed to annoy the hell out of him that after the death in 1975 of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation, the group began to steer away from their doctrine that the white man was the devil and their separatist belief. He said that the Black Muslims were sexist. They relegated women as cooks, sex mates and mothers, while men held the leadership positions. Also men had less stringent dress codes, the Muslim women were required to wear long, flowing dresses, even in the hottest weather to ensure that no man other than their husband saw their arms, legs and hair and they seemed more concerned about their dietary restrictions against eating pork than they were about what went into their people’s head. With his help and encouragement, I continued my education and here I am.
African culture believed that God was present in all things and that belief fostered the native Africans with a sense of connection with all things in his creation-animals, plant life and other human beings. We will also contrast this perspective to that of white Americans, who are guided by a worldwide view in which they see themselves as separate from, and superior to, the rest of creation.
White America place no relevance on the forest they destroy by cutting down the trees, or they animals they kill for sport or for their skins, or for the suffering they cause to other humans through slavery or genocide. I disagree with many of the Nation of Islam depiction of the white man as the devil. Rather I try to interpret his behavior in a way that will help us understand the roots and nature of his racism. White people place a high value on conquering people and developing things and thanks to his thinking many technological advancement have been made that has benefited all peoples of the world and has made the United States the most powerful nation in the world, but it has virtually ignored the advancement of human development and creativity. For many years Harvard has used standardized tests that measures quantities of facts and intelligence concerning basic skills such as English and math, but placed no emphasize on creativity and potential. African Americans generally do not score high on culturally bias standardized tests and subsequently are refused admittance to Harvard and other elite universities. Based on their scores the university refuses to accept these students. However, we are intelligent enough to raise their children and turn their leftovers slaughtered hog intestine into a delicacy, chitterlings. These same downtrodden ignorant people took their work songs and turned them into blues and jazz loved around the world. That kind of creative intelligence cannot be measured by tests and consequently white people did not place much value on it.”
At the conclusion of the first class meeting, Malik and Diki were very impressed with Doctor Ali and looked forward to his lectures.
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