Reconnecting a Shattered Legacy
Author Karim Allah Sharif speaks on a family torn by his mother’s alcoholism. An excerpt from his riveting book, Power Beyond the Grave, follows the interview.
Njemile Ali
As-Salaam Alaikum, Brother Karim. You’ve given us some pretty powerful information in your book, Power Beyond the Grave.
Karim Sharif
Thank you very much.
Njemile Ali
Tell me about the title of your book. How did that come to you?
Karim Sharif
Well, that title came to me because that was the life of the whole thing. What happened to me, I didn't realize until the day that the person was buried. Dead. That's when I realized what had happened.
Njemile Ali
Wow.
Karim Sharif
Yeah. And I never thought that kind of thing would happen. But it happened and it took me a long time to get over the grief. It took me a long time to try to reach forgiveness. Because I was taught another disposition within the structure of that entire family of people. For one from among us to break the idea of generational wealth was something that was just amazing to me. I couldn't believe it. So, for quite a few years, I just lived in grief and anger. That's why I've got emphysema today, because I started smoking like a chimney, trying to grasp all of that. Why did that happen to me? What is that about?
Njemile Ali
Is that why you chose the statement on the front of your book? It says, "Death does not end the afflictions, nor does it heal the wounds."
Karim Sharif
That's right.
Njemile Ali
Explain.
Karim Sharif
Well, the affliction started, probably, sometime early in the history. My mother was afflicted with so much ease and attention. She was the only daughter of her father. And her father—my grandfather was a real man. He wasn't about no foolishness. My grandmother kept warning him not to spoil her, and I mean, that afflicted her. Then, when reality set in—when he was killed in that car wreck, all that stuff just stopped, because my grandmother wasn't going to continue that. She was against all that giving. Her thing was, you go to college and you get a job. Do things the right way.
By that time, my mother wasn't ready to be a mama. She wasn't ready to give her attention to anybody else. My father was a renaissance man. He was active in the community, and he was committed to his principles. I know it was rough being married to her, but he was going to keep his head up. A lot of women loved my daddy, because he never said anything negative about my mother. He was an official in the CIAA, the HBCU conference, in basketball and football. He officiated games year round. Sending us to Catholic school, he didn't have a whole lot of money to waste. He was trying to maintain a lifestyle that his wife had come out of.
Njemile Ali
How much do you think your father mitigated the damage from your mother?
Karim Sharif
He was very excellent about the whole thing. He was dead and gone when stuff jumped off. Nobody ever figured my mother would just take all that was left and give it to strangers. The family property—apartments, a home and land—was supposed to go as a living will, to me. She'd get all the benefits of it while she was living. That was no problem. But she just, you know ...
Njemile Ali
So did you find that harder to take than what happened during your upbringing?
Karim Sharif
Ah, yeah. Because what happened while I was coming up, that's just like water on a duck's back. I mean, you receive criticism, you just let it run off your back like water. You don't even think about it. You know what I'm saying? And then she's drinking liquor. So I mean, what can you do? You're just gonna have a good time. You're gonna be yourself. But I kept on moving with it.
Njemile Ali
What enabled you to let that just roll off your back like that? Not everybody can do that.
Karim Sharif
I had my grandmother, her mother. She smoothed all that out. She came over from Johnson City, she prepared food. And, she just kept us in another mindset. The relationship she had with my dad and was really good. My dad kept us in a good mindset. Everybody knew what was happening, but they kept the children in a safe space. They kept us in a safe space, as long as they could. Now, when we started going to high school, that's when we really saw the funk.
Njemile Ali
Would you say that, as an adult, you suffered from your mother's treatment?
Karim Sharif
Oh, yeah. It took me a long time to realize why I had problems accepting myself. I've done a lot of things in my life. And, what brought me into Islam was the fact that I had done a lot of things. I had been everywhere, traveling. I had a cousin that lived in New York City. He had a tractor trailer business, and he had plenty money.
I went up there, and my granddaddy had put in all of them—his nieces and nephews—that we would always look out after the family, so my cousin and his wife did this. I was just 18 years old, thinking about going to college. My cousin tried to get me interested in business.
People would be accepting me and honoring me, but I rejected it. I didn't realize how I was impacted by the criticism and the relationship with my mother until maybe I got a little older. I'm talking about really older. It's taken me a lifetime to realize how that impacted me with respect to accepting myself.
Njemile Ali
So, with her power going beyond the grave, how also has your father's power, and her mother's power extended beyond the grave?
Karim Sharif
Well, my grandfather on my father’ side lived till he was about 91, so I was able to get to know him a little bit. the people on my mother's side are the ones that I really got to know very well. They all had their touch on me. My father’s brothers and sisters, I got to know them very well also.
They were very well mannered and very educated people. They showed a lot of confidence in education themselves, what they knew. And they carried themselves like that and that side of my family were all shades of our appearance. My granddad was black as the ace of spades. He was almost blue-black. But his demeanor and everything—he spoke very softly. He was a very strong man.
Njemile Ali
Your mother's father?
Karim Sharif
No, my father’s father. Now, my father’s mother—you would think she was a white woman if you had met her. So they used to do a lot of things, and they used to tell me about them. My Aunt Lillian and my Aunt Stelle and my Uncle Len all worked on college campuses. My Uncle Ed had a chicken business. He went to Tuskegee.
My Uncle Len was the Dean of Men at Howard University in the 60s. Aunt Stelle was a school teacher up there in Indianapolis, Indiana. Aunt Lillian started the charter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Knoxville College. They were very active and aspiring people, but there were real cool about it. They used to always tell me, “Don't get excited when you receive an honor or anything Just walk like you're supposed to be there.”
My Aunt Lil used to say, "Walk into what God has for you." My father was cool as a cucumber. I just really admired my dad. My daddy didn't argue with anybody. The other person could be wrong as hell, but he just said, “Okay. You have your right to have it that way.”
Njemile Ali
Do you think that coolness was some of the power that he left with you, to be able to let some of what happened with your mom just kind of roll off your back?
Karim Sharif
Nobody knew she would do what she did. But when it happens to you, sometimes, you can use what you got. I hear people saying you got to forgive, because if you don't forgive, you'll be backed up in grief and all that. I heard all that, but it didn't change anything in my mind. I felt like she was a b*** and she didn't have a right to treat me like that. But I knew that wasn't the kind of behavior that my daddy and grandmother wanted me to deal with. I knew it.
If they had known she was going to do that, they would have stopped that. They would have put something in the deeds to say that this specifically cannot be changed. My daddy, like a normal good husband, in his will he left all of it to go to his wife. They had already said that, when she passed, half of it would go to me and half of it would go to my sister's son and we could keep it together
But, because Geraldine [Mom] died after my grandmother died, she received everything from my grandmother. Then when she died, nothing came to me. I was just wiped out. My sister was killed in a car wreck, she and her husband. My nephew survived, and word got around that there were two $100,000 insurance policies. They put them in CDs and kept it for 14 or 18 years.
My wife and I were supposed to take my nephew to Atlanta, and take care of him as a part of our family. But my mother was so vigilant about the fact that I wasn't ready, and he didn't need to have “none of that religion.” She wanted his money, his social security and all of that.
Njemile Ali
Have you gotten to forgiveness?
Karim Sharif
Yeah, it's all over with. There’s nothing I can do.
Njemile Ali
What do you see about her now?
Karim Sharif
I don't even think about her. I don't even think about my mother. I think about those who are here with me today. I think about my daddy. There's a restored Black high school in the city with a gymnasium named after him. He is the very reason that the people decided to recover Atkins High School. You know how, when white folks integrated, they closed all the good Black high schools down. In Winston-Salem, we got Atkins back.
That's when I really learned how much my dad was loved. All the students he impacted—these people loved me. I was surprised at all of it. They supported me, and that was beautiful, and that kind of helped me deal with a few things. But, of course, you can't wear no crown and you ain't got no kingdom. You know what I mean? That's the way I feel about it.
Njemile Ali
Do you not have a kingdom? What about your family?
Karim Sharif
We're in the process. We've got a plan now, that's designed to establish generational wealth. Eventually, when it comes time for us to do whatever we're going to do, up the road there, they'll be able to say, “Let's go get our own.” They’ll have enough money. They’ll have what is required. I won't say money, they'll have all that will be required to go for self.
Njemile Ali
What about generational emotional health? How's that doing?
Karim Sharif
The good of me writing the book is that I think the grandchildren kind of understand Pop, and they understand the things that are important to us. They'll understand from what I went through, that there are trials and tribulations and you just have to stick with the plan. You have to carry through with the journey. It's a journey. I don't know what they'll do once I'm gone, but I feel like my daddy and my granddaddy would be proud of me, because I'm headed in the direction that they originally wanted me to go.
My daddy wanted me to be upright and intelligent, and behave myself, carry myself in light of Allah. Be Allah. My granddaddy on my mother's side, his whole thing was just, be who you are. And I see that. I remember him being very direct, very straight with everybody. He didn't put up with foolishness. He was not going around talking about, I'm this and I'm that. He was very laid back. And he was determined in anything that he did, that he was going to have all that was required. He wouldn’t beg anybody. This man walked to work until he got his house and land paid for.
Everybody in Johnson City, Black and White, respected Landon Duffield. Because he was a good man. And he'd do you a favor. My grandmother didn't leave anybody out there hungry. My grandfather had a lot of nieces and nephews, because his sister, Ollie, had about 8 or 9 kids. When he built his apartments, behind the home, those were for any Duffield that fell on hard times. Because that's how his life got started, and he intended to change that. His daddy was 70 years old when he was born, and his mama was maybe 63 or 65
Njemile Ali
WOW! When he was born?
Karim Sharif
He had two siblings. His brother was 15 years older, and his sister was 13 years older than he was. As my grandmother says, Mary wasn't ready to have another child, but she did have another child. They did their best, but when she died, he was nine years old. His father really was getting too old to deal with him, so he was sent to live with his sister and her husband and eight children. That was a pretty tight situation for him, but he got busy.
My grandmother, his wife worked her way through college. She worked for a white woman, cleaning up, from the time she was in fifth or sixth grade. She was so smart and accurate about everything she did, that the woman gave her money to go to Virginia Union. She graduated from Virginia Union, came back to Johnson City and she and my granddaddy got married. He was still working at the hotel. He had a lot going on. He was shining shoes. Eventually, he began to manage and run that hotel. All the guys that owned the hotel were White kids that he played with growing up, and they had a lot of trust in him.
Njemile Ali
For such a person like him, with great business sense, no nonsense, straight talk, had a difficult—well, not difficult, but tight—upbringing coming up. How do you think he got into being so lenient with his daughter?
Karim Sharif
Probably because of his love for his mother. He named his daughter after his mother. His mother was only with him for nine years. Mary Duffield, according to my grandmother, was a sweet, sweet woman. And there was nothing she wouldn't do for Landon.
Njemile Ali
What would you say was the greatest lesson you learn from your father?
Karim Sharif
Self-control. He was a stickler on that one. Control self. Be cool. You can't think straight when you get excited. “I want you to have self-control. Then you'll be able to see every little detail of what you need to know, to deal with whatever you dealing with.” [Chuckles] He used to tickle me with that. He said, "And it must follow …" Like my granddaddy, his daddy, used to tell me, "To be or not to be? That is the question. And it must follow, as the day follows the night. You know? Yeah. Yeah. He was something
Njemile Ali
What do you think was the greatest damage from your mother? Was it the emotional damage or the financial damage?
Karim Sharif
Well, I think emotional. I didn't realize how bothered I was. In doing what she did, she brought back attention to her that we basically had ignored. So, maybe she was afflicted. That's why I came up with the book, Power Beyond the Grave, and the statement about the affliction. Hurt people hurt people. Just because they die, doesn't mean that they can't leave some pain behind. That's why you have to be conscious of who you are, because there are people coming behind you.
If a person goes to prison, who’s part of a family, everybody in that family will be in prison. It affects all of them. It restricts them all in some way. You know. And we have to get out of that old selfish attitude, which makes us , "I, I, I ... me, me, me." I think that's basically what was happening. When she named me after her father. My grandmother was telling me the story about how she just started getting money, just any time she asked for it. My granddaddy was operating like that.
I look at my son Karim today. He's a lot like my granddaddy. He gives to his children. “You're gonna get the best. You deserve the best." I think the reality of the book is going to help him, because his daughter has read the book, and she’s only 12 or 13 years old, but she can sit down and have a real good conversation with me about my mother, her great grandmother. I tell her, "You don't want to be selfish. You want to honor and respect your family, your blood, regardless of their shortcomings, because you've got some too.
Njemile Ali
What's a beneficial, or positive lesson that you learned from your mama? I mean, all of our experiences give us something. Many times they give us what not to do.
Karim Sharif
Well ...
Njemile Ali
Is there anything about her that you admire?
Karim Sharif
No. I can pick my nose and my friends, but I can’t pick who will bring me here to this earth. I respect it. Now, Allah says in the Holy Quran, if asked about anything that would cause you grief, let it go. So I don't like to deal with it, because it's a grieving situation.
Njemile Ali
You told me earlier about some of what you wanted your book to do for fathers.
Karim Sharif
When I was in the audio video business, I used to film young Brothers and Sisters who were rapping. And because of the technology, they could make 10/20,000 dollars in a week or two. I didn't ever try to—you have to have a teachable moment with children. You can't make one. Their lifestyle, their choices, how they're living, coming into connection with the way you're living and how you're thinking. So every now and then, Allah will give you a teachable moment with them.
At the time I was filming these kids, I was dealing with the grief and everything that came out of my history. It wasn't the money that had me all upset. It was her action. The money really wasn't a thing, because money is just something that's required. It's one of the requirements. Being able to think clearly is another requirement. And acting intelligently is another requirement.
So, I was putting together the book, just writing and everything. I remember a brother and his wife, who had a rap song called Mr. Bills. “Mr. Bills, quit knocking at my door. Mr. Bills, get the hell and go. Mr. Bills ... “ And it had a little beat with it and everything. I said, "Damn! This is good!"
They put that out there, and the young man told me they made about $25,000. He thanked me, and gave me $1,000. I did it for free. I was gambling on them. I was able to gamble on him. And the place we did it, the brother gambled on me, by opening the place up and everything.
I was really happy to meet people that were willing to take chances and believe in each other, and let the money come. The money got to come. The brother said to me, "Now I can take care of my woman and the children. We can get a better house," and blah, blah, blah. I said to him, "Brother, money won’t do it all, you have to do a lot, too." And he looked at me.
So, when I finally wrote my book, and got it finished, formatted and everything and the first printing came out, there were only 25 of them, but it looked like they would be alright. I went and found the Brother and gave him one. I remember thinking, “Well, Allah has all this happening to me, because these young people are out here making this money, and they're thinking the money will take care of their children. I need to give them a hint on the reality of parenting.” That’s my message.
I think all the young kids who are wealthy should read it, because they are being exposed to the reality of starting generational wealth. Allah is putting that in their ears now. Maybe with that in their ears, they can reach a point where they realize that parenting their children is really not about money. It's about giving them choices, to make their own choice.
I think it's dangerous when you try to choose a path for your child. Let your child choose his or her own path. That way, they'll be happy. You can can't choose a path for them that'll make you proud. It's got to be a path that will make them happy. We try to support that. To me, that's a real parenting.
I can say that about my parents. My daddy was high on that—you must choose your own path. That's the best path. Don't let somebody make a suggestion and then you start following that idea, because once you get into it, you may not be happy. You wouldn't want to go to law school, spend all that money and decide after you finish law school, that you're not happy doing that. You don't want to do that. That's not really your choice.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who have had the same experiences that I've had. I've had a few readers send me back statements about the importance of parenting, and the importance of knowing that somebody else has shared the same history you share. And they didn't know how to talk about it, didn't want to deal with it. Nobody likes to put their mama down. Mama gets a pass in the Black community. The mother gets a pass. "I know, my mama wasn't this and she wasn't that. But I love my mama.”
I understand. I just want us to know, there are a lot of issues out here. My issues are no different from anybody else's issues when it comes to addressing the best thing to do in overcoming. Everybody's got them. I'm not comparing mine with anybody else. I've had people say to me at book signings. "You had plenty to eat, you had this and that."
I said, "Well, you know, what I went through, you may not have had the stamina to go through." I said, "I had to face a lot of stuff every day. You know, at least your mama or daddy or whatever were gone. They were out of sight, out of mind. That's easy to face. But when you have to look at it every day, that's difficult.”
Njemile Ali
You had the strength to look at that and deal with it every day, and come through it as a strong father, loving husband, community member, teacher. You were able to get through all that as a whole person.
Karim Sharif
The criticism was a force that drove me to excel. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of things that she was doing, I didn't approve of, and she was very critical of me. Anything that would go wrong with her, I was to blame for it. you know. So that probably had a lot to do with my desire to excel.
As a believer, I know the promise of Allah is peace of mind and contentment. You know what I mean?
Peace of mind and contentment. That's what you want. And the other stuff will just take care of itself. We will always get what is required. I have not had a day—even though a lot was taken away from me, I have not missed any meals, I have not been on the outside. I've never begged anybody. And I've had what I needed to have when I need it. You know that prayer, "Allah is sufficient for all my needs"? I've lived it. Yeah.
Njemile Ali
It's beautiful that you have been able to live that and share lessons, share experiences with folks. You’ve done a lot with all media that you produced before and the media you continue to produce.
Karim Sharif
I didn't make headlines, but I reached the people that Allah wanted to be reached [chuckles].
Njemile Ali
I appreciate your taking the time to share some of your experience with us. Thank you. Salaam Alaikum.
Karim Sharif
Wa-Alaikum Salaam. I enjoyed it. Thank you.