The Community

by N. Jamiyla Chisholm

monochromatic

Beginning in earnest in 2016, the nation has been in a renewed fight against old themes and updated gaslighting techniques,

sutured

York was seen as a defiant man who taught Black people that they were descendants of Sudan who could govern themselves and one day would return to the nation,

Chief Black Thunderbird Eagle of the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors,

His teachings seemed to change as much as his name and location, but antiwhite hate and Black nationalism were the threads he needled wherever he went.

Tama-Re

“Egypt of the West.”

I remember telling her that adults can be selfish.

Ansaaru Allah

There are about a hundred of us on this compound, and it’s like we’re living in the 1800s. There’s no heat. Sometimes no electricity. We never leave the compound, and guards are always at the gates.

Said pyramids

Phone

crescendo

reticent,

putrid

She walked away dry-eyed, stifling tears, having learned early on that instead of crying, it was best to stone her face and sheath her heart from unexpected blows.

peridot

Kosciuszko

lanky

billy clubs and cuffs

sepia-colored

She explained to me all the adult women were to be called Um preceded by their names.

“No. No child is taken care of by their own mother. Imam Isa believes that would lead to nepotism, which is something we don’t want.”

This was my first lesson in the importance of staying quiet.

Ummi said she paused at intimate questions asking how much money they made on the outside, what professions they had before, and how many times she and her partner had sex.

They radiated disdain more than deference.

Her upbringing had imprinted her with an unwavering belief that family was everything and anti-Blackness was everywhere, which meant that family had to stay together no matter what happened.

Ansaaru

She thought she was moving into a nuclear family structure where her husband and child would be close, and this was what she did not know until the day she arrived.

primping

From pencil-written letters scribed with uncertain hands, Ummi could tell the inmates were starved for something. Insight. Direction. Proof of their potential.

mujahids,

There was also the rumor if an Um had a pretty daughter close enough to womanhood, she could use her as collateral, an offering to the prophet.

He flexed his husbandly pecs, said he wasn’t going to have his woman controlling the family’s finances anymore; it just wasn’t an Islamic thing to do. He told her he had proof straight from Imam Isa’s teachings and the Holy Qur’an saying what was hers was his and what was

we were told the only enemy we ever had to watch out for was the blue-eyed, dog-walking devil.

larceny

TIFL TIME

She loved the babies best. She would say there was something pure and godlike about babies. She believed they saw and spoke to angels.

saline solution

“You can’t imagine the privilege I had of being able to cradle you to sleep,” she said. “And it was met with a lot of envy and frustration from many of the other Sisters.” I thought to interject, Privilege? Envy? You sound crazy! But I didn’t. I let her continue. “They didn’t like that I was there just to hold you. Those who didn’t work in the Children’s Quarters didn’t have that luxury,”

She found solace in taking care of other people’s babies instead of her own, even as those babies’ mothers despised her for assuming the role with joy. I don’t think Ummi knew that story would have made me feel even more abandoned than I had felt, and her naivete was confounding.

My father threatened to take me from her, said it was my mother’s fault because she was negligent. She believed him to the point of heartbreak. Over the years she has asked herself why she was afraid to be without a man who threatened to make her motherless but then pulled her into a place where she couldn’t put her child to bed or kiss her good night.

Or maybe they were more afraid of the Ums than I was. There were seven of us to every one of them,

pray, believe, and you shall receive.

I was beginning to trust no one. Not even Ummi.

It was vanity that made people want to show off and vanity that caused a man to beg or steal. By arguing against individualism, excessive freedoms, and desires, Imam Isa diminished the need for special personal days.

during the Second World War and came of age in the 1950s when everyone in America was afraid of communism or anything not American. Between the Korean War, the Cuban Revolution, and countries like Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Ghana digging deep into their wombs to start the tireless work of thawing off centuries of colonization when she came of age, my grandmother was weary of political unrest and sought agreement with the Black Christian churches who said we had to be consciously smarter than the rest. I didn’t think she understood anything about being a Black Muslim.

pendulum feeling

Yet having the card also meant returning to the Community and remembering why they’d dropped out of the world in the first place. The hard faces of strangers and the allure of materialism. Fighting for one’s piece on a pavement where people bumped into each other without apologies or acknowledgment of doing so. The stench emanating from the big stinking apple that rotted from the inside out. Ummi reveled in the choke of the city and was simultaneously turned off. Watching the bustle tired her out.