Many married women in America
Those with husbands payin ALL the bills
Are they getting more out of their marriage than their husbands are getting?
Are they benefitting more?
Are these wives getting the longer end of the stick?
Are they getting more out of the marriage deal than their husbands?
I ask these questions
My answer to them is
I think yes
Being able to have a roof over one's family's head in America comes with a high dollar, a high cost and for many husbands and fathers payin ALL the bills, a lot of work
Being able to feed oneself and one's love ones comes with high dollars if living in America and for many husbands and fathers, with much sacrifice (that is, if they are indeed working ******* the job; that is, if they are indeed making an honest income)
Many wives turn the other cheek, make excuses when their husbands come to them for love, for nurturing, for acts of respect, for nutritious home cooked meals i.e. breakfast (the most important one of the day), for a beautiful appearance comparable to or better than the one they offer to those in the public space, for lots of things
You can't turn the other cheek, make excuses, not go to work and still get paid
Many wives give more time and that of quality to their careers or paid jobs (Because their husbands make enough money, ones they don't have to have) and own interests than they do to their husbands, children, and family (leaving their homes disordered, improperly and inadequately attended to, dysfunctional; they choose my, me over ours, we)
Many wives who are also mothers are neglectful of their children, uncaring and unmotherly to them or less caring and less motherly than they're suppose to be or than what God who gave to them their children has required of them to be
They cheat their families - slack off on being a wife and slack off on being a mother
Many wives certainly in America are getting more out of their marriage than their husbands are getting
It's the wedded truth

She who has her own but uses his I postulate to deceive, to manipulate, to conjure up feelings and thoughts, to market and promote what she likes and values in his name, to elevate her status as a y and as a z in his viewers' eyes, to elevate his status so that through association hers is raised, to... is his wife who uses (his) social media as a device, as a ploy, as a stratagem

And it is he, her husband who is to blame for allowing her to be deceptive using a tool of his, a tool by which the public understands to be (his)...why of course, his first and last name is ascribed it
It is he, her husband who is responsible for enabling her deception and her game playing

He went along with it from the start
She asked for my passwords, I have nothing to hide was said of the reason he gave them to her, said about 12 years ago
Why do you want my passwords?, is what should have been the reply. What do you need my Facebook and my email passwords for?

We're not like you and him...You've been married a long time...
We're newly married
said to a relative
Logic would say, if both parties are questioning at the start of their marriage whether each can be trusted or not, the two needed not to have gotten married
But was the issue of trust (as illegitimate of a reason as it is given marriage and distrust of one's partner are incongruent) the reason (what her husband concluded/assumed) or the primary reason or the only reason she asked for his passwords?

12 years later, she still has his passwords

He's still going along with it
I postulate because what she's doing has resulted in no serious harm to him (so he thinks), it does not threaten him in any serious way(s), there is no/there are no immediate or negative consequences to him that he deems meaningful, it's very, very likely that by now, 12 years later, he's been conditioned to think that such abuse is normal, yes a kind of domestic abuse that he gives his consent for, not by a husband toward his wife as many, could be said most conceive domestic abuse to be but by a wife towards her husband

And they have her in the classroom teaching and grooming very young kids with no other adult in the classroom regularly to observe her and what she's doing
Just like how she puts much on camera should have had a surveillance camera in her classroom
And the primary reason she's in there, the reason it was allowed to happen...my hypothesis is because they have been long time friends of her husband and like him

His Facebook is her name
His social media is her fame

Viewers don't be misled
Viewers don't be fooled

Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Shall I repeat?
Many
Would you please not be consistent?
Would you please not be so loud?
Would you please not be so disturbing?
You're irritating us
Don't bring Godly attention our way
Don't remind us of our responsibility
Stand up
Sit down again if you're going to put your hands up and pray
while OUR GOD is playing
OUR GOD is playing, Mahmoud, don't you hear HER?
Aren't you a slave like us?
You're more of a slave than us
You're paid better than us
You're paid big money
like the rest of your proball player colleagues
You're making us feel uneasy
We feel jittering
We're uncomfortable right now
Now, we're upset
STOP.
STOP right now
or Get out. Go.
GO.
We want you to leave
We don't like you anymore
LEAVE
Hang up your jersey
and toss away your basketball
Do whatever you want with them
Sale them, Give them to charity, Put them on display in a museum or at an exhibit somewhere
We don't want to see them anymore
We don't want to see you anymore
We don't like that you make us feel like cowards
We don't like that you remind us that we haven't any reason to have pride
in our nation
in a stolen land
WHAT?!
You're making us think
We didn't come to watch a NBA basketball game to think
We didn't come to leave a NBA basketball game thinking
WHAT?!

Don't you know anything about America separating church and state?
You're American, right?
Though your name is different
If you were an immigrant
you might have had to learn this
to take a test to get your citizenship

Yes, yes, I know
that a basketball court is not a state
and that you don't believe in the church
And you've said
that the making of a prayer's never confined to any particular institution or place of worship
You said
At the doctor's office,
I pray
In the car before I pull off,
I pray
In the restaurant before I eat and after I eat,
I pray
At the start of a game,
I pray

All this unnecessary buzz
All this unnecessary hype
around me refusing to pledge allegiance to the American flag
and instead pledge allegiance to God
and pray during the anthem
Even more than 25 years later, a 1/2 of a century later,
we're talking about it
But this time
I get to speak my story
to whoever is interested
I get to speak to the world
through a number of ways
so that the truth can be heard

As for the NBA
compensate me in a way that can never repay me for what you did
for what I've gone through and others
for all of the suffering
compensate me as justly as possible
compensate me appropriately
Do what you would want to be done to you
in a fellow human's shoes
if you were in my Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf basketball player's shoes

It's your choice
Either way
My light has shined
GOD has told us that
Joslyn Rose Lyons
said this, too
and with her production
"STAND"  
a documentary film
about me and my truth,
it will continue to shine

Anything done for GOD will always be zoomed in on
Will always be talked about
Will always STAND out
Because with as many Hitlers as there are
As many Netanyahus as there are
As many corrupt Saudi Kings as there are
No matter how few,
there'll always be
Mahmouds
There'll always be
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazzs or Malcolm Xs
and
Imam Khomeinis
There'll always be
Imam Asis

You see
Mahmoud's See
"Once you see something,
you can't unsee it"
is POWER
Mahmoud's See
is INFLUENCE
Mahmoud's See
is like that of the SEA
with a beautiful, eye-catching tide
that keeps coming back
and keeps making waves
and keeps giving us reason to notice

Mahmoud
You said what you did and what Kaepernick did
By the way  
I bought 10 copies of your autobiography (audio CD)
"In The Blink Of An Eye"
produced by Kaepernick Publishing
allowed you both to speak your conscience
to do what is right
to speak against injustice
but it doesn't translate into POWER
because as you said
in so many words,
there are still many injustices
happening in America and around the world
and crimes against humanity still taking place

What you, Kaepernick,  
and the other professional athletes to whom this applies did
doesn't translate into power
because there aren't enough like you  
taking a STAND
asserting their human rights
speaking truth to power
More are emergently needed
Insha Allah, as those who take a STAND
become the norm and
they become a sizeable number,
POWER will be the result

Nonetheless,
your STAND beckons more to STAND
It's a rare match to start a flame
  
Injustice will always have its See
And justice will always be seen
even if and when it's seems to be at a distance
even when it appears out of reach

Like Mahmoud,
myself, and others,
we are forever changed by
an NBA star's See,
a human who chose to STAND's See
With it,
there is no turning back

By: Najwa Kareem

Would you have guessed you’d be next?
Perhaps you said so to someone close once in a text. Your suspicions concerning the police kept you running.
Did you ever consider that maybe you were too stunning?
That maybe your continuous smile was too bright.
That maybe your face was filled with too much light.
That maybe your comings and goings, your daily visits to Mom were too much.
That perhaps your happy, cheerful, respectful demeanor could reach out and touch.
That maybe a look into your eyes, they were blinded by the sun.
That surely at the ripe age of 25, your life would be done.
An act of racism I ask?
An act of brutality I ask?
An act of inhumanity I ask?
An act of injustice I ask?
Where in police school does one learn that a young black man standing on the street makes him a suspect?
Where in police school does one learn wearing Prada makes you a
prospective criminal?
Where in police school does one learn that having a nickname Pepper
makes one a target?
Where in police school does one learn that a citizen’s lead
poisoning makes him a magnet for a 6 police officer raid?
Where in police school does one learn that having no knowledge of a
man carrying a knife makes him the next chase?
Where in police school does one learn that being a human officer
entitles one to act unjustly against a human person?
Who are you or I to say because he couldn’t read as well as you or I his life didn’t matter?
Who are you or I to say because Freddie lived like many in low-income housing he didn’t deserve a chance at a better life?
Who are you or I to say because he had been arrested for drug
possession in the past he didn’t deserve to live out his dream?
Who are you or I to say because he liked to sing and make others laugh he didn’t deserve a life of dignity?
Who are you or I to say he didn’t have the right to continue
visiting his dear Mother, Mrs. Gloria Darden?
Who are you or I to say he shouldn’t have had the privilege to
continue walking Baltimore’s streets?
Now Freddie our hearts grieve your loss.
Now Freddie my heart grieves your uncalled-for death.
Now Freddie your prideful city has simmered down but it still feels
the pain.
Now Freddie my warmest sympathy to you, your family, your friends,
your supporters, and the city of Baltimore.

Standing and looking up from underneath these Allah made magnificent trees while waiting for the next bus to come
with all of their complexities, dimensions, features
each branch artistically and uniquely designed
many almost hook like in shape
variations of pink colored carnation flowers hanging delicately from them in light, medium, and dark shades
with pin drop size black dot on each flower's stem                                                             ­                      
complemented by green and copper tone leaves
I see All Blue Skies and think they should see All Blue Skies, too

Looking up, I think it isn't fair that I see what I see
All Blue Skies and people of Palestine, people of Gaza don't see the same and don't have the same

Do they even have a moment of pause
a chance to look up at what's above  
an opportunity to marvel at something
to rest a bit

And if they have lived or survived to be able to look above their heads                                                        
isn­­’t it often
that they see gray or black and not All Blue
Is it not rubble from deadly bombs that they see falling down on them
for many, many not to live life as they were meant to live it

Looking up at the All Blue Skies from underneath these marvelous trees
I shake my head right to left, left to right and with expressions on my face I wish I myself could see, think this isn’t fair

When we look up at the All Blue Skies above our heads and wonder why our blue skies don’t feel as blue
It’s because Palestine’s All Blue Skies aren’t there
It’s because people of Palestine and people of Gaza don’t have them that we don’t relate to them and their long standing, ongoing struggle
Because they don’t have what we have, we don’t see them as one of us
But like Nelson Mandela said, We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

We have a lot of work to do
with us unified and with proper guidance by moral leadership
We have a lot to do
So that All Blue Skies are had by all and felt by all

We should all work in significant, high priority ways – be the Abds,
be the servants, be the slaves that Allah created us to be for Him
so that All Blue Skies for Palestine’s Human Lives are seen clearly, seen vividly, from everywhere on the globe
And afterwards, when we look up wherever we are at the All Blue Skies sitting above our heads,
we’ll feel not blue  

By: Najwa Kareem

Standing and looking up from underneath these Allah made magnificent trees while waiting for the next bus to come                                      
with all of their complexities, dimensions, features
each branch artistically and uniquely designed
many almost hook like in shape
variations of pink colored carnation flowers hanging delicately from them in light, medium, and dark shades
with pin drop size black dot on each flower's stem                                                             ­                      
complemented by green and copper tone leaves
I see All Blue Skies and think they should see All Blue Skies, too

Looking up, I think it isn't fair that I see what I see
All Blue Skies and people of Palestine, people of Gaza don't see the same and don't have the same

Do they even have a moment of pause
a chance to look up at what's above  
an opportunity to marvel at something 
to rest a bit

And if they have lived or survived to be able to look above their heads                                                        
isn­’t it often
that they see gray or black and not All Blue
Is it not rubble from deadly bombs that they see falling down on them
for many, many not to live life as they were meant to live it

Looking up at the All Blue Skies from underneath these marvelous trees
I shake my head right to left, left to right and with expressions on my face I wish I myself could see,
think this isn’t fair

When we look up at the All Blue Skies above our heads and wonder why our blue skies don’t feel as blue
It’s because Palestine’s All Blue Skies aren’t there
It’s because people of Palestine and people of Gaza don’t have them that we don’t relate to them and their long standing, ongoing struggle
Because they don’t have what we have, we don’t see them as one of us
But like Nelson Mandela said, We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

We have a lot of work to do
with us unified and with proper guidance by moral leadership
We have a lot to do
So that All Blue Skies are had by all and felt by all

We should all work in significant, high priority ways – be the Abds,
be the servants, be the slaves that Allah created us to be for Him
so that All Blue Skies for Palestine’s Human Lives are seen clearly, seen vividly, from everywhere on the globe
And afterwards, when we look up wherever we are at the All Blue Skies sitting above our heads,
we’ll feel not blue  

By: Najwa Kareem

They stand out among the empty
Blossoms trees of pink
In the coldest season of the year
we've been graced with
their delicate, soft ambiance
As amazing as they look
As beautiful as they are
They're here now
And they'll be gone tomorrow
Let us let pink know now, they are appreciated
Let us let pink know now, their lure shines
Let us let pink know now, our sight of them gratifies us
Let us let pink know now, we love them