Syncretic Black America

There’s a Muslim punk rock band covered in the film Taqwacore called Noble Drew. They have a song that is a quite entertaining plea for co-ed dancing. Their name is a reference to a black American, Noble Drew Ali, who adopted Islam and brought it to help the communities of his neighborhood in the US.

Similarly, the Nation of Islam adopted some principles and symbolism from Islam to develop itself into a very different beast of its own. For example, a fundamental tenet of Nation of Islam is that a black scientist named Yakub created the white race in an experiment.

The New World religion that always blows my mind though is Rastafarianism. Ras-ta-fari is a reference to the king of Ethiopia Haile Selassie. A few Jamaicans believed that he was the second coming of Christ, something that came as much of a surprise to him when he landed in Jamaica. Rastas combined the dreads, vegetarianism and marijuana smoking habits of Hindu ascetics, whose cultural elements were brought over by indentured servants, with a belief in black liberation.

In the Carribean, other religions developed combining West African beliefs with native American elements and Christianity. On one hand, you have the Orishas of the Afro-Cuban community who practice Santeria (sometimes with crystal balls). In Brazil, the Yoruba religion merged with Catholicism to create Candomble.

There’s something remarkable about the desire to create and explore new religions and ways of spiritual being for me. I personally do not identify as very spiritual or religious in the least. But there’s an inventiveness in these examples that strikes me as fascinating. It is religion, for better or worse, that made Malcolm X a peace-loving man. On his Hajj, he experienced Islam as a multi-racial faith and turned his efforts in America towards reconciliation. Given the political climate today, there is certainly more religious fusion and syncretism to be had.