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.The image of hundreds of Blackmen with saintly names praying and moving in military-style formation is ex-actly the  ritual some African American males desire, especially when such dev-astating circumstances appear to undermine their manhood.For a communitytorn apart by the onslaught of urban renewal and high-priced development, thiskind of weekly or daily show of unity, spirituality, discipline, and purpose iscertainly empowering.If nothing else, it sanctions their presence and rendersthem visible.In 1952, Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man, a highly acclaimed novelabout the alienation and social dislocation of African Americans in 1940s NewYork.16 Because Whites refuse to  see him, the protagonist is an unnamed Blackman in search of his identity and place in society.Conversely, not only do Islamicliturgies at the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood validate these people s presencewithin their own neighborhood, but they also name them, a recognition Ellison scharacter sought, by granting converts a new identity with Arabic or Africanqualities.In this context, ritual acts are a matter of combating an awkward dis-possession of oneself.It s an Islamic dispensation of sorts and demonstrates vitalways religion can speak directly to social conditions.After the prayer, I give a ride to Rahim, an African American Muslim in hislate fifties.He is going to meet with Ghafur, an official at the Mosque of IslamicBrotherhood and founder-director of a nonprofit organization.Ghafur s office ison 133rd Street, and they are getting together to hammer out details for a newAIDS/HIV program.Government funds are available, and they feel they have ashot.Rahim gets out of the car ahead of me, and I watch him step through theglass door of a ground-level storefront office.Its side entrance anchors a five-storybrick apartment building facing 133rd.I enter ten minutes later.I haven t seenGhafur in some time, especially outside of the mosque.Usually, he s managingmosque affairs and we have quick chats between tasks.I rarely see him without hisjalabiyyah and never without his kufi.Now, as he walks over for a brotherly hug,his black slacks and yellow short-sleeve polo shirt are an interesting change.Plentyof Black Muslims consistently don some form of religious clothing as a signifier oftheir Islamic identity.They feel bombarded by countervailing cultures and mixedcommercial messages, all competing for a single audience.The Islamic thobe andheadscarf many African American Muslims wear buffer them from the culturalhegemony of outside forces.Yet Ghafur s business attire signals his compliancewith a world beyond the mosque.His language differs as well.Now when heis not speaking of spiritual matters and the realities of the unseen his speechis peppered with phrases such as  proper office management and  corporateharlem jihads 151accountability. This code switching might appear inconsequential on the surface,but it underscores the polyvalent discourses prevalent in Harlem (even within asingle individual), and it allows us a glimpse of the cultural dexterity needed to17survive in this field.I leave them for a walk up Malcolm X.I want to get a takeout meal fromSpoonbread Too on 138th, but I am more excited about witnessing the pageantryof the boulevard.It is a warm August afternoon, and such a stroll captivates thesenses.The pulsating beats of African tonal languages play off the cadence ofHaitian Kreyol and West Indian dialects.And Spanglish English interposedwith Spanish punctuates the atmosphere from time to time.Black Americansof varying hues, class backgrounds, and idiomatic slang color the urban canvaswith their own unique spirit.White and Asian newcomers slip in and out ofrestored buildings and trendy shops as culinary aromas fill the air.I continue upthe boulevard, and two young African American women strut by in stretch jeansthat leave nothing to the imagination.Each clack from their pumps accents theircurves and mesmerizes gawking male hip-hoppers.They stand more than six feettall in their four-inch heels, and their ponytails swing in the opposite direction oftheir torsos, which are stuffed into unforgiving spandex tops.At times, they turntoward passersby for a word or two without breaking stride.All the while, flow-ing African robes and headdresses are interspersed into the metropolitan show-case, adding color and a tinge of the sensational.At the corner of 135th, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, anaffiliate of the New York Public Library, displays a thirty-foot-wide cloth posterhung high on its exterior wall, beckoning pedestrians to remember the  BlackImage. Like the medley of street vernacular, the haute couture shops, the myste-rious aromas wafting from kitchen exhausts, and the body language of prome-nading young women, the Schomburg s sign is one of many social texts to read andinterpret [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]