There have been great breakthroughs in the area of genetics that can help us displaced folk from America find our roots. I'm one of those folk that 'just don't know who I am'.
No, really, the story goes like this. I feel very strongly to get this out in the open and share it with whoever wants to share this experience with me. Ultimately, when I gain all the courage, I want to get the new DNA Genetic testing done to find out who my ancestors are, and where they come from. The testing can tell you specifacally what percentage of which race you are. For instance, a person's results may come back, 4% Native American, 10% European and 86% Subsaharan African. I'm so excited and nervous to find out what I am insh'Allah.
Anyway, on with the story. I am nearly 30 years old, although when I wake up in the morning, I still feel 17. I have three sons of my own, a step son, and two step daughters. I'm married to a Muslim who converted at the age of 13 from San Antonio, Texas. He is half Black American and half White American. For my own heritage, I have to break it down a little more for you!
My mother: Amatus-Shakoor Tahir Ahmad born 1956 in Sierra Leone, Nigeria (Africa)
My mother's mother: Amatul-Hamid Ahmad born in India to Indian parents. As far as we know, all her ancestry is Indian. I was told that her family history goes back to some royalty/very high class regal family. I know that she escaped India during a huge conflict between Hindu and Muslims. She told me Muslim Indians were being killed all around.
My mother's father: Sheikh Nasir-uddin Ahmad born in Afghanistan to Afghani parents. As far as we know, all his ancestry is from Afghanistan.
My father: Carlton Raymond Robinson (his Muslim name is Muhammad Isa Tahir) born in 1954 in Neptune, New Jersey, USA.
My father's mother: Alice Jones Robinson born in Evergreen Alabama, raised in Mobile, Alabama 1919 still alive in Rahway, New Jersey. Her mother's name was Betty Bosman. Her mother was a Black Seminole Indian. Her father was Afro-American. James Jones. She also always told me there is an ancestor of ours whom was a Native of a tribe from South America. By the look of her, she looks African American and Native American. Her only memory of her mother is that she made tea-cakes for her when she would come home from school. They didn't have much clothes so they had to come home and wash everyday. They had to go Sunday School. Alice had 9 siblings. Her mom's sister's name was Mary Wright. Clarence Jones, Robert Jones, and Alice. Delouis Hawthorne, Betty Marvin Hawthorne, William Hawthorne, Joseph Hawthorne Her mother died when she was only 5 years old.
My father's father: George Banks Robinson a.k.a "Banks" born in North Carolina in 1911. His was so fair skinned, and had such fine hair, he looked white. However, his parents were mixed. He is Cherokee (a tribe of Native Americans), Irish, and Black American. I don't know exactly which of George's parents was black, or Cherokee, or Irish.
Now we come to how my parents met.
My father converted to Islam in the 1970's at a time when multitudes of African Americans were trying to find their roots, and abandon the names, and religion that European slave owners forced upon them. After having been Muslim for a few years, he and his brother Charles Robinson who became Omar Kadafi, flew to India in search of a traditional Muslim wives. They met my mother's father (Sheikh Nasir-Uddin Ahmad) who fell in love with my father's zeal for Islam. He offered his daughter to him in marriage. That was how the marriage was arranged. My mother and father were both pleased with each other and were married.
So what am I?
I've been asked this question too many times to care. I recall growing up being so sick and tired of the very next question after finding out my name to be, "What are you? Where you from?"
What could I say? "I'm mixed," I would reply.
"With what?" is the immediate response.
Well, to sum it up, my father is Afro-American and mom is Asian. That's the short answer :)
Sometimes, people ask, what race I feel more inclined to. What culture did I grow up in. What do you feel like you are?
Now that's hard. I'll tell you why. I don't look African - American, but I feel most comfortable with people from Africa. I don't know why. But it could be because of my upbrining. When I was 5, my mother's family moved to America and into our house. Up until that point, I had never questioned why my parents and father's parents all looked so different. So race was never a thought. Upon my mother's family's arrival to America and to our doorstep, I learned real quick about race. They immediately let me know that they disliked everything about myself and my brother that was American. They hated the way we talked and walked. They let us know they did not approve of their sister marrying a Black. My mother's father never approved of his daughter's or wife's racism. He orchestrated the marriage. But there was nothing he could do about their harsh comments that were said to me when my parents were not around. They talked about my frizzy hair. They told me to squeeze my nose because it was so flat when I was little. They were prompt to make fun of any black person in the street when we drove around. For this reason, I never got close to my mother's side of the family. Today, they are all doctors and very well off, but I don't have any contact with them. They don't know me, or my children. To this day, I don't understand how people can be so educated, and yet so incredibly ignorant. Especially when they have Islam to teach them that Asibiyah, and all racism is against Allah's way. My mother's family is responsible for physical and emotional abuse that has left me scarred for life and stronger than I would have been without it. It has left me with a feeling of being unnaccepted among people which in turn has given me compassion to outcasted people. In middle and high school, although I hung with the popular crowd, I always was the one to lend a hand to the person no one wanted to talk to. My friends never understood why I was that way, but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for people who are marginalized. It's perplexing to recall the horrid racist exclamations my mother's family would hurl at me because I look more like them than any African American! They plainly let me know, that I will never be loved by them because I have black blood. Amazing right!
Now, my father's side of the family, whom are all considered African-American although they have mixed blood, they were always welcoming and loving to me. That in itself may explain why I feel so at home with African-Americans. My father's mother, is my closest and dearest family member. She and I still talk. She is a deep rooted southern black woman from Alabama with a strong connection to God whom she has come to know as Allah due to her sons' conversions to Islam. Once,when I was 13, and my heart was broken and I felt beaten down from being cursed by my mother's family, I called my grandma crying to her. I'll never forget it,she told me in a voice that was so comforting, and strong, "Don't cry, and don't let them see you cry. Be strong Basir. Hold your head up high, and don't let them get you down."
That was all I needed. I never let any one of them affect me again. I looked them right in their eyes with all due respect and never fluttered. I never said anything to engage them. This only brought more hateful comments from them. The fact that I would no longer cry, but instead, I had matured and realized, there was nothing wrong with me. It was all them. They would taunt me and say, 'What's wrong with her' in frustration, they would go on with, 'she doesn't even cry!'
As an adult, I remember those memories, and I am thankful for them, because they taught me a great deal. They also made me more human and softer hearted.
A little about my life experience. I was born in Denver, Colorado on Army Fitzgerals's Army Hostpital. My father was enlisted in the Air Force at the time so I was born on the base. We left when I was 2 months old. I lived on MeGuire AirForce Base in New Jersey and moved to a suburb near it through Kindergarten. We travelled in and out of New York quite often to visit my father's siblings. My mother joined the Air Force when I was 7 which brought her to Wichitah Falls, TX for basic training and far away from me in New Jersey. I was at the mercy of her meanspirited family. We moved to Manhatten, Spanish Harlem to be exact. We lived on 139th Street on the Upper West Side of the island. It was where I learned to fight. I was always very sweet with a calm demeanor, which attracted a lot of friends. Attracting alot of friends always attracted a few haters. Those haters always caught a nice beat down for underestimating my kindness. I have to laugh. If I could just go back into time to see the surprised looks on so many puerto rican girls who really thought I was going to be easy to take down. Man, that's hilarious. Anyway, we moved every four months. I lived in various parts of Queens. We lived in Hollis, Queens and Flushing, Queens. I always loved Hollis best because it was an all black neighborhood and I lived with my father's side of the family. In Flushing (Elmhurst) Queens, we lived with my mother's family. The neighborhood was an enriching experience though. I went to school with people from China, North and South Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Morroco, Equador, and on and on. It was amazing. Apart from my mother's family, I loved it there. My perspective on the world was changed from that culturally rich environment.
Then, in middle school, we left Hollis, Queens, and moved to Naples, Florida. Culture shock! How can two parts of this country be so starkly different! Naples is 75% caucasion, and rich, 19% Hispanic, and only 5% African-American. Remember, I just moved from an all Black neighborhood. It was a rough few years. I found myself harboring bad feelings for the whites around me. I saw the segregation, the unfair treatment of blacks and the racist teachers. I saw my father being harassed by police officers for doing nothing except living on the white side town, speaking too intelligently for a black man, and living too close to the beach. They do not like to see us have anything down there. As we got older, I witnessed my brother continuously harassed by the police there. Finally, it was my turn. They knew my family well. I won't go into detail about the indignity I had to suffer. May Allah punish them. I went through two murders of black classmates at the hands of the Naples' police that were totally covered up.
Of course there were demonstrations, and court cases. But after all, justice NOT for all as proven from the inception of this country. I won't get into that though.
Where does that leave me? I still don't have a group of people whom I can go to and say, these are my people. Can I walk up onto a Cherokee or Seminole Indian reservation and say, "Hey! Where my people at!" Hardly; I've been to the Seminole Reservation in Florida. It was a great experience, but I didn't see any cousins down there. Seriously speaking, if I was a geneticist, I may have been able to find some Seminole that I share some DNA with but who has all that at their fingertips?
The fact is, I have always felt like person blessed with a many different lines of ancestry. As a Muslim, I feel connected to anyone who says La illaha illa lah instantaneously. So the question of my race doesn't really matter when it comes down to it. However, I feel inspired to find out what I can find out. I think the results may be surprise me.
If anyone reads this, I've opened up about some heartache in my past (don't shed any tears because I'm totally cool about it) in order to let you know who I am as a I embark on this journey.
Dream that has inspired me to search my ancestry:
When I was around 20, I had a dream where my mother's father (Sheikh Nasir-uddin Ahmad from Afghanistan) came to my house to visit me. He took me on a journey to a beautiful large gleaming white (inside and out) house which was empty except for a half of a pillar in the middle of the room on which a very ancient extraordinarily large book was resting on. It was brown and kind of peculiar set against the pearl white empty house. My grandfather didn't speak a word to me. He simply kept this look on his face and sly smile that said, " I know something that I can't wait to tell you!" He had come upon some information so fascinating, he just had to show me. Finally, he opens up this ancient book. As he begins to turn to pages, I come to realize, this is a photo albumn of my family. Family I have never seen before. They have all long passed away. Page after page of ancestors going so far back in time, I knew even in the dream, that there weren't any cameras at that time. I looked on as if looking right at the past. It was awe-inspiring. As if this wasn't amazing enough, he stopped at a page right in the middle of this enormous book, and his expression could barely contain his feelings. His face silently screamed of joy. It said, "Look! Can you belive it? I couldn't wait to share this with you granddaughter!"
What was it that he stopped on? It was a picture of girl sitting among her very large family. She had two very long, very black braids and she was looking right back at me. What was the significance of this one girl in this photo? She looked exactly like me. I am a carbon copy of her. My grandfather wanted to let me know he found an ancestor of mine who looked exactly like me. I don't know where she was from, but the impression I got was she was from Africa. By her features, it would have to be North Africa. If anything, perhaps it was India. It was a dream, but some of my dreams, have been very insightful.
Do I think I'll find this in reality? No, but the dream was enough to inspire me to find who I am.
Well, I'm excited to see what insights and what new spin on my journey through duniya the DNA testing will give insh'Allah. Stay posted!
Amatul-Basir Robinson
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