Popping the Marks
Lifting Up My Skirt
Last week, after I wrote on “Lift Up Your Skirt,” Lord Jamar’s homophobic diss track against Kanye West, Five Percenters started bombing me on Facebook and Twitter. Over the course of being harassed by internet gods, I faced the notion that I am exiled...
Kanye West in a Kilt Has Lord Jamar So Hard Right Now
If heterosexuality is natural, as Lord Jamar seems to suggests, and Jamar is himself resolutely heterosexual, then seeing Kanye West in a kilt shouldn’t make him want to give blow jobs. Or does it?
Lifetime’s Assassination of Malcolm X
In the Lifetime Original Movie 'Betty & Coretta,' they present cardboard versions of what I like to call "Early Malcolm" and "Real Malcolm." But Early Malcolm and Real Malcolm are not real. They are both fabrications that serve to oversimplify a...
Islamophobes, Go to Sleep
When I agreed to write a column for VICE, I was granted this space, and I am responsible for what happens in this space. Today, I’m going to use this space to rub your racist and bigoted shit in your own faces.
What I Learned from the Five Percenters
The first lesson I learned from the Five Percent was simple: Fuck white people. I'm not talking about "white" as a biological category. I’m using the term more in the sense of what it means to have privilege in an unjust society.
How Not to Sound Like an Asshole When Talking About Islam
When non-Muslims operate on the assumption that Islam exists as one singular, absolute, and coherent entity that is understood and experienced by each of the world’s billion-plus Muslims in more or less the same way, they look like total douchebags.
Being the Muslim at a Christmas Party
As a Muslim from a Christian family, Christmas has historically been complicated for me. Converting to Islam as a teenager, part of what I wanted from my religion was a new identity; the differences between Christians and Muslims held more value for me...
Paris Hilton in Mecca
Paris Hilton’s new store in Mecca is not “poisoning the holy city.” Mecca has been overrunning with assholes long before Islam. If you’re trying to find peace and avoid shitty people, don’t go there for hajj, just go on vacation or smoke blunt.
Obama = Yazid
I have voted twice for a man who launches drone strikes on innocent civillians and defines what is happening in Gaza right now as "self-defense." As it stands, I have voted for Yazid.
Queering the Qur’an
Al-Kisa’i al-Kufi is the man who gave us one of the seven canonical readings of the Qur’an in Sunni Islam. He devoted his life to knowing and teaching the Qur’an. Along the way, he apparently fucked dudes. The lips that he used to recite divine...
Blood and Islam: Between Eid and Ashura
Many people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, would say that spilling blood is disgusting and pain has no place in spirituality. But between these two holy days, Eid al-Adha and Ashura, we remind ourselves of the violence of our own lives—a violence that...
'Law & Order: SVU' Sucks at Depicting Muslims
Last week’s 'Law & Order: SVU' episode, “Acceptable Loss,” reminded me that if I want to see a TV drama treat Muslim characters as capable of full human complexity, cop shows might not be the best place to look.