Striking portrait series celebrates the resilience of black Muslim Americans
Bobby Rogers was tired of feeling erased.
As a black Muslim American, the photographer and visual artist noticed his community was often overlooked in conversations around blackness as well as Muslim identity, with many people not realizing how deeply the two identities intertwine.
So Rogers wanted to do something creative to celebrate his community. He wanted to let the world know people like him exist.
On April 19, he launched a striking portrait series called "#BeingBlackAndMuslim." The series was inspired by a Twitter hashtag of the same name, aiming to help society recognize the beauty and resilience of black Muslim Americans.
"Simply existing at the axis of #BeingBlackAndMuslim can be exhausting," Rogers wrote on his website. "You're always not enough, always having to validate your existence."
The hashtag #BeingBlackAndMuslim was first created by the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative in 2014, and has since been used to highlight black Muslim pride.
Rogers released his series on Twitter earlier this month, as a nod to the series' inspiration and origins.
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Text accompanies each portrait, describing the black Muslim experience. Rogers said the words are a combination of tweets pulled from the Twitter hashtag, direct quotes from the people featured, and his own original writing.
"I created the photos to challenge the public perception and misconceptions of what it means to be 'Muslim,'" Rogers said. "I wanted to show the world the often neglected faces of a group of people representing Islam and black excellence in its highest form."
There are an estimated 3.3 million Muslims living in the U.S., with about 25 percent also identifying as black. And the number of black Muslims living in the states is steadily growing. Among Muslims born in the U.S., 40 percent describe themselves as black -- the largest number of any racial group.
"Despite occupying a large portion of the religion and being the largest group of American Muslims [born in the U.S.], black Muslims are often silenced when critical conversations surrounding Islam are being had," Rogers said.
So far, Rogers has released nine photos as part of the #BeingBlackAndMuslim series. He plans to continue it to bring attention to his community and their untold stories.
"Everyone I’ve photographed has a complex story spanning across cultures, interweaving their blackness into the fabrication of Islam and vice-versa," Rogers said. "My intention is to show the immense complexity of blackness within the religion."
Topics Social Good
Katie Dupere was a Social Good reporter at Mashable from May 2015 to July 2017, covering activism, identities and social impact. Prior to her work with Mashable, Katie penned pieces about queerness, body positivity, sex and relationships for Gurl. She also previously contributed LGBTQ news coverage to PinkNews.
