The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

Being Black in America is not easy. Let’s start with that. Now, let me just get a few things off my chest.

The Problem With White Folks

I’ve been spending the last few weeks looking for a new apartment. It’s an arjuous task without having to add racial discrimination to the mix. But that’s just what I’ve been going through. Late last week I found a really great loft apartment that I had my heart set on. It was in a really cool neighborhood and the pad was tight. The landlord was a little kwerky but most of the other landlords I’d met all had certain odd character traits. So I filled out the application and eagerly awaited his answer. Lo and behold, I get a call from a couple of references he called. It seems that this guy, who we’ll call The Wack-o, was not interested in my profession, or that I made enough money to pay for this place, but if I was black or not. Yes, that’s right. He asked my references, two of whom are black, if I was black. Hello? Where am I? Is this Philadelphia or Lynchville, Tennessee? And then, to pour more salt in my wounds, when I go to look at another place in South Philly, this old Italian guy asks me what my ethnicity is and when I asked why that mattered he explained, “We don’t like to mix the races too much here in these neighborhoods.” WTF?? Can this truly be happening? Read more this entry »

While seeing the latest offering in the Harry Potter enterprise I saw the new trailer for Superman Returns. I am very excited - Superman is one of my favorite super heroes. While surfing around on the net I came across a forum where people were discussing how much could Superman lift and if he could break adamantium. Could Superman kick Wolverine’s butt? God!, that’s about as entertaining as Alien vs. Predator. Such are the questions of geeks who’ve read too many comics and played to many role-playing games and have missed the whole point of the character. Superman is not about stats - how much he can lift, how fast he can fly, how much adamantium he can bend or break. Superman’s about ethics, morals and principles. He’s about purpose. Superman is akin to an angle, or if I could extend myself here, a Prophet. He can perform super-human actions with ease. He has a moral compass that’s set to a higher standard than ours. Never does Superman have to weight the scales for what is right or wrong - angst is for Bruce Wayne and Batman, not for the son of Jor-El. Read more this entry »

The new disc, Duality, from saxophonist Tom Tallitsch is a creative breath of fresh air. The album features Tom on tenor along with my brother, Dave Manley, on guitar. The duo courses through well thought-out originals. Big Sky showcases Tallitsch’s talents as a compser. The duo also interpret some jazz standards such as Steve Swallow’s Falling Grace. Tallitsch’s interpretation of Wayne Shorter’s Infant Eyes is particularly gorgeous. Tallitsch and Manley re-tune a Stevie Wonder pop tune, Visions. The album has a very intimate, earthy feel to it which perfectly matches Tallitsch’s lush tone with Manley’s airy picking. If you’re looking for a jazz album for a present to buy someone but don’t know what to get, this would make a great gift. It’s sure to please the listener and provide hours of revisited pleasure. Duality by Tom Tallitsch. Check out the artist’s site to listen to samples or to order a copy. Great job, Tom. This is a marvelous album.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t wanna read what goes down, skip to the next post. I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with my brother Mike, Scott, Darcy and Jamar. I just recently bought the first book and am reading it now. I was impressed at how readable it is. I thought it would be too kiddy. So I was really looking forward to seeing this one. It wasn’t that it was bad - I just don’t think it was as good as the last one. It felt like it was a T.V. episode verses a movie. It also didn’t seem to climax enough for me. Maybe there were too many sub-plot developments. Hermoine and her new boy friend, who I thought was going to have a bigger role to play and the new kid in the movie who didn’t make it all the way through. Ron getting jealous of Harry. And of course, Ray Finnes as Voldemort. So, while I did like it, I felt that it fell a little short of what I was looking. Question was, what was I looking for?

So here we are, on another Thanks Giving. Thanks For Nothing, if you ask our family. This isn’t a post to discuss the permissibility of Thanks Giving or not. But being an American and a Muslim, I want to ponder some of what it is and what it might mean (to me, at least).

I was watching today’s Democracy Now! - Amy Goodman had Jane Goodall as her main guest today talking about many issues I feel that Muslims should be having public opinions on. By public, I mean that we should engage in the public dialog from our perspective. Get active in America - be a part of America and not simply live as this shadow contingent, misunderstood and underrepresented.

One of the first topics that Ms.Goodall brought up was evolution and primates being our closest relatives. If you are unfamiliar with Ms.Goodall, she’s known as the chimpanzee lady (see her Web site here). As Amy Goodman had pointed out, evolution and intelligent design and all the talk revolving around this topic have become hot again in America. And while I don’t know Ms.Goodall I will say that she says she doesn’t see a conflict between gradual evolution and Darwinism. So just as there are many verses in the Qur’an that talk about Man looking at his world, looking around and saying, subhana Allah. Perhaps Darwin was just one man trying to use his God-given mind to puzzle out his existence. I am not saying aye or nay in terms of what I think of her theory, but I do feel it should be noted. And secondly, before any religious people jump into the fray slashing and bashing with their holy texts, I should say, “Try and have a dialog.” Read more this entry »