One question I get a lot is: what did your parents say when you told them you converted to Islam? I usually get this question from non-collard green people (a.k.a Yankees). A southern person doesn’t have to ask how my family reacted. A southern person just knows – with a lot of hollering and cursing. My daddy is real collard green because that is exactly what he did.
Collard green people don’t hang around like flies on the sweet tea pitcher and discuss it from all angles. Heck no! If you tell a collard green daddy you got a mind to stop being protestant, he will shoot up from his recliner like he’s watching college football, and his team just lost a touchdown. Then, he’s going to holler: Oh hell no!…and…No, they just didn’t!…and…What the hell just happened?!”
That is exactly how my daddy reacted when I told him I was a bona fide Muslim.
Then he stormed off and didn’t talk to me for a while. One day, out of the blue, he showed up at my grandmother’s house where I was visiting and said: “Get in the truck, let’s go for a ride!” and of course I did. That was that. We talked about the weather and we’ve been talking ever since.
That’s my daddy…and he’s better than your daddy, so don’t forget it! Keep reading and even you’ll be convinced.
Before I do, I want to confess something smarty-pants about myself, which is that I can read collard green minds. I acquired this genius after a series of encounters with nice collard green folks who said one sweet thing to my face and an entirely different thing behind my back. I became good at translating collard green facial expressions and body language.
When I became a Muslim, and started wearing a headscarf, it was only natural for some folks to think I’d gone….well, crazy. They’d hug my neck and say: “How are you? It’s so good to see you again. You look as pretty as ever,” Later, my sister or friend would call me up on the phone and say: “Do you know what that ugly woman just said about you?!”
I’m not pointing a finger at the judgmental people in my hometown because I love them all from the bottom of my collard green heart, even if they do think I’m a little crazy. Besides, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I know where I come from and I’m grateful. A small southern town needs a nice-sized crowd of judgmental people or it’s not even worth calling home. Judgmental people are part of the back-bone of what makes southern towns so quintessentially fabulous. Southern people are also incredibly generous. Don’t let me forget to tell you sometime about when people from my home town came out, all smiling, in dozens of cars and a bus-load, to attend an inter-faith gathering after I extended an invitation on behalf of the Muslim community. My grandmother was one of the first to walk through the door of the mosque.
If it interests you, I’ve compiled an excerpt of transcripts, compiled from reading all those collard green minds. Here is what some folks said to themselves when they saw me for the first time wearing a Muslim headscarf.
That is just crazy!
What the hell is wrong with that girl? Doesn’t she know she grew up in Winter Garden?
That is the funniest Halloween costume I have ever seen in April…she’s a trip. I oughta’ call her when October rolls around and invite her to my party.
Golly, that precious girl is already gearing up for the Nativity Scene. If there were more Christians like her in the world, we’d be better off!
I don’t know much, but I can guaran-dawn-tee ya’ ….that girl is crazy!
I can’t wait to go home and call up what’s-her-face, and we’re going to have a good time hollering about how crazy that girl is.
Oh Lawd! I’ve got to rush home and call up what’s-her-face and pray for that crazy girl.
Did I drink too much last night, or did crazy just walk in the door?
Come to think of it – her parents are kinda’ crazy.
Her poor parents – how’d she turn out so dawn crazy?!
Here’s the reality. I’d be crazy to ball up all my convictions, like a wad of trash, and throw them away with the coffee grinds and melon rinds. I’d be crazy to believe something to the core of my collard green heart, and then tell people something different. I’d be delusional and even worse…I’d be a stinkin’ liar.
I never sat down with my daddy to endure a deep, subdued conversation, wherein I eloquently expressed all my yearning and belief. I never needed to convince him to love me for who I am. That’s for other fathers. My daddy’s heart is too wise. He might have hollered, but at the end of the day he expects me to “get real,” and he never leaves me guessing. He tells me how proud he is of me- in case he thinks I might have forgotten. If you think otherwise, he’ll tell you too!
He’s not just better than your daddy today – he’s always been that way. Growing up I didn’t know anyone more fun than my father. He used to hitch up a wide wagon to a tractor, fill it with hay and candy, and take all of our friends through the orange groves. When I grew up, he painted his favorite tractor orange and blue for his favorite college football team – the Gators. The first time I ever went on a hay ride outside of the orange grove it was at an official fall festival up north. I nearly fell asleep. I didn’t know hay rides could be boring, and even worse – slow. That would have been a sacrilegious ride in my daddy’s book. I had chest pains that afternoon from missing him so much. My father would have ripped and roared all around the grove and over its protruding tree roots. He would have made up scary ghost stories and told jokes while the stray branches lashed us in the face. The ride would not have ended until everyone was wetting their pants, crying and laughing, and begging for him to keep riding.
He made our home a carnival. Sometimes on Sundays he would cook up bushels of blue crab; he let me help him clean out the guts which I was always honored to do, and secretly devastated when he forgot to ask. We would sit around the kitchen table with hammers and pliers, and mine for crab meat all day long, while my daddy fussed that we were wasting the best parts. He’d act out funny demonstrations on how to extract the crab’s flesh, with sound effects; then, he’d dip it in hot butter and tell us to “eat up.” People from our town liked to stop by and talk to my daddy. He would pull up a chair, or two, or three or four, and make sure they had plenty to eat, drink, and talk about.
My father can make blue crab taste like it ought to be illegal, but did you know- he also made big, fat gooey cinnamon rolls?
He never had a son until I turned thirteen, so he gave me the honorarium. He let me tag along on trips to the hardware store with him where he’d brag about what a good student I was to everyone standing still. Someone always ended up telling me what I already knew, but I loved to hear -that my daddy was one of a kind…”a real good man.” I’d ride around with him all day and he made sure the car was supplied with all the things my mom would never let me put past my lips -sticky candies and ice-cold Coca-Cola.
Under strict supervision, he taught me how to shoot a rifle which I never knew would feel like a mad mule kicking me in the shoulder. He forgot to warn me. His targets were cans of Mountain Dew. I shot the heck out of them, but when quail hunting season came around, he bought me a very fancy sling shot and warned me not to touch a rifle, for fear that I might get hurt. When I asked him how come he was always on the grill cooking for the guys and never out in the deep woods with his rifle hunting, he confessed that he didn’t like the feeling he got from shooting a bird. I felt so relieved and in awe. I wanted to jump up, hug him around his neck and never let go. I wish I had of done that.
My father, like most collard green daddies, considers that owning a rifle goes along with being a grown man; but you know, when my mom wanted my sister and I to have braces for our teeth, he didn’t have anything to sell to pay for it…so he sold his gun. I went to school with sparkling new braces to match the other gangly, rich kids, and ever since I have never been shy to smile wide.
We didn’t need an expensive jungle gym in our backyard because my daddy always found the perfect tree to rope a tire swing, and I don’t remember him ever telling us he was too tired to whirl us around the world “just more time!” Once, he swung up a tire swing high over the creek and I managed to get myself stuck dangling over the middle. I was too scared to get down, so I waited for my daddy to come rescue me, which he did.
When I was close to the age of sixteen, he somehow got hold of an old truck that didn’t have a roof or any window- just the steel frame. He taught me how to drive in the orange grove, with him in the passenger seat. Once I got nervous and couldn’t focus my mind well enough to hit the brake pedal. I put us right through a large branch, but he was quick enough to find the brake with his own foot. We were stuck there in the tree, both rising our breaths like crazed bulls out of shock. I turned to look at him but I couldn’t see his face because the tree branch was smack-dab between us. I could only hear his fiery voice hollering: “What the hell were you thinking?!” to which I replied, “I dunno.” He didn’t give up on me, though. Then, after I turned sixteen he bought me a car with money my parents barely had to spend.
My father was the most fun daddy I knew, but he wasn’t always just for laughs. He knew what to say and how to say it when the ground was sinking. When my favorite dog Maggie died, he met me at the bus stop after school, unannounced, and said, “Get in the truck…let’s go for a ride,” and of course I did. He took me out to the middle of the orange grove where no one could hear me weep, and told me that Maggie was buried. I cried so hard; my body was shaking, but he held me up and told me to get it all out; that it was safe to cry. When I dried my tears we went back down to the house and never spoke about it again.
I cried but he never did. Once, after we got in the car from attending the funeral of his childhood friend, I looked in his rear view mirror to see his reflection in the glass. He had on a pair of black Ray-Bans and I caught the sight of a single tear trickle down his right cheek. I didn’t say anything, but I watched it make its way to the tip of his chin, and then disappear. I thought I had just witnessed a lunar eclipse.
If you could stay put to listen, I could tell you a lot of stories about my collard green daddy, but I imagine you have to get to your next rodeo. One thing I feel obliged to say before you go is that I haven’t always realized how much better my daddy really is than your daddy. Hard to believe, I know, but I’m hard-headed. I feel very bad about that, but since I have hard-headed kids, they may do the same, and you know what they say about pay backs.
If you think your daddy is better than mine (which I highly doubt), don’t be hard-headed. If you are able to, you ought to call him right this instant, and say it out loud, even if he makes light of it and cracks a joke- which is what my collard green daddy will surely do.
Collard Green Muslim 
Given that I’ve never had nor known my father, I’m quite sure your father would be better than mine, as mine set the bar abysmally low. Your father’s reaction was similar to that of my mother’s, more or less. But we were actually Catholic (I know, Southern Black Catholics is pretty rare), and Catholics, in my experience, are usually better at handling such things than Protestants.
I think though that White Collards and Black Collards behave differently towards conversion to Islam because of historical circumstances. For example, in my household growing up, my mother had a HUGE picture of Malcolm X hanging from one of our walls. One of my great uncles even coquetted with the idea of joining the Nation, but decided against it after the fallout between Malcolm and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. So amongst us Blacks, even in the South, Islam really isn’t that foreign, for the most part anyway.
Well written piece, sis. Keep reprezentin’ us Collard folks.
You made me laugh with this one: “Catholics, in my experience, are usually better at handling such things than Protestants.” In the south, at least, because they know the trials of being a religious minority. I worked for a civil rights org. located in a historic African-American neighborhood and I understand what you say. It was common for non-Muslims in the neighborhood to warmly greet me with: “Asalaamu’Alaikum.”
Thanks for your encouragement, Anthony. Insha’Allah I’ll do my best!
This was great Danette. Of course I shed a tear, but I’m a wuss and not ashamed to admit it. I think my dad is better than your dad, but I’ll allow you to have your moment this time. 🙂
Thanks Marsha! I’m not a wuss either and I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried while I was writing it and then some more. Even though I highly doubt that your daddy is better, I’m glad you are one of the lucky ones too.
🙂
My, oh my. Your collard green tail made my tears flow with that last post. I love you like crazy and I love your collard green daddy too, bc I’m 100% sure that he had a LOT to do with the reasons why I love you :).
I often think of your father fondly, although I met him only for a few brief hours. He was so generous with his laughter and his witty comments. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree :). I remember him saying something like I was the hickest Muslim girl he’d ever met (ha ha ha) – kind of like your qualification of me being the most Episcopalian-Muslim, lol :).
What a beautiful post to reflect on. Our fathers are such strong men filled with both pride and humility. They truly give us what is the best of them, while reserving the rest to themselves. I hope, InshAllah, that we will find the strength to provide to us what we received from our parents (even though we probably didn’t appreciate it in our youth). SubhanAllah, how life really comes around full circle.
Much love to the only Muslim collard green family I know – and to her family’s family too :).
Much love to you as well Huma. Like I told you before – you have my heart. You are my only Muslim friend who can recite the Lord’s prayer from start to finish. You are so collard green, Huma – you would be the most popular girl in Winter Garden.
Yikes! Looking back at what I wrote, I can tell that I was rushing to put my thoughts down before I ran out the door.
** “I hope that we will find the strength to provide to us what we received from our parents.” Obviously, I meant to provide our children, what was given to us.
Btw, Lord’s Prayer aint the only thing I know 😉 – Pick a hymn, I can sing it rythm and tune, verse by verse, stanza by stanza… Its what a good ten year Episcopalian Chapel attendance will do to you… And frankly, I wouldn’t change it for the world :). I’ll take being collard green as a huge compliment, any day of the week :).
Your dad sounds wonderful, masha’Allaah. You are very blessed. Your story reminds me of when my dad and I would shoot our BB gun off the back deck at empty beer cans and nude barbie dolls that he had hung in the tree! I’m sure our doctor neighbors loved that!
You made me laugh so hard Julie – really hard, out loud! Your dad sounds like a riot. MashAllah -one of the best things about moving up north was that I met you!
The feeling is mutual. 🙂
Thank you for for this. I’m choked-up and having a good cry-time flooded with the memories of my collard green Daddy. I will make sure not to miss a moment to hug his neck.
I wish your collard green daddy all the best!
Just wanted to say, I’m really loving your blog. mA you’ve got a great sense of humor, and beautiful writing style. It’s funny, I’m a “Yankee” I guess 🙂 So I’ve only every really known a couple of “Collard Green” Muslims. I love it – it’s a culture within a culture. Anwyay thanks for sharing your insights. I look forward to reading more iA.
Salam
Thank you for your kind words. I don’t bite Yankees so don’t stop coming here. I just stopped by your blog and I’m so pleased to meet you. We are both 30-something Muslim moms of three who like to blog. I don’t even have to guess that we have lots in common!
beautiful beautiful beautiful. all i can say is God bless you, Ma’am. this is really something else.
That is darn sweet of you to say – thanks for sharing your thoughts and I hope you will come back.
Mashallah sis, this is the first time I’ve been on your blog (via Morroccanmama). This article bought a tear to my eye. My father (sorry but I’m a stiff Muslim Brit!) is every bit a King as your daddy is. To this day, even though I am a 32 year old mother of two, he phones me everyday to find out how I am, weather I’ve eaten properly etc. When I go round my parents, the first thing he does is to put the kettle on and then we settle into armchair politics or companionable silence. Through him, Allah has made me the woman I am today. We are truly blessed. May Allah grant all our great fathers with Jannatul Firdous and allow every child to be blessed with such a father. BTW what does the term collared green mean? Excuse the ignorance!
Asalaamu’Alaikum Umm Aisha. As a ‘stiff Muslim Brit’ you are more than welcome! Your daddy sounds like one of a kind. Collard greens are a dark green leafy vegetable (almost like kale but with smoother leaves). They are stewed with salted meats and then eaten best with fresh onions and vinegar. It’s a very Southern dish.
I have been going through your blog recently after stumbling onto it quite by accident. Your writing is great masha’Allah–it makes me laugh and cry in turns. I’ve enjoyed many of your posts, but this one is especially personal because although I have the best father in the world, he is so different from the picture of your daddy that you portray! My baba is not the manliest of men in the American definition–he doesn’t shoot guns, he doesn’t get excited about sports, and he doesn’t always hide his tears from us, but he is one of the strongest people I have ever known in my life! It’s good to see how strongly strong fathers affect their daughters.
I also wanted to share this with you: http://astreetinastrangeworld.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/baba/. I wrote it a while ago, but it was my reflections on my baba 🙂