Jay Z and Wife Beyoncé at the Barclays Center

 

Open Letter to the NY Post

 

 

Good Morning Mr. Buiso,

First I would like to thank you for writing your article "Jay Z is blinging it black", and reaching out to me to lend my "expertise" about my culture -as you stated in your email. It's not often that Reporters demonstrate that degree of journalistic integrity by going directly to the source and I (we) appreciate you for taking that initiative. Because we only spoke briefly and didn't have an opportunity to discuss other areas of my culture in-depth, I wanted to take a moment to clarify some things in your article.

One of the commonly held misconceptions is that Mr. Knight, and the group that he comes from, can speak for and define the meaning of our symbols. We are psychologically different in outlook, and cannot speak for each other; Mr. Knight and us, The Nation of Gods and Earths [Five Percenters]. The fact that Jay Z and Carmelo Anthony have chosen to wear our symbol indicates that they want to be affiliated with the positive works they see us do in our communities.

Our movement is more concerned with issues addressing our esteem and self determination than we are at labeling others for their inequities done in American society. Our symbol -the Universal Flag- represents the sun, moon and star: our universal family, man, woman and child, period. And a unified family is the vital building block of any nation of people.

Thank you for your consideration and giving me the opportunity to clarify this. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me again.

 

Peace,

Saladin Allah

Email: atlantisbuild@gmail.com

 

Saladin Allah is a Therapeutic/Recreation major who attended Central State University in Wilberforce Ohio, a Region 6 Representative of The Nation of Gods and Earths [Five Percenters] in WNY/Southern Ontario, and founder of A.S.I.A. [Allah School In Atlantis]. Allah has written over two hundred social commentary articles for various national/international publications, self-published eleven books through his company Quanaah Publishing, and he presently works as a youth mentor and community organizer. You can also check out and subscribe to his popular Youtube Channel here: A.S.I.A. TV.