 I really wanted to be here as a listener and that's what I plan on doing, inshallah, along with everyone else is trying to listen, inshallah, as much as possible to our leaders, to those who rightfully feel the pain of this destructive system of white supremacy and have felt it for a long time and those who can guide us, inshallah, as to what the proper response should be. I want to start off by saying that my intention for everything that I'm about to share is to help process some of these thoughts myself, inshallah, and so I want to invite all of the esteemed imams and leaders that are on this call to challenge anything that I say that might be wrong, to rebuke me if you see fit, and I want to say that anything that I'm going to say right now is open to critique and is not a critique of anyone else right now that is trying to have a helpful and meaningful intervention for justice in this. This is not the time to throw shade at one another, this is the time to grow one another so that we can all be shaded under the throne of Allah on the Day of Judgement. And I start off with the hadith of the ship, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave us this beautiful example of a people on a ship, some on the upper deck and some on the lower deck and he said Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam giving this example of the people on the upper deck not providing water to the people on the lower deck and so the people on the lower deck drill holes into the ship and they sink the ship and as a result, and I thought about I don't want to use the word vandalize and then someone says that I'm using a hadith to justify looting, I'm saying it's a powerful example and a powerful message in that. It's kind of a lie that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that if the people do not take the water to those on the lower deck, then the entire ship will sink and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam putting the burden and of course this was a method and analogy of Hidayah of guidance, putting the burden on the people on the upper deck and the African proverb, if the youth are not initiated into the village they will burn it down just to feel it's warmth. I want us to think about what's awakened our conscience and I'm speaking to everyone with everything that's taking place right now, at what point did we feel a necessity to weigh in with injunctions and interjections from the Qur'an and the Sunnah to eradicate evil, at what point did we feel sleeplessness, at what point did we feel like the situation around us demands a response and if the answer to that question is that it was not until what has transpired in the last week or so that we felt compelled to speak out on this evil and this issue and to move forward then we have to really ask ourselves why we were so undisturbed for so long while this issue has been present and was it because we felt distant from the issue and hence comfortable knowing that this issue was not quote unquote my issue for whatever reason and how is that from the Sunnah of the Prophet SAW and I want us to think about our Messenger SAW as we talk about issues and methods from the Qur'an and the Sunnah to talk about his deep empathy SAW and the sense of anger that he felt when he saw injustice and vun, not even just towards a human being but even towards animals. And the Prophet SAW was marching with his companions forward and in the midst of quote unquote bigger issues the Prophet SAW sees a bird that complains to him that her child has been stolen from the nest and the Prophet SAW with a deep sense of anger and pain says, Who has caused this mother, this stress with her child? When you imagine them the Prophet SAW staring at not one or two but the thousands of mothers of victims of police brutality and not feeling a great sense of pain on the inside of him SAW and if we would say well it's out of sight and I didn't see it and what made the Greg Floyd video so disturbing is that it was videotaped is that it's there is that you can watch over an extended period of time the slow cruel heartless execution of a man who has not been given value in this country because of the color of his skin with no fear of accountability in the eyes of that officer that has operated in a system that grants immunity to murderous police officers for so long. What if the Prophet SAW watched that video? What if the Prophet SAW looked at the mothers of those victims of police brutality and saw the pain and the screaming and the tears and the hopelessness and the despair and if we are to consider ourselves errors of the Prophet SAW then we have to take on that burden of concern as well when Omar was the Khalifa and he was a man that is distinguished by his sense of justice and he was disturbed by any creation of Allah complaining against him on the day of judgment that did not directly involve him but that operated anywhere under his control even out of sight then we have to ask ourselves why was I not disturbed when I watched that video did I feel nothing on the inside of myself and only think let me go ahead and give a way in with my opinions online right away or did I sit with that pain for a little bit. I gave the story of a woman in my community because actually someone from Mothers Against Police Brutality reminded me in the wake of the murder of both John and his mother in Dallas becoming a face of Mothers Against Police Brutality that we should try to uplift the names of those who were never given hashtags and I mentioned Dr. Jamila Arshad who in my community in New Orleans was murdered viciously a doctor that was driving on her way home and saw a young boy that was riding his bike and hit by a car and she stopped over to support to resuscitate that boy and instead she ended up by the way with an officer twice her size sitting on top of her and subhanAllah after I shared that video her husband actually showed me yesterday the autopsy and said it's the same autopsy as Greg Floyd that she actually died of the suffocation the cardiac arrest was was brought on by the officer sitting on top of her and putting that weight on her and murdering her callously without any fear of repercussions and by the way that officer still on the force why because it wasn't on video is it when we feel distant with things we are okay with the status quo and that's the problem is that we cannot be okay with the status quo because we feel like we are not touched by the status quo and it's only when we feel the effects of that unchecked oppression for so long that we feel the need to express outrage and to remind people with the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet's license this is not accusatory this is first and foremost meant to be an interrogation of myself what type of pain prophetic pain did we feel to elicit a prophetic response when we see these things it takes the issue of one person like in the case of Hilful Fadoor to capture the sentiment of what was systematically taking place in the background for so long it took one person to cry and to and to express pain and to call out the meccans on their hypocrisy so with a system that was running in the background for very long to mobilize people and sometimes it takes the story of that person to mobilize us and I pray that that is the case with with our brother George Floyd that that moves us all to once and for all bidna lahi ta'ala rectify this great evil that has been taking place for so long and I want to rectify a few concepts inshallah ta'ala and then I'll pass it on to those who who I'm here to listen to tonight some people have reduced this to an issue of race and have made it a point to say well not all white people are racist and I want to remind everyone that this is an issue of state violence so yes the claim is not that all white people are racist the claim is that state violence operates in racism the claim is not that the claim is not that every police officer is racist the claim is that policing is racist in America inherently racist in America and the reason why that's so important is she would mention a mousa we voice and you have a mousa we voice but you have to recognize it's a phirahonic system to have a mousa we voice when you're speaking about this state violence is born out of white supremacy state violence in this country is born out of a system of white supremacy guess what else poverty in America is racialized and born out of a system of white supremacy our domestic policies and our foreign policies are nurtured by an in white supremacy so if it's a cop here we had officer Wiley in in in in Dallas Texas if it's if it's a black officer wearing a blue uniform that murders or that shoots a man here who was trying to get into his truck and the officer assumed that he was stealing a truck and quickly fired bullets he woke up in a hospital bed with chains on his arms and on his feet and people said well he was a black officer but it wasn't about the skin color of the officer it was about the color of his uniform and the state violence that is nurtured by white supremacy in in this situation so when someone says well is this about apathy if this is about apathy what about this violence and what about that violence and i want i want to make it a point to to nip this in the bud to use black on black violence is a cop out it is not acceptable first of all most people in fact all groups are killed primarily by those that are in direct proximity of them we don't say white on white violence we don't say muslim on muslim violence and so this only reinforces serves to reinforce some sort of association of violence with black identity which allows us to escape from the issue of state violence and guess what state violence and poverty and racialized poverty and the conditions that have been created that lead us to these tragedies over and over and over again are nurtured by the same system of white supremacy imagine if when raising an objection to an obama drone in yemen or a trump drone in afghanistan someone says well most of the time it's muslims that are killing each other in afghanistan and muslims that are killing each other in yemen we shouldn't even be worried about that but the same system that enabled the drone to fall enabled the chaos that led to the overall collapse of those societies and perpetuated those conditions that lead to continued systemic oppression in america the entire system between racialized poverty police agencies the criminal justice system and all of the implications of that are all nurtured by a pharaonic system that has to be challenged openly so let me just say some specific things that we are pushing for because i think it's a problem when we only speak in abstracts and this becomes a uh can't we all just get a long call and response to all of this and the state which does not want to be on trial shifts tactfully shifts tactfully the discussion to a secondary issue to its transgression which led to the original grievance and that's the problem in muslims we can't fall for that that doesn't mean you can't speak about methods that doesn't mean that you can't speak about how to challenge that means that the focus of the conversation cannot become other than the initial grievance a grievance in the transgression that has been left unchecked for so long and so i want to put forth some specific calls that you make and that you work with the organizations that have been doing this work on police brutality for a long time the brady list most muslims have never heard of the brady list most people have never heard of the brady list why is it that we have no transparency of who the cops on these police forces are why is it that we don't know their previous records if someone goes out if someone steals gum from a from a gas station in high school and has that on their record and that could doom them for the rest of their lives if someone gets put in a horrible situation as a young person that could doom them for the rest of their lives but you have a cop that that had 17 previous violations of excessive force where is the transparency of who those cops are i want to know the history of how many times that officer has used the weapon and why is he not fired i want to know if that officer is a war veteran from iraq that has a previous issue i want to know why my police department is being trained by the idf in learning occupational military tactics transparency has to proceed accountability i asked the police chief in dalis here why is it that we don't know or what can we do to know make a very clear officers that have those repeated like that man that killed dr jamila arshad in new orland we should know who these officers are and they should be fired they should be disciplined they should not be lurking the streets and we should have some sort of transparency and the response i got from the police chief was we don't have the technology we have the technology to make drones we have the technology to come up with all this sophisticated technology to harm people further but we don't have the technology was the answer that i got pushing forth with the brainless pushing for very specific calls that the police should not be the first responders to mental health calls unless a firearm is involved why is it that when someone has a mental health issues and police brutality victims are disproportionately suffering from mental health issues why is it that the police are dispatched first and they can quickly shoot a gun and say someone lunged at me how does that work with zip codes do the police respond to a drug call if it's rich people's drugs you know if there is someone that's that's passed out or that's someone that's acting erratically acting out in a rich sub suburban area do the police react in the same way why are there concentrations of police in certain areas why do police respond disproportionately to certain spots and different zip codes why why not demand city officials demand increased investment alternatives to police responses rather than continuing to feed the system in the way that we feed the system and so the point is i'm not going to go through the entire list the importance of specific calls specific calls and and keeping the issue in focus that of that grievance and that transgression that has led people that are fed up and that that are not okay with with the status quo to demand a meaningful change in society and that's why manna is so important and i say this with with with the full heart that the quran and the sunnah the quran and the sunnah we can only support an issue or a method religiously politically and socially that abides by the quran and the sunnah the fear of people departing from the quran and the sunnah from what is prophetic an issue or method is real the fear of people adopting illegitimate political platforms running uncritically to the embrace of those that only perpetuate and devise mechanisms that perpetuate these these horrific things and without without doing anything that's that's a real problem but at the same time we have to do our part inshallah ta'ala to offer that quran and the sunnah paradigm does that come a lot hayran as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh bismillahi wa rahmatullahi wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh wa as-salatu wa as-salamu ala Sayyid al-Mursaleen Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa as-salamu as-salamu alaykum bismillahi wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh I'm trying to turn on my timer do myself my 12 minutes so alhamdulillah we we thank everyone for helping to make this possible all of the brothers and sisters working behind the scene and man I'd like to thank brother Tariq our Zoom master for this event we'd like to thank the other Tariq Masiri for allowing us to use the celebrate mercy platform the wonderful work that they do we had actually used a Zoom meeting platform and that doesn't auger well especially in this climate and so they allowed us to use their webinar platform and alhamdulillah we've had uh one thousand and twelve on the uh actual celebrate mercy platform and then Facebook live I don't know how many but it's not about the numbers this them is not about numbers it's about quality and anyway a lot of people out there are saying what what's the big deal and as was mentioned earlier some Muslims what's the big deal about George Floyd uh you know uh and specifically and what's the big deal about uh African-American this exceptional attention to the plight of African-Americans all of these people talking about white supremacy and before I go further anything I say is in addition to what uh anyone else has previously stated and not an attempt to negate anything at all that they might have said these issues are nuanced and complex and so there there are many different angles we can look at them from and all of those angles should be viewed as mutually reinforcing and none of them as mutually exclusive but to go back to this initial query uh George Floyd did not create this focus on African-Americans in this country George Floyd did not create or his killing rather uh did not his sadistic pornographic murder did not create this focus America itself created this focus if we go back to the beginning of the republic only one people were identified as three-fifths of a human being for of a man for representational purposes that was the African people no other people George Floyd wasn't around then there was only one civil war fought in this country a lot of people like to see one now but only one was fought and it was fought over the issue of the enslavement of one people one people only African people in 1818 96 plus is plusy versus Ferguson specifically institutionalized legalized the segregation of one people specifically the legalized discrimination I should say against one people only African-American people uh and before that uh reconstruction was followed by a campaign of terror to disenfranchise the political progress of one people alone the African-American people the civil war rather uh as we move further into history 1954 brown versus the board of education was an attempt to undo injustices recognized by the supreme court against one people specifically African-American people the 1994 omnibus crime bill was used to institute a regime of mass incarcerated incarceration that targeted especially not exclusively but especially one people the African-American people I think you get the idea so this exceptionalism was created by the country itself not by George Floyd we should understand this but we have to balance we have to balance between our love and passion for our people we have to balance between our ability to look our young generation in the eye my niece was an organizer for one of the protests in the state of Connecticut she was an organizer I can't look her in the eye and say you should stay home you just chill out no I could tell her be peaceful I could tell her to be careful I could tell her to speak the truth don't go up public and speak fossil I can't tell her to stay home I can't tell my nephew who's not a thug who has a master's degree and I think he started his PhD he works with struggling young men in Hartford Connecticut I can't tell him stay home they'll think you're a thug he knows who he is and he knows what's moving him and he knows the pain that most of us should feel if you can watch and maybe we shouldn't even be watching that that murder and not be pained something's wrong something's wrong brothers and sisters but we have to balance between that pain and planning as our sister Aisha mentioned so so powerfully we have to plan we have to to build we have to organize we have to develop a foundation to begin to systematically address institutionalized and systematic realities some people will say oh uh police violence in this country is not institutionalized if it's not institutional some people will deny it's even real how come every year last year 1100 people were killed by the police Europe all of Europe including Great Britain not the European Union has currently constituted all of Europe including Great Britain add in Canada add in New Zealand add in Australia combine with a population of over 800 million almost three times the size of the United States they had 120 police killings combined why does the United States have 10 times that number that is an institutionalized reality that's built on certain concrete foundations and we have to begin to question those foundations we have to begin to chisel away at those foundations until they are no more that is our call brothers and sisters that is our call New Zealand we mentioned New Zealand from 1916 until today there have been 40 police killings in New Zealand 40 police killing that's an average of one every two and a half years one every two and a half years every two and a half years in this country there are over 2500 on average we have to work to change that because that is a specific unique American phenomenon we have to work to change it we have we have our work to do we have our our responsibility to our people as Imam del mentioned we love our people our people are us we can't hate our people and not hate ourselves but we also have a responsibility to our fellow citizens and I'm going to say this I'm going to qualify it because I don't want anyone tweeting out that I said this that or the other the the if you're an African American in this country unarmed you can work the statistics any way you want you can create all the caveats you want but the raw statistics if you're unarmed an African American you're four to five times more likely to die the way that George Ford Floyd died at the hands of law enforcement you might not be shot he wasn't shot that's the reality you're twice as likely as other demographic groups in this country that's a fact 12 percent of the population 25 percent of the police killings twice as likely that's a fact but it's also a fact that twice as many white people are called European Americans should I say are killed every year by law enforcement do I say that to reduce the atrocity of what happened to George Floyd or what happened to Tamriel Rice who was mentioned or what happened to Alden Sterling or what happened to Oscar Grant or what happened to to Trayvon Martin a police vigilante not a formal police person or what happened to Sean Bell or what happened to Amadou Diallo or what happened to Rikaio Boyd or what happened to Ayanna Jones or what happened to Sandra Bland or what happened to all of these black men women and children no not at all but to say that this problem affects other people and it's important for us to recognize that on the week during the week that Alden Sterling and Fernando Castile were killed during that week five Latinos were killed between Arizona Nevada and California in the same week so this problem what I'm saying goes beyond any one community although our community suffers disproportionately I said that as passionate as I can on this webinar without scaring people but all of us will have to come together to bring it to an end there's no one community who will who can do it by themselves we cannot do it alone we need help we need help to bring it to an end and if we don't if we don't then if we don't feel the pain of that European American or that Latino mother or father or brother or sister if we don't feel that pain and that pain and feeling that pain removed us rather to benefit the reach out to those communities and build bridges of collective action then there are people like white lives matter a neo-nazi group like the boogaloo boys who will reach out with malevolent with malicious intent to exploit that pain to pull us further and further apart and push us further and further away from a solution to this problem I'll conclude with this as I said everything that Omar Suleyman or anyone else doctor excuse me doctor Omar Suleyman or anyone else said about white supremacy it's true but we have to understand one thing we have to understand brothers and sisters that white supremacy has its origin in 1675 bacon's rebellion and what happened during bacon's rebellion during bacon's rebellion a complex set of issues bacon was he was a rich man but his poor slaves both the european slaves and the african slaves were brought together by mr bacon to foment a rebellion that nearly unceded those who were who were who were sitting at the helm of power and they devised the what would become white supremacy not immediately to dehumanize the africans that was an intended consequence that played out in time but the immediate intent was to break the unity of those rebellious white and black and whether european american or white american and african who would become americans a few a couple centuries later slaves so there will be no unified resistance against a corrupt and oppressive oppressive system and so in these days when we have to have unified resistance there are elements in our society that would like nothing better than to use whatever they can to pull us apart we have to have the vision we have to have the passion we have to have the dedication yes to love our people and to call out the injustices perpetrated against our people but also to love this country that is our home and to come together to preserve it because there are people who are helping on tearing it apart and i'm not referring to those who might be classified as the oppressed there are a lot of people in the category of the oppressors who would tear it apart if they could so may we have tolfiq more you have then may we balance we have to balance between that passionate commitment and love for our people and our responsibility to our fellow citizens whoever they are we have to balance between our spiritual yearning and the metaphysical teachings of our religion but if we go too far in that direction then we will abandon aspects of our religion that are clear in the quran and sooner that calls for us to be a source of relief for those who are oppressed and downtrodden in our society and to end our end on this we'll bring the metaphysical together with the actual societal realities that rather you're given divine aid this is the metaphysical aid coming from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not from our human means and capacities based on how you treat the downtrodden and the oppressed amongst you and so and that's society that's reality that's on the ground so we have to bring these two together and avoid any imbalances may Allah give us tolfiq may Allah bless all of these wonderful wonderful panelists may Allah bless this this patient audience whose numbers have been consistent throughout wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Ya Allah we thank you so much for this opportunity for us to come together and just to know you thank you for guiding us to this Dean we ask Ya Rabbi that you give us a light from you by which we're able to provide a light in times of darkness. Ya Rabbi we ask that you give us assistance from you Ya Rabbi by which we're able to pull ourselves up and be a means of assistance to others. Ya Rabbi ya aloha ime we ask that you please build the fortress of your protection around us. Ya Rabbi we ask that you reach deep into the hearts of those who are oppressed. Ya Rabbi in turn their hearts. Ya Rabbi guide their minds. Ya Rabbi in those whom you decide shall not be guided we ask that you push them far away from us as the north is from the west. Ya Rabbi ask that you please in in develop us in your care cradle us in your comfort. Ya Rabbi we ask that you grant us a healing from you grant us a strength from your strength and honor from your honor. Allah we ask that you make us amongst those who are truly people of the Prophet alaihi s-salatu wa s-salam and who follow his message according to the methodology by which you instruct him. Subhanallah rabbika rabbil ezzata amma yasifoon wa s-salamu ala ala mursaleen wa la alhamdulillahi rabbil anameen. Ameen