The Community

by N. Jamiyla Chisholm

She argued that York’s shape-shifting philosophies were proof he was a charlatan, and she couldn’t understand why the adults didn’t see it. I remember telling her that adults can be selfish. And stupid, she interjected.

York was in prison for life, but the kind of desperation he fed on for decades remained.

she learned survival wasn’t about what one knew but who they knew.

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.

My mother didn’t know how to voice her opinions, but she loved to see her people do it. They spoke for her.

She lost two years of my life to that house because she didn’t know how to say no.

a God so big He needed more letters.

At the time, my parents seemed to have a severe need for a religion, a belief system that came from people who resembled them.

I remember thinking how I could ask Allah for anything I wanted, but I couldn’t actually have it;

Maybe I found it too difficult to reconcile adults, like my grandmother, knowing something was off-track and still not stepping in.

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.

told her how the entire experience—abandoning who we were for a new home, names, beliefs, and twists of the tongue—were all extreme to me, including my idea of an escape, which was to throw myself over the barbed wire that surrounded our playground.

It was one thing for everyone to sacrifice, but she could no longer ignore how one thing was preached and another practiced.

Ummi thought of herself as a servant of God, what the Community called a true amatullah, only to discover she was a servant to the Community.

Ummi’s mantra was sticks and stones never killed anyone, but what did she know? Some wounds only needed a simple dressing, while others required sutures.

Maybe instead of building community, as it had promised, it had left a storm cloud over everyone instead. It seemed to have taught parents and children that they could survive without each other, trained husbands and wives to live with others.

I wondered if a Dwight York or a Jim Jones would have existed and amassed a following had the citizens of this country felt like citizens who could expect justice and respect.