Miski Noor is an organizer and writer based in Minneapolis, MN, where she works as a Communications Strategist for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. In this op-ed for Huffington Post, she writes about the challenges of addressing her own Black Muslim experiences, penning “I got stuck because in most situations where my multiple identities are relevant (or not), my Blackness trumps all other identities. So no, I don’t have the perfect anecdote, because my whole life is emblematic of what Black Muslims face in America on a daily basis: erasure.
“My particular Black African Muslim experience is grounded in a specific and unique combination of the effects of colonialism, war, displacement, lack of access and privilege and anti-Blackness in both my community and in my religion. At the same time, my experience has themes that are common for many like me. Experiences of anti-Blackness, within and outside of Muslim identity, are reflected by both public sentiment and in the political realities of the United States.”