As some of you who know me may know, I practiced Islam for many years, since I was about thirteen years old.

Islam teaches that the worst part of hell is reserved for the hypocrites. As a kid raised in the hip hop culture, that spoke to me because in hip hop the worst thing to be was to be a hypocrite.

As a North Cackalackee (North Carolina) native, the thing I love most about this state, besides Pecan, Pine and Magnolia trees, is the state motto ESSE QUAM VIDERI which is latin for “To be rather than to seem”. It basically means ” No Hypocrisy”, “No Cap” “Be Real”.

I came to Islam as a student of Sufism, which I picked up in Philadelphia from the Bawa Muhaiyadeen Fellowship on Ogontz Ave in West Philly.

The thing about Sufism is that it actually has more in common with the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Vedanta Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism than it does with orthodox Islam. Each of these has been described as the “Theosophical tradition” within their respective religious origins. They’re all ecumenical, eclectic and universal.”

I left the labels of organized religion to enjoy the essence of it. To stay in God. To stay out of conflicts sparked in the name of religion, racial differences, political division. I don’t give a flying fuk about your label, I care about you. Fuk the frills!

This is on my mind because I’m really sick and disgusted by the hypocrisy. I’ve been sick of it because hypocrisy cost me my freedom. For Thirty Years. But any religious hypocrisy always triggers it.

Like this:

Iranian girl ‘brain dead’ after morality police beating over hijab.

A 16-year-old Iranian schoolgirl who was allegedly beaten by morality police for not wearing a hijab is now “brain dead”, state media reported on Sunday.

Armita Geravand fell into a coma earlier this month after a “severe physical assault” by female morality police officers on the Tehran metro, according to Hengaw, a human rights group.

“Follow-ups on the latest health condition of Geravand indicate that her condition of being brain dead seems certain despite the efforts of the medical staff,” state media reported.

There have been concerns that Ms Geravand might face the same fate as Mahsa Amini, whose death in the custody of morality police last year sparked months of nationwide anti-government protests.

Human rights groups such as Hengaw were the first to make the 16-year-old’s hospitalization public, publishing photos of her on social media that showed her unconscious with a respiratory tube and bandage over her head, visibly on life support

Surveillance footage shows women pulling 16-year-old Armita Geravand from a train car on the Tehran Metro – Iranian state television

Iran has denied that Ms Geravand was hurt after the confrontation.

See, I figured it out…

I am someone whose first introduction to “Black History” was me, one of two Black kids, sitting in class in a school that was forcefully integrated and watching footage of slaves in chains being guarded by White men on horses and OTHER BLACK PEOPLE.

That image indelibly etched this lesson in my world view: The adversary isn’t the label; it’s the content.

Any slave maker is my adversary, even if he’s blacker than me, even if he’s a Democrat, even if he’s my own blood, as long as he’s making slaves.

Anyone advocating ethnic cleansing, genocidal policies, and mass incarceration for profit is dead wrong, even if she’s a graduate of a HBCU, black and beautiful, or the great granddaughter of someone who was gassed to death in an oven. Even if he’s my own sibling.

Anyone who helps others cover up murder or thinks or says something that creates a mental atmosphere conducive to the idea of murder being birthed or nurtured carries some responsibility for all loss of life, even if it happens weeks or thousands of years later, even if that person is a revered philosopher, religious teacher, protective single parent, or my own self. Especially myself.

Why? Because we are one organism. Our thoughts affect others even if they are never spoken. Our words move others even if we never lift a finger. Our actions can send us all into hellish existence even though they may seem to be justified by our own fear and suffering.

So basically, as a melanated Trans racial man who can’t trace his history back further than his ancestors slave masters chattel records I believe with all my heart ,body and soul that we are obligated to always speak for and advocate for people being bullied, raped, robbed, displaced, slaughtered, and kidnapped no matter what labels are used to justify it.

Our support shouldn’t be hesitant, rationalized, nor restricted by selfish political considerations.

If we are attacked, ostracized, and killed for letting our light shine, so be it.

It is better to die for being humanitarians than to die from overdosing, gangbanging, diseases caused by gluttony, cosmetic surgery, internalized stress caused by muzzling ourselves, and sitting in prisons built on lies.

We are not respected internationally nor locally because we, the melanated people of America have not sacrificed enough to earn respect. We have betrayed the lessons our ancestors and family suffered to survive for us to learn.

We should ALWAYS stand for the innocent, for the victims, for those struggling to realize their potential ,no matter their race, religion, or other label. When we don’t, history will always condemn us as hypocrites.

The world deserves better for us and we deserve better for us.

ONE LOVE UNIVERSAL!