Monday, April 21, 2008

Muslim leader urges shift from black theology

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Bay Area occupants had a rare chance Lord'S Day to hear a adult male who may be the single most influential Moslem in America. But the bounds of his range were also on display.

When Imam W. Deen Muhammad stepped to the dais at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, there were perhaps 300 people in the audience, almost all of them African American.

Though most of his hourlong talking was not about race, the issue that made him a radical in American religion, he didn't diffident away from it. He urged audience members to believe of themselves not in racial classes but in human terms.

Mohammed spoke of how the Rev. St Martin Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a twenty-four hours when his children would not be judged by the colour of their skin, but the content of their character. But after King's death, Muhammad said achromatic leadership chose another direction.

"Now how come up after he died, our leadership talked nil but 'black' to us," he said. Muhammad said the usage of the adjective "black" to depict the community's accomplishments debauched them - and insulted others.

Noting that African American leadership in United States Congress mention to themselves as the Congressional Black Caucus, Muhammad questioned how people would respond if there was a "white caucus." Muhammad urged those gathered to believe about the catholicity of all people - and that defining faith for any 1 race is dangerous.

"Black divinity weakens our ability to derive from scripture, counsel from scripture, to do ourselves a better spiritual community," he said.

The words are dramatic considering the way that Muhammad have taken.

Mohammed is the boy of Elijah Muhammad, who for more than than 30 old age led the State of Islam, the achromatic breakaway faith that deemed all achromatic people to be "devils" and achromatic people to be "gods." W. Deen Elijah Muhammad was chosen by his father to transport on his legacy.

But after Elijah Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, the boy chose a different path. He gradually dissolved the State of Islam, leading trusters toward the Sunnite subdivision of Islam. All people were equal, regardless of race. Women were the same as men, except for physical strength.

While his father's State of Islamism explicitly referred to the U.S. flag as a symbol of "slavery, suffering and death," Muhammad started New World Patriotism Day in 1979, according to Imam Faheem Shuaibe, who takes Masjidul Waritheen, an Oakland mosque.

The attempt was intended to demo that the ideals put forth in the U.S. Fundamental Law and the Declaration of Independence are the same ideals called for in the Quran.

"We should be most American," Muhammad once said, according to Shuaibe. For a Moslem to reject those documents, Muhammad reportedly said, "You reject our top opportunity."

Mohammed makes not reject what his father did entirely, calling it a necessary measure in the development in the mind of African Americans. For a people who had been debauched into a position of lower status for centuries, believing that they were Gods helped degree the playing field, he maintains.

In his talking Sunday, Mohammed, who now takes a Chicago-based non-profit-making the Mosque Cares, said his father had "prepared" the community.

As a consequence of the immense spiritual migration away from the State of Islam, many people believe African Americans are the single biggest ethnical grouping of American Muslims today. (Louis Farrakhan would raise the State of Islam, though it would be far diminished in size.)

Sunday's talking was noteworthy for the singular absence of Muslims of immigrant descent. Though American Muslims often state that Islamism have no racial bounds, most Bay Area masjids analogue the demographic forms of Christians - unintegrated by ethnicity or race. The Moslem Community Association in Santa Clara is the most noteworthy exception.

Hatem Bazian, a UC Bishop Berkeley lecturer, appeared to be the exclusive outstanding figure in the immigrant Moslem community who showed up. Bazian gave a address before Mohammed's talking about the promise that could be had if the two communities worked together.

But the absence of immigrants left some acrimonious at the belittling of the American Moslem most darling to Muslims of African American descent.

"We are once again disappointed by our blood brothers World Health Organization are immigrant Muslims," said Imam Abu Qadir Al-Amin, who takes the San Francisco Moslem Community Center. "Don't name on me in the future."

E-mail Matthai Kuruvila at .

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Friday, April 4, 2008

Artist Forced to Paint Over Painting of Barack Obama

Now some fresh taking from the Political Grapevine:

Painter Politics

A Miami-based artist have been forced to paint over Barack Obama's human face on a mural. Serge Toussaint was paid $3,000 by the Autonomy City Community Revitalization Trust to finish a St Martin Martin Luther King Jr. themed piece as portion of a beautification project.

The undertaking was supposed to include a wall painting of bluish skies, clouds and quotation marks from Dr. King along MLK Boulevard. But Toussaint added a picture of Obama to the wall picture arguing, "What's the point of painting St Martin Martin Luther King Jr. if you can't paint his dream?"

But the Sunshine State Department of Transportation System received ailments that the picture was an partial political endorsement. Toussaint have since painted over Obama's face, but states he have gotten an earful about using achromatic primer. He states he is being accused of "whitewashing" Obama.

Out of Sync

Colin Kahl, a cardinal advisor to Barack Obama's campaign, is recommending that 60-80,000 military personnel should be kept in Republic Of Iraq as late as 2010. That is at likelihood with Obama's pledge to retreat military units from Republic Of Iraq within 16 calendar months of taking office. Related
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According to The New House Of York Sun, Kahl wrote a paper for the Center for New American Security which states, "the U.S. should take to passage to a sustainable over-watch position of perhaps 60,000 to 80,000 by the end of 2010."

Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of Obama's workings grouping on Iraq, but states his written positions have got nil to make with the senator's campaign. Foreign policy advisor Susan Rice have said that Obama's pledge is a end — not a committedness — and that advice from the military and facts on the land will weigh heavily on troop movements.

Chilling Facts

Global temperatures will drop slightly this twelvemonth as a consequence of the chilling consequence of Lanthanum Nina air and ocean electric currents in the Pacific. That's according to the United Nation's head meteorologist Michelle Jarraud. This agency that planetary temperatures have got not risen for a decennary and Jarraud states the information cast of characters additional uncertainty on some planetary heating theories.

Jarraud told the BBC that Lanthanum Nina will go on into the summer, causing temperatures across the Earth to drop by a fraction of a degree. The phenomenon have contributed significantly to this year's torrential rainfalls in Commonwealth Of Australia and some of the coldest temperatures on record across China.

Picture Not So Perfect?

White House functionaries are criticizing The New House Of York Times for publication a photograph they see as editorially unfair.

Accompanying an article on Friday about this week's North Atlantic Treaty Organization acme in Romania, The Times included a very big photograph — almost half a page in size — that showed . The shot was taken minutes before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization grouping photo, as leadership were looking for their places on the platform. But President Shrub had obviously establish his.

White House deputy sheriff fourth estate secretary Tony Fratto said, "Only The New House Of York Times would take a photograph of the president standing alone during a hebdomad when North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies instead stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him on our security policies."

President Shrub achieved two major ends during this week's summit: North Atlantic Treaty Organization leadership unanimously endorsed the projected U.S. missile defence system in Europe and agreed to supply more than military personnel for the warfare in Afghanistan.

— fox News Channel's St Martin Hill contributed to this report.

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Thursday, April 3, 2008

Friendship Public Charter School Opens New Southeast Campus

Opening Ceremony Honors Dr. St Martin Martin Luther King, Jr., on the 40th
Anniversary of his Assassination WASHINGTON, April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following
advisory was issued today by the Friendship Populace Charter School: Who: Hadrian M. Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia; Donald Hense,
Chairman of Friendship Board of Trustees; the Rev. Dr. Melvin Calvin O. Butts,
III, Curate of the Abyssinian Cat Baptist Church in New York; and Dame Ellen Terry Golden,
Chairman of the Federal Soldier City Council. What: Unveiling of Friendship Populace Charter School's Southeast
Elementary Campus after two old age and $15 million of renovations. This
event commemorates the life of Dr. St Martin Martin Luther King, Jr., on the 40th
anniversary of his assassination. When: April 4, 2008, 9:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Where: Friendship Southeast Elementary Academy, 645 Milwaukee Place,
SE, Washington, D.C. 20032. The school is appropriately located on the
corner of St Martin Martin Luther King Avenue, SE. Why: Ninety-four percentage of Southeast pupils dwell in Ward 8, and of
these students, 80 percentage are eligible for low-income subsidies. The
Southeast Elementary Campus will supply entree to quality instruction that
raises academic accomplishment and makes a safe environment where children
can derive support and the tools needed to be successful in their lives. Both Hense and Butts were protagonists of Dr. King's motion and were
ushers at his funeral 40 old age ago. Dr. King's "dream" is still relevant
for all Americans. The resurrection of this school have a additive connection
to Dr. King's rules and supplies an chance for pupils in the
community to have a quality education. Friendship Populace Charter School is the District of Columbia's largest
community of public charter schools, serving more than than 4,000 pupils from
pre-kindergarten through class 12. Friendship wins in preparing
children as scholars, workers and citizens on five school campuses. For more than information, visit .

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