05
Vestiges
Posted under General Musings, On Religion, african-american experience, convert/revert experienceI was born 38 years ago. In America. An African-American. My parents were married but divorced when I was about six years old. I recall the divorce. I still have vague memories of my dad driving my mom and I across country in a U-Haul truck with an orange Pontiac hitched to the back. I remember eating foul canned liver with a red devil printed on the label as we parked somewhere to wait for the rain to subside. That was a dark night. I lay in the cab of the truck, my head on my mother’s lap, my feet on my dad’s. I was the child of divorce, but not a wayward forgotten child. I knew my father and I knew that my father loved me.
We stayed with friends for some time until my mother found an apartment and a job. Then we lived life alone together, until, on occasion my mother met a man she liked and would introduce me to him. I was this tot barometer pretty much thinning the herd until she settled on one man (that she did not marry) who I did not like very much for a long time.
Eventually we moved to “the hood”. Brookside was a brick housing project comprised of about (I’m guessing here) 30-45 buildings of about 10 or more apartments each. I believe Brookside was probably once an upscale housing development for white folks that eventually turned brown. Believe me, it wasn’t just the people that turned Brookside brown, but all that came with it. The darkness of poverty, teen pregnancies, violence, and drugs. The desperate stupor that can come over a group collectively was present in Brookside. It was like a smoke cloud that has long since descended. The people within the cloud no longer notice the haze. The people outside the cloud can’t see in. But, that stupor never seemed to touch the kids. We were happy; playing games into the night during the summers, smacking on Now&Laters that we bought at the corner store owned by Italians who liked to compare the darkness of their sun-bronzed skin to ours in the summer. We were happy and innocent, despite it all, until puberty.
Isn’t puberty an ugly time? Potentially so, anyway. Yes? There are so many ways for it to go wrong. Especially in that environment, which can be as unwholesome as stagnant waste water. Your body and mind coming of age in a place where so many are corrupt and oversexed. Try being a budding teen girl there. It can be hell. If you aren’t careful, if you don’t have diligent parents (and my mother was as much as she could be) there were people who made it their business to know you, before you could know yourself.
So, how does one come out of that environment a whole, sound, competent individual? Only Allah 
knows. But you can.
Recently, someone dear to my heart and life told me in a fit of anger, “You have to reform yourself. You still have vestiges of that old life in you. You have to purge it.” These words touched something in me. And I admitted out loud that absolutely, I have those vestiges. I can not help it. Now, not being able to help it doesn’t mean going with it and living in that moment, that sickness, but it does mean that as long as I am alive, I will be actively converting each and every thought. I will be comparing each and every feeling. I will be questioning each and every action and reaction I have to be sure that it is in line with what Allah would have of me. And isn’t that the way it should be for most people?
Born Muslims (as this near and dear to my heart person is) often have the luxury of never having been tainted by the mental and spiritual sickness of a life in unbelief. Couple that with poverty, suppressed thinking, racism (yes, it still exists), and simply not knowing because you were never taught better, and you have a recipe for possible failure. I had it better than most. I was my mother’s only child, and she worked. We never received food stamps, or to my knowledge any other government hand out. My dad paid child support, and as old as I am today, I can not recall in even the vaguest memory, my father ever telling me “no”. I had all that I needed and I had most everything that I wanted.
I met and married my husband at the age of 19, and became a Muslim shortly after that. While I know he likes to take credit for my reversion, I must admit, that after reading Malcolm X at the age of about 17, I knew that Islam was the only viable path for me, no matter how imperfect a Muslim I may be. I pray five times daily. I am a hijabi, and I make certain efforts to ensure that my children will be better than I am/have ever been in all the ways that matter. I fast during Ramadan. I try to do kindness to others, Muslim and non-Muslim. And when I say, do, or even think a wicked thing, I immediately make tauba in the hopes that Allah will pardon me.
That said, I am still so incredibly imperfect… There go those vestiges again.
When I seek counsel with Allah , I often ask Him to make me a better person. But still I wonder to myself, exactly when will I be released from the yoke of my previous existence so that I can be a whole, sound, and worthy Muslim? Only Allah knows, but surely, if it ever happens, won’t I know it too? The next question. Will it ever happen?
It is at these times that I have to remind myself of the times of Prophet Muhammad 
. Look at the lives of his companions, and kin. They were like me, like the convert here in the west. Surrounded by the sickness of hatred and racism. Sunk in the mire of a culture that is spiritually bankrupt and devoid of guidance. And here I am, a virtual castaway constantly looking for a way to at the very least maintain my identity when advancing it seems so difficult. It is these vestiges that make me more able than the foreign born Muslim to navigate this culture. I know better what to expect, and therefore, I know what to avoid and what to embrace. But, similarly, it is like being an alcoholic locked in a bar where everyone is drinking beer. I know to ask for a soda or a glass of water, but how long can I remain in the bar without being tempted to take a sip of that which is unlawful. The smell is there, the sound of it permeates, the pretended joy it brings ringing in my ears.
Let’s be clear. Islam is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Embracing Islam, Islam embracing me…this has given my life clarity and power, direction and perception, contentment and peace. The vestiges? The ruling on this is still out. Is this a blessing or a curse? Do I use it to better direct my path or do I fight to rid myself of it at all costs? I don’t have the answer to this. But, it scares me, knowing what I know, having seen the things that I have seen. It steals the innocence. It can muddle the clarity, turning all things brown and indistinct.
Just as I should not be proud of some quality in myself over which I have no control, such as the color of my skin, or the texture of my hair, how can I be ashamed of a past over which I had no control? Should I be ashamed of those vestiges, the ones that mark me as having once been an unbeliever, a housing project dweller, a woman who had it not been for the beneficence of Allah might have been the 16 year old pregnant statistic - the ones we like to look down upon and wag our fingers at?
Are those vestiges part of my very blueprint? They act as my compass, saying in the internal voice, “Up to here and no further!” And I listen, most of the time.
Those vestiges. What to do about them?