Proud: Prologue–Chapter 4

“Is your last name Muhammad?” she asked, her eyes fixed on me, the only fourth grader in the classroom wearing a hijab, who happened to be sitting in the front row.

When no one knows where you fit into the social order of color and creed, confusion ensues until order is restored.

When no one knows where you fit into the social order of color and creed, confusion ensues until order is restored.

Along the way, I had to learn how to be tough and tenacious or risk losing the fight before it even started.

Proud may seem like a familiar story, as this path I’m on was forged by the men and women who came before me—Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, John Carlos, Althea Gibson, Serena and Venus Williams, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf—athletes who defied the naysayers and triumphed over mountains of adversity.

Proud may seem like a familiar story, as this path I’m on was forged by the men and women who came before me—Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, John Carlos, Althea Gibson, Serena and Venus Williams, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf—athletes who defied the naysayers and triumphed over mountains of adversity.

I hope that, when reading Proud, anyone who has had an opportunity taken from them because of their race, religion, or gender can find solace in these pages.

The stoic look on Abu’s face made it clear he wasn’t going to change his mind.

Newark’s Black residents were protesting the racism and relentless police brutality endemic to the city.

In the aftermath of the riots, most business owners on Springfield Avenue, the key commercial thoroughfare, didn’t bother to rebuild and left their stores abandoned and boarded up.

Drug abuse and crime were pervasive.

Mom said her friends and family always called her a prude because she refused to party with them.

But as Abu matured, he found himself attracted not to the nationalist rhetoric used by certain factions of the Nation of Islam, but by the spiritual guidance and the irrefutable guidelines on how to live a God-conscious life.

But as Abu matured, he found himself attracted not to the nationalist rhetoric used by certain factions of the Nation of Islam, but by the spiritual guidance and the irrefutable guidelines on how to live a God-conscious life.

So, along with a group of other friends, Abu founded a new mosque in East Orange, New Jersey, where traditional Islamic precepts would be observed.

She seemed so earnest in her love of the religion and so dedicated to learning everything she could in the class for new converts, my father was immediately attracted to her.

Complementary to her understated beauty, my father fell in love with my mother’s enthusiasm for life and her love of children.

The compact three-story home was painted a stark white with frosty mint-colored shutters draping the second-story windows.

Newark was gritty, with a lot of pavement and dilapidated buildings.

He was only eighteen months older than me and was the brains behind many of our heroic exploits and the person I most wanted to be like.

I had the quiet determination of my mother, he had the boisterous nature of Abu and his brothers, but we were best friends.

She saw keeping active as a halal, or kosher, way for us to interact with our friends.

This did not bode well for me.

I promised myself that next time I would do better and I would never give up. And that became my mantra as an athlete.

My arm stung, but I was also seething.

There was usually so much going on in our house after school with five kids running around that most of the time I didn’t even have time to tell my parents about the problems I was having at school, and usually by the time I was safely ensconced in our family bubble, the problems didn’t seem that bad.

I was quite well versed in being the odd girl out in every situation.

I loved the fact that Damaris was Black like me, smart, and also reveled in spending her summer learning about cell reproduction and the best way to solve algebraic inequalities.

She had witnessed some of the cattiness at the mosque that I had to deal with, too.

That night, my mom went online and discovered that Columbia High School had one of the best fencing programs in the state, which was a significant honor, because apparently New Jersey had the largest number of high school fencers in the country.

Even though my father was the major sports fan, he told my mom that fencing was not in his repertoire.

I felt my eyes grow wide, and I snuck a peek at my dad, whose face was impassive.

Playing sports had become such an integral part of our family culture, and I saw no reason to move away from the status quo.

“Yeah,” Nicole quipped. “Are we sure fencing is ‘the thing’?

I had learned a long time ago how to assimilate, cover my discomfort, and just keep it moving.