Duas Against The Surveillance State
June 1, 2020Last week, Minneapolis started a revolution.
That’s what we get to call it, right? After a cop kills a man by kneeling on his throat for over eight minutes and the community responds by setting that same cop’s precinct on fire — doesn’t that qualify?
I began collecting duas from Black Muslims in response to George Floyd’s murder before the precinct burned. My motivation came after logging onto Twitter to see a number of my mutuals sharing their prayers. The wrath of the oppressed manifested in calls for brains to boil; for necks to be seized; backs to break; for the fruits of zaqqum boil in stomachs and tear through flesh. To be clear, I’m not complaining. Amiin.
To me, each of these duas read as against the surveillance state. When I say surveillance, I am thinking, of course, about the threat posed to protesters by the extent of the surveillance apparatus in and around Minneapolis. However, the threat of surveillance extends beyond the protests and technologies used there into the very mechanics that make up Black life in the city.