thank you michael, i feel very touched.
the real substance came from cornelius and toyin, especially on islam. i feel a little like a bug that buzzes and questions ideas, and i think you appreciate questioning more than simply accepting.
so, last night my wife and i were walking around the block--my exercise now. we passed a family that we could see was wearing masks, in the distance. nowadays often people in east lansing don't wear masks, perhaps to rebel against the authority of the state, or because they are college age and don't really care.
but this was a family where the women were wearing robes, and as we came closer we could see it was a muslim family. we wished them eid mubarak, and they greeted us back with thanks.
it made us feel happy. we live close to the mosque, so our neighborhood has more than its share of muslims because of the convenience, and we are close to the university as well. we love the fact that our neighborhood is very mixed, racially, but also with pakistanis, living next to jews, christians, irish, italians, latins, germans, africans, asians, everything. and it is a small neighborhood.
i thought about how we had loved the idea that our kids grew up with a school where probably 40 different languages were spoken, thanks to the foreign grad students whose children also attended school.
and i thought this is one face of america, the one we love. today is memorial day.
but the other face, trump's, hates everything that we love here. we are so very divided into two worlds.
your appreciation makes it seem important that we continue our intellectual life that we value, that we respect each other's views, religions, and cultures; that we continue to struggle against racism and bigotry.
those are the diseases that confine us and shut down our worlds, our minds. we are free once we can be open to others, and, in fact be more than open.
i wish you a happy new day and new year.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 25, 2020 9:41 AM
To: Dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>; Yoruba Affairs <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - KEN, CORNELIUS AND TF: Our Month-long Heroes . . .
A big "Thank You" goes to these three gentlemen for providing us what I found to be a serious cannon of knowledge on the Abrahamic Faith – Islam, Judaism and Christianity during the Month of Ramadan that just folded up. It is easy to take such efforts for granted but it shouldn't be. With a zero ambition for self-promotion, fame, or "altar calls," the three folks relentlessly took us through a plethora of journeys, verses and texts from the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Torah and the Bible. In a true world of intellectual thrill, several dissertations, theses, senior essays, books and monographs should come out of the month-long encounter in these intellectual exchanges and lively dialogues. Gentlemen, I have no silver or gold to offer you, but this much I can say and pray: May your efforts not be in vain. Kudos, and thanks a bunch!
Michael O. Afoláyan
(Behind the Veil of COVID-19)
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