POV: New Muslim Cool

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 Trailer

 Official Site

I kept waiting for the Erin Brockovich moment after the raid happened; I was waiting for the whole community to rally, to go after the FBI, to make up some placards and stage a big march. None of that happened. The story turned out to be about somebody’s internal experience.
—Jennifer Maytorena Taylor

A young man makes his way along a Pittsburgh sidewalk, his scarf light in the wind and his robe swinging round his ankles as he steps up on the curb. “I would always have two consistent dreams my whole life,” says Hamza Pérez. “One that I was going to experience death at 21, and the other one, that I was going to be in jail. And then, both of them came true.”

Hamza, who also goes by his birth name Jason, explains what he means for New Muslim Cool, the documentary that opens to the new season of POV on 23 June. When he was 21, he experienced a “death of all my past and negative,” that is, he converted to Islam. And then he found just how complicated it could be to go to jail. Not only has he been incarcerated in his past—following along the usual ritual for anyone self-identified as a gangster, rapper, and drug dealer—but he also goes back to jail, sort of. Hired by the Alleghany County Jail to teach regular classes in its faith-based program, he finds a new kind of calling, a way that he could make sense of his own wrong choices and give back to a community in need. Stands before a room full of students, he announces his focus for the day: “I’m talking about the brotherhood of humanity,” he says, then adds, “The highest form or level of brotherhood is achieved with the people you’re with to get closer to God.” Indeed, he observes later, when “I look at people, I don’t look at them as people no more. I see them as opportunities for me to get closer to God.”

Outside the jail, Hamza is also newly committed. Hoping to expand his self-appointed mission, to help young people turn away from the street, he draws a rudimentary chart on the board for a group of elementary-school students: “I look at hustling like a corporation,” he asserts. “Where there’s crack, where there’s Nike, where there’s Wal-mart, it’s all pimping and whoring.” His listeners nod, knowing that he knows. “I may have been in the streets, strung out or something,” he tells the camera. “But Allah had a whole other plan for me.” 

This plan includes his efforts to “rectify” what he’s done in the past. For one thing, he’s devoted himself to being a good husband to Rafiah, whom he met on line, as well as honorable father to his children from a previous relationship and her young daughter. Between his work at the prison and speaking engagements and her job as a customer service rep at Comcast, they share parenting duties (she suggests he’s maturing as a dad). While his mother Gladys admits she was surprised at his conversion and his marriage to a black Muslim (“I brought the boys up in Catholic school,” Hamza’s mami says, “I worked two jobs”), she admires his sobriety and perseverance.

Hamza and his brother Suliman, also Muslim, use the documentary to offer a lesson in “Boricua Halal cooking”: peering into a pan on Suliman’s stove, they detail the tasty benefits of mixing their Muslim and Puerto Rican cuisine and customs. (“We don’t know full Arabic,” smiles Hamza, “But we know Arabic Spanglish ebonics!”). As M-Team, they are working on a fourth CD, bringing their inspirational message to consumers via smart beats and rhymes: “Live my life trying to be a humble slave,” raps Hamza over the film’s opening credits, “And when I bend and pray, I try to mend my ways, / I try to lower my gaze and stay modest and live life honest. / Tomorrow’s not promised.” Explaining the concept of jihad (as struggle) to a radio audience, they try to diffuse intra-community tensions in a “post-September 11 world.” Right, jokes the DJ. As rappers, Muslims, and Puerto Ricans, “You sound like America’s worst nightmare.”

They laugh, but understand the risks of such appearances. It’s not long before the film drops that other shoe (following a confession by Hamza: “When everything is too good, and that’s happened to me for a while, I start to get worried”). The Pittsburgh police and FBI raid the masjid (mosque) where the brothers are members, apparently for no good reason. Hamza is disheartened and fretful for his family, but also determined to make right his small piece of the world. Seeing a surveillance camera mounted across the street, Hamza observes, “Instead of watching the drug dealers they’re watching the Muslims.” 

In working through his initial anger at the injustice, Hamza considers broader issues. Without structure and support, he says, “The human being doesn’t understand that language” of faith. “Someone invades your home, you got to turn your cheek and forgive them.” It’s a hard concept, and one that Hamza filters through his work at the jail, his contributions to a collection of poetry, Crossing Limits: Poetry from American Muslims and Jews, and his devotion to his family. He means to raise his children in a world he didn’t know as a child. He means to embody and perform his faith. And he means to share his good fortunes and ideas even if the powers that be resist that good work. Charismatic, vulnerable, and energetic, Hamza makes himself new every day. New Muslim Cool, quietly observational and entirely engaging, invites you to share his process.

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