Countering the "Phenomenology of Whiteness": The Nation of Islam's Phenomenology of Blackness

E Anthony Muhammad,Georgia Southern University

doi:10.5399/pjcp.v4i1.2

Abstract

The Nation of Islam (NOI) has intrigued American society since its inception in 1930. Historically, the religio-nationalist organization has been the object of admiration for its uncanny ability to reform the lives of downtrodden blacks. At the same time, the NOI has garnered condemnation for the controversial, racialized and divisive doctrine that it espouses. This condemnation has led to a dismissal of the NOI’s doctrine as reactionary, bigoted, and fanciful myth-making. In recent decades however, scholars have begun interrogating the doctrine of the NOI. Rather than dismissing it, scholars in various fields have recognized the critical and phenomenological nature of its doctrine as it goes about the “mental, physical, and spiritual resurrection” of black Americans. In this article, I interrogate three of the most controversial claims of the NOI: The White man is the devil, the Black man is God, and its endorsement of the separation of Blacks into their own territory. Viewed through the lens of phenomenology, I submit that the NOI’s doctrine and actions should be viewed as the establishment of an emancipative and recuperative “Phenomenology of Blackness” that counters a lifeworld built upon the disembodiment and dehumanization of Black bodies. Reframing the NOI’s doctrine in this way positions it as a linguistic, religiously stylized, praxis-oriented critical hermeneutic phenomenology.

Highlights

The Nation of Islam (NOI), a Black nationalist organization espousing a heterodox Islamic doctrine, has intrigued the American public since its founding in 1930
Are myths and an allegedly hate-filled doctrine truly all there is to the NOI? In the words that follow, I offer an analysis of the NOI that counters the traditional indictments referenced above
By destabilizing racially dehumanizing metanarratives and reconstructing the agency of Black existence, it is my argument that the doctrine and practices of the NOI can best be characterized as a restorative and recuperative display of a critical hermeneutic phenomenology, or what I consider a phenomenology of Blackness

Summary

ANTHONY MUHAMMAD Georgia Southern University

The Nation of Islam (NOI), a Black nationalist organization espousing a heterodox Islamic doctrine, has intrigued the American public since its founding in 1930 Producing notable adherents such as Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan, Khalid Abdul Muhammad, and Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, the NOI has often been heralded for its recruitment and subsequent moral, physical, and spiritual transformation of “the rejected and despised”; the pimps, prostitutes, criminals, drug addicts, and other downtrodden Blacks. Three of the more publicly known and controversial aspects of its doctrine are the depictions of whites as “devils” (Muhammad 1965, 100), Blacks as “God” (NOI 1995, 10), and the organization’s endorsement of the geographical separation of Blacks and whites (Muhammad 1965, 226).

Anthony Muhammad

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NATION OF ISLAM

CONTEXTUALIZING THE NOI

THE DISORIENTED BLACK BODY

THE NATION OF ISLAM’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BLACKNESS

THE NOI’S CRITICAL HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGICAL DISCOURSE