Black Muslim brilliance: Confronting antiblackness and Islamophobia through transnational educational migration

Abstract

Black Muslim youth confront antiblackness and Islamophobia in US schools and society, yet few studies examine how this population navigates these intersecting oppressions. In addition, there has been a dearth of scholarly literature that explores the educational spaces in which Black Muslim youth are nurtured and affirmed. This article addresses these understudied areas by examining a community of African American Muslim youth who, amidst the overlapping deprivations of antiblackness and Islamophobia, opt to leave the USA and continue their education abroad. Based on a 14-month ethnographic study at an Islamic school in Medina Baye, Senegal that was established for African American Muslim youth, and additional fieldwork throughout the USA, this article utilizes data from classroom observations, participant observations, and interviews. I argue that the school, the African American Islamic Institute Qur’an School, and the communities related to it in Senegal and the USA operate from an axiomatic stance of Black Muslim brilliance. I further argue that such an affirmation of students’ inherent capacities expands these African American Muslim youth’s imaginative possibilities and provides them with new ways of envisioning what it means to learn at the intersection of being young, Black, and Muslim. This research: (1) demonstrates the affordances of transnational educational migration as a route to educational justice for Black students; (2) contributes a diasporic and intersectional perspective to understanding Black Muslim youth’s educational experiences; and (3) illustrates the value of providing opportunities for Black youth from the USA to study abroad on the African continent.