Assata, the Muslim
-
Published:December 2024
Chapter 2 examines archival materials related to Islam and Assata Shakur in the 1970s and 1980s, including her wanted posters. It advances the argument that, rather than another case of racial particularism in a critical Western frame, the blackness of Black Power invoking Islam is an argument against race. Shakur’s invocation of Islam functioned as a move against racial logics. The chapter argues she is ungendered, per Hortense Spillers, in posters, courts, and media in relation to the Muslim label. The contradiction between Shakur’s claim never to have practiced Islam, alongside archival material in which she called herself Muslim, is then interpreted through a discussion of an essay by Safiya Bukhari, another former Panther who was a devoted Muslim.
Advertisement