Umar Lee

United for Change, 3 White Muslim Brothers, and Sunnah-based Change

July 2, 2009 · 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I was told by a friend of mine that a young Muslim brother I know is struggling.  The young brother came from a good home with a good father; but while his sister was flourishing he was having problems. I will not delve too deeply into this aspect of the story because I am writing an article on this aspect for another website.

The reason I mention this is I know of a lot of young Muslims males who are suffering and yet their plight seems to be ignored by the community as any form of masculine expression has been discouraged by many.

Today I see an announcement from Imam Zaid Shakir that an organization will be found named United For Change which will be set up to solve the suffering within Muslim families.

It is my sincere hope that this organization will address the problems of men and boys and not just engage in quasi-feminist vilification of masculinity that alienates many males ( myself included).

If problems are going to be addressed more has to be looked at then just blaming men for all the problems we have.  I will address the many factors I belive are responsible for a lot of our problems in the other piece; but here I would jsut like to deal with some white converts I have known.

First, let me say that the problem of black Muslim males in America has been talked about on this blog before and extensively at the blog of Tariq Nelson and other sites ( poverty, criminality, abandonment of wives and children, etc).

When I have attempted to talk about the problem of white Muslims I have gotten a lot of hostility and a lot of this has to do with the fact that white people don’t like to talk about whiteness and what it means and many white Muslims have embraced Islam but do not look at themselves, America, and Western Culture with a critical eye.

This will not be a long piece but let me just tell you of three Muslim males, who are all white and don’t know one another, and the problems they had.

All three came from white middle-class backgrounds and all had been educated, and believed in, the values of modern America. A part of these values are that we should encourage strong women and live in a gender-neutral society and as a part of this these brothers grew up in homes dominated by women ( one in a home where his mother lived with her lesbian lover and the family pets ate on the kitchen table).

Islam is a patriarchal faith that encourages strong male leadership in and out of the household. Traditional and more observant Muslim women are looking for a strong male figure; but these brothers were never given the nutrients to be strong men. For example, even if they played sports, many of the youth leagues are now ran by women and kids get closets full of trophies even when they loose  all the time and are not good,  because the emphasis is on their feelings and not competition. In some classes and books they will learn of manliness and masculinity solely in the negative.

Two of these males became addicted to S&M porn. One was upset that he could not find a black salafi sister who would tie him up and beat him ( he would discuss this in his sit downs).  This kind of fetish may be normal for some white males, particular in the secular upper classes and around universities, but you are going to be hard pressed to find any black Muslim sisters who get off on beating a weak male. Now, you may find a sister who would love to play mind games with you, prey on your weakness, and spend your cash, but 9.9 out of 10 she is looking not to beat you but for you to beat it up.

The other brother was not salafi, as a matter of fact he hated salafis, but he also had a porn addiction and was looking for a woman who would curse at him while smoking cigarettes.  Again, he has failed at finding a wife and a sexual partner without fingers.

The last brother was also from a female dominated home and not very manly. He was also kind of a nerd and into spiritual aspects of Islam and attracted to people like Hamza Yusuf and reminds me of a lot of white sufis I have met ( though certainly not all).  I just learned that he has just made thouba and came back to the deen after a period in a gay lifestyle. He now says he is looking for a dominant black woman. Something is telling me he is going to have a hard time getting hitched.

What do all three of these white brothers have in common? All grew up in these secular liberal backgrounds dominated by women and therefore were not very manly and then entered a religion that requires a male to be strong and they cant make the cut. We should also realize that this is not just an issue with whites. There is a prominent masjid in the DC area were these issues are even in the leadership and I have had many Desi sisters tell me that they cant think of marrying a Desi male because they cant find one masculine enough.

If United for Change wants to make positive sunnah-based change then it needs to deal with the problems with brothers like this. Because, if it is not sunnah-based change, then it will be change based on the thoughts of modern fields of learning that have at their core secular values that contradict Islam.

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Death

July 2, 2009 · 3 Comments

Sunday I drove to Dallas with my family and I had a good time alhamdudilah.  Dallas has a large and vibrant Muslim community and I drove with my wife all over the area and on Monday enjoyed a lunch from a Persian halal joint in Richardson ( passing by a car chase finale that made the cable news channels) and on Tuesday went to the halal pizza spot in Arlington after leaving the Center Street masjid ( as an added bonus the pizza place was showing a boxing match on a plasma TV).

As I drove around in the rental I had listening to satellite radio it seemed like every channel was talking about the death of Michael Jackson. I thought about this because on Sunday a brother told me of how many Muslims he had known, good brothers who went to the masjid,  who could not get but a handful of brothers to go to their jannaza.  Another brother asked me who was crying and writing poetry to all of the fallen scholars, oppressed and mujahudeen?

We are all gonna die. Many of us will die young. Most of us will never be rich and famous.  This I thought of as I was driving through Arkansas and smelled the burnt flesh from a fresh fatal accident early this morning. Of course, this came hours after learning that a friend of mine from high school has allegedly shot and killed his wife.

Then, coming back to St. Louis I met up with my Muslim brothers Mukhtar and Farooq and we went to pick up some food from a fried fish and chicken joint on Goodfellow and Lillian. As we were driving down Lillian we saw a car loose control and I guy slump over. The car hit a few other cars and then went off the road knocking down signs and crashing into a pole.

I ran over to the scene along with a crowd of pedestrians, old ladies, and corner boys working the corner seeing what was happening on their block. I assumed he had been shot; but I think he had some kind of heart attack or something and there will be no candle light vigil for this man if he passes.

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Was Michael Jackson a Muslim?

June 26, 2009 · 219 Comments

The question of whether Michael Jackson was a Muslim or not will soon be answered when he is buried.

I learned a long time ago to take with a grain of salt the stories of celebrities becoming Muslim. So when I heard years ago that Michael Jackson had become Muslim I didn’t really take it serious.

A couple of years ago a brother I know, who is not exactly  known as a reliable source, told me he met Michael in Bahrain and that he is a Muslim. Allah knows best as to whether he is a Muslim or not we will find out for sure when he is buried; but I can definitely tell you when I was a kid he was definitely the number one star in America and the younger people of today don’t ever realize how huge he was.

Like a lot of other people I was turned off by his behavior with young boys later on in life and think he definitely had some mental issues. However, I think Hollywood is selective in who it condemns as it gave Woody Allen a pass after having sex with and marrying his adoptive daughter.

This is the video of his Muslim brother Jermaine where he says “may Allah be with you always”. This , along with the eye witness account of a brother I have spoken to and media reports leads me to believe Michael was a Muslim and Allah knows best.

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Sarkozy and Brown Didn’t Get the Message: Colonialism is Over

June 24, 2009 · 24 Comments

In a speech yesterday the President of France, a former world power that no one besides pretentious Americans, who like to sit around sipping wine and cheese care about, stated that he was offended by the niqaab and wanted it outlawed in France.

Nikolas Sarkozy is the right-wing President of France and the darling of neo-cons in America; but the issue of the niqaab being banned has been popularized by left-leaning and communist politicians in France.

Anyone with any kind of political savvy knows that this issue is not really about the niqaab; rather it is about Europeans under threat by a growing Muslim population and wanting to assert their authority.

That is why it is so unfortunate that some Muslim leaders in France, who seek the pleasure of France and not Allah are willing to sell their deen for Euros, sided with Sarkozy. If this were to happen in America I am also certain that a number of Muslim leaders would side with the government and while I am someone who thinks the niqaab is recommendable for Muslim women and the women without proper hijab are in sin (and you will be hard pressed to find any real scholar in disagreement with the hijab part) I think even those Muslims who hate the niqaab and see themselves as above that and “progressive” should also be troubled by this.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown meanwhile is overseeing a massive propaganda at the BBC Farsi Service effort aimed at toppling the Iranian regime. The problem with this is that all the candidates in the election were from the regime, the people in the street for the most part in the rallies do not have a positive image of the West, and there is no desire in the Muslim World to return to colonialism.

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Muslim Documentary Film Maker Seeking Community Input

June 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Help Wanted

Islam in the Prison Institutions & Correctional Facilitates

Documentary Film Production

As Salaamu Aliekum,

I am in the process of producing a documentary series about Islam in the American Prison Institutions & Correctional Facilitates.

You can help me if you are able to help me get:

  • Access for myself, film crew and production staff to a prison facility (Men’s & Women’s) and the Muslim inmates.
  • Access for myself, film crew and production staff to the prison staff and administration.
  • Access for myself, film crew and production staff to a halfway house or transitional facility where Muslims go when released.
  • Access for myself, film crew and production staff to Muslim prison Imams or Dawah workers who go into the prisons.
  • We are free to travel anyplace in the USA. We would prefer go to facilitates with large numbers of Muslim Inmates and have an administration, that is willing to grant us liberal access to the prison and its facilities.

I am also seeking a professional, talented Producer/Director (Accomplished not Aspiring , Muslim Preferred, but best qualified will be selected) to work with me on this and future projects.

I am also looking for a production/logistic coordinator.

If you can help or have any ideas related to this project please e-mail me

Keep reading →

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Rohingya Muslims, Iran Hype, and Sadaqa

June 23, 2009 · 11 Comments

Because I have been so busy with family business and work I have not had the chance to write as much lately as I would like to. I will also be going to Dallas Sunday so I may not have a lot of time this week.  There are a few things I would like to briefly comment on though.

Rohingya Muslims in Burma

There are a lot of things Muslims in the blogosphere argue and debate about; but I think the issue of the poor and oppressed Rohingya Muslims of Burma (Myanmar) is an issue that can unite us. This report on NPR highlights the bad and racist treatment of the Rohingya and systematic starvation by the ruling junta and by the Buddhist population as a whole (including the opposition). It amazes me that this issue has not received more attention from the mainstream Muslim organizations in America. This would be a cause worth taking up.

Iran

Tom Friedman of the New York Times once remarked that all of the people he talked to in Egypt were virtually of the same mind in their embrace of globalization. He then said “of course all of my friends are from the secular westernized elite”. The problem with that is very few in Egypt are in this category. There are more in this category in Iran, but they are still a minority, and the media in the West paints the picture that the regime has no support and everyone is in opposition. Part of the reason for this, other than the obvious reasons of political propaganda, is the fact that even well-meaning journalists only talk to these westernize elites. Joe Klein, hardly a supporter of the Islamic Republic, paints a more balanced picture and accurately says that to millions of Iranians President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad is their “fighting prince”, almost all in Iran are angry with the US over historical issues,  and the neo-cons are trying to instigate a war over the recent unrest.

These street demos remind me of what we saw in Thailand where the urban elites did not want to share power with the government that had been brought into power by the rural, the poor, and the working-class so they used street demonstrations to remove a democratically elected government with the support of the West. There are many in the West, Israel, and the Arab World who would like to use this occasion for regime change and if there was a Republican President now you could believe they would be working to further arm the opposition and destabilize the country.

I am not saying these things as someone who has always been a great supporter of Iran and till this day I disagree with many aspects of their foreign policy. But on this issue I know when the media is painting an inaccurate picture.

Prayers and Sadaqa

People often email me requesting prayers and asking for sadaqa. Alahmdudilah I have not been blessed with a lot of Rizq and am barely making ends meet or I would give to all of these people inshaAllah. However, I can put out a request for them on my blog so if anyone is in need of help let me know and if I think it is worthy I will put it on my blog ( and I know the New York sheikh I have not put up yet Khalil but I will inshaAllah).

Also, for those in need of duah, please email me. I can put the request on my blog and those far more pious than me can pray for you.

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ISNA Volunteer?

June 18, 2009 · 8 Comments

InshaAllah I am going to be at ISNA  in DC next month. DC is a city I know well and I have lived all over that metro area and have a lot of good friends around town so it should be fun. I am looking for someone to be my cameraman while I do interviews and browse at the convention. If interested shoot me an email

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I Thought We Were Done With Palin

June 17, 2009 · 2 Comments

On a daily basis I get my news coverage from reading a print copy of the New York Times, listening to NPR and the BBC World Service, going to the stltoday.com website and checking out a few stories here and there on the internet and maybe a magazine.

Because I don’t watch cable news anymore I guess I kind of missed out on the whole David Letterman- Sarah Palin controversy. Now that I have watched the youtube videos and listening to the jokes that Letterman made I think this whole thing is overblown

Maybe the jokes Letterman made about her daughter were in bad taste. However, I think Letterman was spot on in saying that Palin has a slutty style of dress.  It has always amazed me that when you see the women going in and out of Evangelical churches who are supposed to be virtuous women of God half of them are dressed like hookers from an episode of the 1980’s sitcom Dallas (of course as Muslims we have our so-called hojabis too).

Palin reminded me of these women as she criss-crossed America dressed, as Letterman said, like a “slutty flight attendant”. I also do not think her daughter is off limits given the fact that after her teen pregnancy she has been made a public figure by becoming an activist. You can’t have it both ways. Either keep her at home or accept the fact that wants she becomes a public figure she is fair game.

Bottom line, Palin is desperate for attention, and the right-wing nut and filmmaker John Ziegler is trying to make a name for himself and bolster the candidacy of Palin in 2012 by exploiting this. Let us just use this as a reminder of how idiotic and provincial this heifer is.

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Update on Little Abdul-Kareem

June 16, 2009 · 5 Comments

I asked for the prayers the other day for Abdul-Kareem Ibn Zaki Ibn Abdul-Kareem Al-Salahuddin who is the 4 year old grandson of brother Abdulkareem in Philadelphia. The brother sent me an update on his condition and let me know he is in very bad shape and is once again requesting duah. Below is a photo of Little Abdul-Kareem that his grandfather sent to me.

4 Year Old Abdul-Kareem Ibn Zaki Ibn Abdul-Kareem Al-Salahuddin

4 Year Old Abdul-Kareem Ibn Zaki Ibn Abdul-Kareem Al-Salahuddin

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Looking at the Question of the Arab Haram Stores

June 15, 2009 · 15 Comments

A few months ago I read an article by Yahsmin binti BoBo over at Illume Magazine on the topic of Arab-owned liquor stores in black communities throughout America and I told the sister I would write a response to her excellent piece and here it is. It was a good article that covered a lot of sentiments that have been out there in the Muslim community for years regarding the disgust that most observant Muslims have towards these stores.

I share these feelings. It saddens me that in many neighborhoods throughout America you cannot get a forty ounce of malt liquor, pint of Thunderbird, a strawberry blunt, pork chop, cheaply-made Chinese condom, hair-weave, payday loan, lottery tickets, and a lot of other things without going to a Muslim.

Where I live, as an example, in North St. Louis, most every liquor store and corner store I see is owned by an Arab Muslim ( there are a number of black-owned stores as well but they are the minority). Here they are mostly owned by Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians and almost all of them are Muslims. When I lived in New York there were similar stores owned by Yemenis.

As I stated before, I share the disgust at these brothers that Sister Yahsmin and many others have; but I would also like to put it into context. First of all, off top we know what they are doing is haram, so Islamically there is no justification for buying or selling what is haram.

The shariah argument only applies when you are not in an Islamic State when the one you are arguing with is a pious Muslim with a traditional understanding of the deen. Liquor store and deli store owners by definition are not pious Muslims and they know full well what they are doing is haram just like the crack dealer in front of their store knows he is dead wrong.

The Arab store owner, store worker, and crack dealer are “doing what they have to do” in their mind. Some do it for the rest of their lives and others do it just long enough to move on to something more respectable.

What all three have in common is that they usually come from depressed circumstances. Crack and heroin dealers in the ghettos almost always come from poverty. Their opportunities in life are limited and they need to make money so they gravitate to the thing they can do that will make them the most money.

The Arab store owner and workers have not been raised by single mothers in American ghettos who may or may not be addicted drugs; rather they grew up in the poverty of the developing world experiencing the political tyranny that is the norm in Muslim countries that gave birth to the Islamic Movement.

Where they come from there are very few business opportunities and unless you roll the dice you are looking at a life of poverty.

Both the crack dealer and the store owner are not in an ideal position. They are looking for cash money to escape their circumstances and when you are in this kind of a situation, unless you are just a very pious person, you do not have the time to be super moral or “humanistic”. You are just gonna do what you have to do and if someone gets burned that’s the way it is- better them than you.

It is also a fact that both the dealer and the store owner are operating in very lucrative markets. There is a demand for the product and if they don’t sell it someone else will. It may be cliché but it is true. You can shut down every poetry house and fledging bookstore in the hood and it would not even cause a ripple outside of Facebook; but if you closed down all the liquor stores and delis you may have a revolution.

The Arab stores exist and they are not going away because people need to make money. Telling them to close their stores is akin to telling a young man to not go into the military when you do not have an alternative. The argument makes sense to the idealist and the activist; but in the real world people will think of themselves and their families first. A brother whose family is in a refugee camp in the West Bank is gonna think about them first before he thinks of the drunk in front of his store just like the crack dealer is gonna think of his need for a nice apartment before he thinks of the homeless crackhead.

Closing the Stores

So, how do we get the stores closed? Well the stores will never close until the demand for the product goes away that that aint gonna happen any time soon. Maybe the question for Muslims should be this- how do we get Muslims to not operate these stores?

First off, many of these brothers have closed their stores after becoming more religious and moved into other areas such as selling cell phones, furniture stores, restaurants, etc. You may say “that’s fine but do they then respect the people in the hood” and my answer is some do and some do not; but go to their countries and you will see people do not respect one another, so what makes you think they are going to come to America and respect black people when they don’t respect themselves?

There have been campaigns in the past by Muslims to get these stores closed. In St. Louis for example there was a local Black Muslim leader who is a cross between the Nation and a WD follower (in reality he is just a Black Nationalist charlatan) who led a campaign to have the stores close and organized a crew of black men to get the job done. They threatened to block the sores entrance and to even burn them down and the situation was so tense that I even went to the Mufti of Palestine personally to ask him about the situation ( who said, in general, the business was haram).

Come to find out the stores did not close and they were not burned down, so I wondered what happened. Well, come to find out, the campaign was really just a way for this guy to extort the money from the Arab stores and to get them to pay him protection money. In other words “have my envelope of cash ready every month and Ill be sure to keep the black folks off your ass”. Later I would find out there were black Muslims running these kind of rackets in a few other cities.

These stores are legal (for the most part as many sell bad meat and engage in food stamp fraud), they are haram but most owners do not care, and you cannot burn them down. The only solution is to make dawah to them and pray that Allah guides these brothers to the right way and Allah guides who he chooses. It is true that they do give Muslims a bad reputation; but that just means that the rest of us have to work that much harder in countering that image.

The Children

Another important question that I have not seen anyone address is the children. When I say children I mean those young people, many who are now adults, who grew-up working in these stores and that is all they know.

Now, a Muslim egghead only full of the knowledge they have been taught at the university may not be able to properly examine this problem because they have not seen it face to face. These young men probably started working at stores when they were seven or eight. They grew up estranged from other Arabs and the only culture they know is that of those in the neighborhoods they are serving. They can’t go to the masjid because they are ostracized. The white mainstream is a far away reality to them and being born and raised in America they can’t go back to the country of their parents. As teenagers they date and have sex with black girls in the ghetto and they may even fall in love; but they have to marry an Arab. The Arab girl was raised in the home and kept away from the dunya and now she has to marry these young weed-smoking, beer-drinking, liquor store employees, and then maybe one day they will show up at the masjid wanting her children educated. How do we deal with this? Of all of the issues surrounding these stores that may be the biggest one of them all.

Organizations

Correct me if I am wrong; but has anyone seen the major Muslim orgnizations address any of these issues at their conventions?

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Duah for Abdul-Kareem in ICU

June 14, 2009 · 1 Comment

Please make the duah for the grandson of my dear elder in the deen Abdulkareem Salahudin in Philly who is a pillar of that community, a pioneer in the field of Islamic media, and a highly respected brother. I just got this email from him:

As-Salaamu-Alaikum,
INSHALLAH, all is well. Yesterday, my Grandson, Abdul-Kareem Ibn Zaki was hit by a car!!! He is presently in the ICU of St. Christopher’s Hospital and INSHALLAH he will make a full recovery. Please make du’a for him and our Family. Shukran.

Ma Salaama,

AK

Please make duah.

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Congrats to Ahmadinejad

June 13, 2009 · 28 Comments

I did not have a dog in the fight in the Iranian election (although I must say I have admired the outspokenness and international vision of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the past); but today I am feeling a sense of joy that all of those in the Western media, the BBC and NPR especially, along with Western politicians, are all having to eat crow as their flunky in waiting lost. Memo to the media; when doing stories in the Muslim World try to talk to a few people outside of the westernized secular liberal crowd.

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Cotto-Clottey and Pavlik the New Gatti

June 13, 2009 · 1 Comment

While I am unhappy that I will not be seeing Ivan Calderon fight I am happy that there will be a big meaningful fight on HBO. The Puerto Rican star Miguel Cotto will face the Bronx-based Ghanaian Joshua Clottey at Madison Square Garden in NYC on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade.  If you have not seen a Boricua star fight at MSG you are missing something special. I was at the Garden when Cotto fought Paulie Malignaggi and the atmosphere was electric. I never had the opportunity to see Felix Trinidad fight at the Garden; but I hear it was even better. Regarding this fight I believe Clottey is a solid counter-puncher with a tight defense; but he is too European in style and too stiff and only fights in one gear. Cotto has at least 5 gears and several different looks he can give Clottey. I like Cotto by decision.

Pavlik the New Gatti

On another boxing note; I am quickly loosing respect for Kelly Pavlik. I was a big admirer of his, even after he got schooled by Bernard Hopkins, but his choice in fights leads me to believe that he is becoming the new Arturo Gatti.

What do I mean by this? Gatti was an exciting fighter with a lot of heart who had a big ethnic fan-following on the East Coast (in his case Italian-Americans); but had to be carefully matched because his skill was limited.  Top Rank is now handling Pavlik the same way. His following is also ethnic (blue-collar whites in Northeastern Ohio and to a certain extent beyond) and he can fill arenas and look great when matched right. Why kill a cash cow when you do not have to and that is why we will not see him fight Arthur Abraham or Paul Williams and instead he is lining up to fight the more limited Felix Sturm and Carl Froch.

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My Run in With a Real Life Jack Bauer Wanna-be

June 12, 2009 · 2 Comments

Several months ago there was a story about a man impersonating a federal agent in a small Missouri town. The man was even featured on 60 Minutes because of the stunt he pulled because he was able to convince city officials and the police department to go along with his scam.

I may have mentioned before that I have a history with this man named William “Bill” Jakob. I knew he was an idiot; but this article in the RFT (a local St. Louis weekly) lets me know just how big of an idiot he is.

Not only did he impersonate a fed in the small Missouri Town of Gerald; but he got into the military under false pretences, wore medals he did not earn, got hired and fired from several police departments, and ran any number of schemes over the years involving law-enforcement and the military.

I ran into Bill when he was a cop in the all-black northern St. Louis suburb of Kinloch which at the time was one of the most dangerous and crime-ridden places in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

It was unfortunate for me that I had just split with my eldest daughters mother and Bill took a romantic interest in her (for the record she was underage at the time). Meanwhile Bill was gaining quite a reputation in the tight-knit community for beating people up and acting like an all around jerk.

One night on the parking lot of the old Arab-owned Tomboy grocery store (which housed a “craphouse” in the back) a friend of mine, the late Corian Hardy aka/ Snap saw Bill who had assaulted him a few days earlier. Snap pulled out an automatic weapon and tried to spray the car Bill was driving; but the gun jammed. That was the kind of anger that was out there towards him.

Complaints were mounting about Bill until one day I finally had my run in with him. I was leaving the apartment of my daughter’s mother in the Boaz when Bill ran up the steps. Knowing his reputation I was not in the mood to just sit there and let him whoop my ass so we had a brief scuffle and I then ran. Moments later I ran up the fence which divided Kinloch from Ferguson and got caught up in the fence which cut my hand and chest. When I fell to the other side Bill and a few fellow officers was waiting for me.

They roughed me up a little bit and then took me to the Kinloch police station. They took me back to a holding cell where I was left bleeding and while there an elder officer came to me and requested that I file a complaint because, in his words, “ we are trying to get rid of his ass anyway he is causing too many problems”.

The complaint was filed and within a week he was off of the force. I had it in my mind to sue him but never did and I basically forgot about him until this whole mess came up. The story in the RFT by Kristen Hinman is a worthwhile read; but I am guessing there is so much more that could have been written.

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Muslim Security Companies?

June 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A brother contacted me who used to work as a security guard and was asking me if I knew of any Muslim owned security companies because he is looking for work. I told him that I knew some existed but I did not have any information. At one time I know there was a security company in Brooklyn owned by a Muslim brother that used to put up fliers for jobs at Masjid at-Taqwa. If anyone has any info please leave it here and one issue the brother is concerned with is not having to shave his beard.

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