Religion Dispatches
…gions. The whole world is isomorphic with a Muslim world differentiated by numbers; often, though not necessarily, a road to more democratic perception. Demographics aren’t the perfect determinant, but they’re better than any other determinant we have. The most important consequence? Because America has Muslims, America is a Muslim-minority nation. That means America is as much a part of a global Muslim conversation as any other society. But that’…
Read More…ity, name and meaning. These ideas cross-pollinate the social-cultural landscape. Thus, the emphasis on controls and penalties highlight the social need to keep black female bodies captive, at minimum to the confines of racist and sexist imaginations, which mark black women as both repulsive and fascinating simultaneously. Some even imagined taking things into their own hands. Rebecca Lewis, a middle-aged white woman interviewed by CBS news who wi…
Read More…still keep some things between you and Allah alone. The idea to do this one hundred-day blog came to me on my recent return from Indonesia. While there, my friends said hajj would be a challenge because of gender restrictions. Then a friend described people doing tawaf, or circumambulation around the kaaba, while sending text messages on a mobile phone. I just cannot see totally giving up my one-on-one moments with Allah just for a blog. That bein…
Read More…ot be saved. I dealt with this theology by just not preaching on it. You describe yourself on your website is an activist. How do you define this term? In addition to marriage equality, I was involved in issues like banking reform, health care reform, and Proposition 30 (a tax revenue measure aimed to keep California public schools from losing even more money). I’ve had less of an activist role since I left my church because that was the medium fo…
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…And nobody can deny the convenience of ready access to information, maps, phone numbers, calendars, and social satisfaction that our reliance on technology provides. Technology is a tool, right? It doesn’t change who we are, right? It doesn’t blind us—it reveals reality by connecting us and showing us the world via our screens… right? Look, I know that our new imaginative, mediated work is doing good. I know people can feel a real sense of empowe…
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…And where would we go?” “But you’re in the red zone,” I said. “Aren’t you scared?” “I live on the 12th floor. We’ll board up the windows.” * The hurricane reaches the coast around 6 p.m. We watch its arrival on our big TV, snuggled under a down comforter. The weather graphics show the eye of the storm moving closer and closer to the New Jersey coastline. The closer it gets, the stormier it gets outside. My attention flickers between the virtua…
Read More…nd control. When I ask my students to list their associations with Vodou, “scary” is the most common response. American fear and fascination with Vodou is also closely intertwined with issues of class and, especially, race. This matrix of associations is evident in the example of phone psychics like “Miss Cleo,” who uses an affected Caribbean accent. We also saw it in Pat Robertson’s gaffe following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, wh…
Read More…vagely assaulted, including one gay man we interviewed who was beaten unconscious and gang-raped this year. Several sources told us of lesbians being subjected to so-called ‘corrective rapes’, and many attacks go unreported. LGBTQ activists have gone underground after the Bishkek office of one advocacy group was firebombed. “I get phone calls and text messages saying things like: ‘we’re gonna cut out your tongue and shove it up your ass’ and ‘you…
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…e. Some players will have seen the shaky cell phone videos of Qaddafi’s discovery now circulating, with all the bumps and blurs you’d expect from someone filming a violent attack close up. The horrifying footage shows the dictator’s last moments, complete with flashes of faces splattered with blood, punctuated with off-screen shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” and revealing glimpses of Qaddafi’s pummeled and resigned visage blunted by repeated beatings. W…
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…verything we’ve been doing for the last 10 years,” Sinno says, speaking by phone from a recent tour stop in San Francisco. “A big part of what we do and why we address politics and gender and class and whatever – be that through our music and through our positions in the public eye – a big part of that is about trying to create sort of a cultural roster for people to identify with and feel emboldened by. And it felt like for a few days, we had to…
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