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Press Release: New Publication
3 June 2005
Spencer-Majeed Ltd., Publishers (404) 366-6610
Nigga Sam I Am: Presidential Campaign Pieces
Na'im
AbdurRafi, author
"Some want the N-word buried. But before the deceased is laid to rest we should know who he be."
Book
Poems, essays, and epigrams-called "pieces" by the author ("lest I be guilty of presumptuousness," he
says). America, Americans, and American life as subjects bind the pieces into coalescence if not an actual unity. The
tone is caustic, that of an African-American political activist. The attitude is tolerant, that of an African-American convert
to Islam. Issues include: manners, morals, black crime, incarceration, the justice system, greed, laziness, democracy, foreign
policy, Israel, anti-Semitism, racism, atheism, paganism, Christianity, Islam, Affirmative Action, Harlem, manhood, faggothood,
homosexuality, homophobia…and the human condition.
Author
Na'im AbdurRafi was born in 1942 in Port Jefferson, New York, the son of a "sleep-in" maid and a father
(black) who refused to acknowledge paternity. He was raised in Harlem, attending New York City public schools and graduating
with a BA in English from Ottawa University (in Kansas). He is a retiree from The State University of New York where he worked
as a counselor and teacher at the College at Oneonta.
Mr. AbdurRafi is active with the McKean America Project, an organization he founded with formerly incarcerated black
men in 2000. The organization seeks to reform the penal system in the U.S. The goal is to "break the cycle of injustice"
that constitutes de facto genocide against black America and threatens the demise of the American republic. To this end, the
organization has defined as a short-term goal the election of a black woman to the presidency in 2008.
Author's Statement:
Eugene Osborne Smith, actor and my mentor, often called black Americans "pale reflections" of themselves. He had been
a denizen of Harlem and, before that, "Goodbread Alley" (in Miami). Our conversations took place about thirty years ago. At
the time, I was a university professional. I was no longer a Harlemite. I had either lost or consciously discarded the important
lessons about life I had learned in Harlem. I was a "reflection." Ozzie's indictment was lost on me.
When Ozzie left town I became a Muslim. As I studied Islam I began to see the "pale reflection." But the picture was
far from clear. Real clarity came about ten years later when I began complementing my study of Islam with study of African-American
history. Concretizing Islam this way was a great help. I began to realize I had not been true to the legacy of my ancestors,
Africans and Native People. In particular I was failing those who had risked all and, in some cases, lost all in the name
of human dignity.
Consequently I was failing myself-my soul-because being dignified is the essence of being a Muslim. I had been
and was still falling short. I began to process my angst with writing, by producing "pieces." Nigga Sam I Am is a
collection of some of those pieces.
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