Are we winning the battle of Reputational Warfare?

Universal Parliament, 1982                                         Universal Parliament, 2025

     Reputational Warfare is the practice of deliberately damaging an adversary's reputation through malinformation and psychological tactics to influence public opinion, sow doubt, and destabilize trust. In order to engage those on the landscape of reputational warfare we must have the ability to defend our good character, status, or standing within our community in the face of that negative publicity or criticism. 

    Now more than ever before with the growth of social media, people are more open to reputational attacks. These attacks take the form of negative websites, articles, blogs, reviews of one's products/services, social media posts, tweets, podcasts, videos, online petitions and even fake content being attributed to the targets of these attacks. It is more insidious than trolling, as reputational warfare is designed to do more than just deliberately upset people online. If you take a moment to think about how certain people, organizations, or companies are depicted in the mainstream media, you can probably identify the reputational warfare they have been or are currently engaged in. You can also identify if they are winning or losing that battle based on how they are meeting this assault with counter-messages and credentials. You can also identify if they have supporters or 'force multipliers' that can increase or amplify their ability to attack or defend themselves. Concerning Allah's Five Percent, I am always considering the question: Are we winning or losing the reputational warfare currently taking place in the battleground of the public domain?

         Some people reading this may ask, "Why is this important to know? I am not a celebrity or in the public domain, and what I choose to do does not affect anybody." The problem with that mentality is that we are not islands. We are all connected and represent others by proxy. If we belong to a church, mosque, synagogue, organization, institution, etc., our actions in the public, and our character, represent the body that we are connected to. If it is a religious institution and a family member passes away, that institution will probably conduct the funeral/memorial. If we attend a college or university, our actions can get us expelled, lose a scholarship, access to resources, and support. We are a part of a family and a community, and we have a standing or status in that family and community, whether we know it or not. To believe that we can show up and say and do whatever we want without affecting anyone is a very immature, unevolved view of ourselves and the world. An important part of growth and development is learning to consider more than ourselves. Without that sense of awareness and interpersonal perspective, civilization is impossible. 

          In my culture, I have consistently heard the phrase "warrior" used and people "going to war" over our teachings. In my early days, I would often bomb [check] people for not teaching the correct way. I get it. Yet the same willingness that many of us had and have to check other Five Percenters, it is often not extended to outsiders who are incorrectly telling others who we are, misleading folks about our teachings, and selling merchandise with our universal flag on it. Because of this, we continue to suffer immeasurable losses on the public battleground of reputational warfare. There are many of us who either don't care or who truly believe that constant attacks on our identity in the public domain do not matter. Some of us simply don't know what to do. For example, a few years ago I shared the above image with nation members of Walmart's online store selling a Universal Flag pendant for $399.99 without our permission. Some of the responses that I received from folks ranged from, "They're not making much money from it anyway" to "We should find the person and teach them Supreme Mathematics." No one was able to offer a practical, coherent, legitimate response on how to actually address this. Still today, most people respond to problems like this with snarky tweets, long drawn-out Facebook status complaints, or video monologues. No one is doing anything to actually stop it.

     Sometimes we make matters worse because some of the content that we choose to share only contributes to those attacks on our reputation. For example, imagine if I created a YouTube Channel that is supposed to represent an entire culture. Yet when you go to my YouTube Channel, 98% of the content is androcentric and I rarely give family [women and children] a platform. They are an afterthought, if that. The vast majority of males that I show are simply talking and rarely share any culturally competent "tangible" work. Any thinking person would wonder how my YouTube Channel actually represents an entire culture by deliberately excluding women, children, positive/productive male representation, and actual community work. The mainstream media and non-mainstream content creators then use YouTube Channels like mine as a malinformation content farm. A farm where my low-quality content is harvested by others to reinforce negative public narratives and stereotypes that promote Black pathology, misogyny, and etc. I may be completely oblivious to the fact that I am participating in this malinformation by choosing to not share a well-rounded perspective of my entire culture. My lack of awareness puts me in a losing battle upon the landscape of reputational warfare. How? My YouTube Channel falls short of not providing consistent content that enables our men, women and children to defend our good character, status, or standing within our community in the face of that negative publicity or criticism. 

Gloria Velez speaks on dating an adult from Allah's Five Percent 

Nation at the age of 14.

       When it comes to reputational warfare, we should be willing and able to defend our good character, status, or standing within our community in the face of negative publicity or criticism. It is hard to do that if we have not consistently shown good character, status, or standing within our community. We cannot attack or defend ourselves from negative publicity or criticism if we are constantly involved in negativity that attracts bad publicity and criticism. There isn't anything to defend. If we continuously lose access to gathering spaces because of our reckless behavior, that becomes a part of our reputation which is indefensible. Whether some folks like it or not, my work within local, regional, national, and international communities has enabled me to positively represent the culture of Allah's Five Percent in the face of negative publicity or criticism. I have been referenced/cited in academic papers, film, television, articles, social media content, and numerous court cases to support incarcerated Five Percenters defending and securing their First Amendment rights. While I am extremely proud to informally represent us in this global capacity, sometimes I do get disappointed seeing news stories, political/religious talking points, social media posts/comments, podcast interviews, and short/longform content that doesn't show us in a positive light. Sometimes it feels like when we take three steps forward as a nation, we take five steps backwards. In my assessment, this is partly due to a widening gap between What We Teach and What We Will Achieve. 

Highest 2 Lowest film (2025)

     While you can find an abundance of what Five Percenters teach (or don't teach) online, you would be hard pressed to find an abundance of content emphasizing our positive achievements. Not because it does not exist, I think we overemphasize what we teach and fail to consistently highlight those positive achievements. On the landscape of reputational warfare, this has crippled our ability to defend ourselves in the face of negative publicity or criticism. For every Five Percent professional that we rarely promote, there are countless drug dealers, rappers bragging about crime, addicts, pedophiles, abusers, convicts, and gang members in the mainstream news with Five Percenter names, wearing the Universal Flag, and palling around with us like Phillip J. Graham in Norfolk, Virginia. Our historical association with crime, prison, juvenile delinquency, Black supremacy, misogyny, antisemitism and homophobia has been used to forge an uncivilized reputation of us that we have yet to overcome. It is unfair because this is not all of who we are. I know many of our nation members who are doing some amazing work in our name. It's just unfortunate that there are too many undeniable examples of negativity which often drowns out this amazing work. The only real response to this negativity is to 1.) intentionally amplify our individual and collective achievements and 2.) be more selective about who we associate with. These actions show the most consistent example of what we teach, not the bunch of talking that we are known for doing. What we are about is proven in what we actually do, and who we do it with. 

Gen Z tweet about Allah's Five Percent (October 4, 2025)

     Striving to achieve more, individually and collectively, may require us to be more intentional with how we appropriate our time and where we invest our finances and resources. Investing our time, finances and resources to create a tangible project to better serve our community is more valuable than sitting around recording 4-hour reaction videos about people. Being more selective about the company that we keep is equally important. This may require us to disassociate from folks who are clearly making us look bad, tarnish the reputation of our community, and destroy the positive relationships that we are striving to build. That disassociation may also need to carry over into the digital space. Being consistent about celebrating our achievements and disassociating from negativity will enable us to slowly course correct the Ghost Brand trajectory that we are currently on. Like with any defunct brand that lost its growing success yet still maintains some old loyal customers, Allah's Five Percent has been similarly falling out of significance yet still maintaining some old loyal adherents to what we teach. This is due to our lack of positive public facing representation, successful youth outreach, and real community development. Below are images of this Ghost Brand trajectory. A trajectory that we still have the power to change -through centering the progressive work of our nation's younger generations.

27-year-old Phillip J. Graham attending a Universal Parliament of Allah's Five Percent in Virginia and his mugshot after being arrested and charged in connection with multiple sexual assaults and robberies in Virginia Beach and Norfolk.

     In addition to outright warfare and genocide, reputational warfare has also been historically used in America against Black/Brown people, women, the poor, the unhoused, people with a disability, etc. to create and maintain the inequitable power dynamics that control this country's economy, its institutions, and its resources. These diverse groups have always been considered a threat to America's white, Christian, patriarchal, able-bodied racial hierarchy. Through this hierarchy's media apparatus, these identities have been constantly under attack and our reputations deliberately damaged through disinformation and psychological tactics to influence public opinion, sow doubt, and destabilize trust in who we are. We only make these narratives credible by amplifying negativity offline and online, especially as Allah's Five Percent. The more credible these narratives appear to be, it becomes the society's justification for our erasure and eventual extermination. These are the same tactics that were used to commit genocide against human families such as the Indigenous People of North America, Aboriginal Tasmanians, Ashkenazi Jews, present-day Palestinians and others. Most of the people within these groups didn't think that this would happen, until it did. The same way that many Five Percenters didn't think that the need to legally control/protect our cultural identity in the public domain would happen, until it did. We are moving into a dangerous space of being even more vulnerable to attacks on our cultural identity. This requires us to better control our own narrative as opposed to being slow moving reactionaries. Ignoring, minimizing, and being cynical about these words won't make this problem go away. 

Peace,

Saladin

Professionalism and Public Images of Civilization

‘Consideration’ is our ability to think about how our words/actions effect ourselves and others before we speak or act upon something. It’s a process of making sure we do the Knowledge (Aware) before the Wisdom (Discernment), because we Understand (See) the effects of our words/actions. To Civilized People, this is a Righteous obligation, not an option or elective...

With the popularity of Reality Shows and ‘rewarding bad behavior’ approach towards the crass, uncivilized, and unprofessional attitudes displayed in mainstream HipHop, basic ‘Consideration’ has become a lost art amongst People. I can understand those who have an allegiance to these American Cultural Trends that are going with this flow, b.u.t. this mentality/behavior is totally unacceptable for Gods/Earths or any person, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or etc.., who professes to live in accordance to a standard of Civilization, Righteousness, or Godliness.

Recently I had a conversation about the importance of being aware of what we say/do as a Representative/Contact Person within our Culture. Part of this conversation involved me sharing some of my experience as a Public Figure who's been doing Community Work for many years now. As an add-on to that conversation, I just wanted to share with you a few points of interest.

First and foremost, it’s important to understand that whenever we take a stance of responsibility within our Families and Communities, we are expressing a position of Leadership. This is Leadership because we are actively involving ourselves in the solution process of addressing current/future problems. Leadership doesn’t just mean you’re THE Head, Leadership means you’re a part of the ‘ship’ to ‘lead’ People in the right direction. Anytime we take responsibility for Leadership, we must be ‘Considerate’; able to think about how our words/actions effect ourselves and others before we speak or act upon something. To claim responsibility and then minimize or dismiss the importance of maintaining a Professional, Mature, and Respectable Public Image to those within our Family and Community is not showing a sense of ‘Consideration’. The People whom we are claiming to assist are already looking towards us for guidance and support in addressing their needs, and to have an Attitude like “it doesn’t matter what People think”, “What I do is my business”, “I’m not a Leader”, or anything else that displays no ‘Consideration’ for our constituents is detrimental to building positive/consistent Relationships with them. For example: It’s like working with the youth during the day and then not caring if they cee you selling crack on the block at night… It’s like talking about how much of a God/Earth I am on FB one minute and then five minutes later posting about how the b*tches/n*ggas had it poppin at the strip club last night… Again, ‘Consideration’ is our ability to think about how our words/actions effect ourselves/others before we speak or act upon something. It’s impossible to demonstrate and maintain effect Leadership without a level of ‘Consideration’.

Secondly, in order to even be ‘Considerate’, we must be able to listen. That’s right, LISTEN. Most People don’t know how to listen and that’s one of the main reasons why we don’t learn anything –from others or through our life experiences. Non-listeners either cut People off so they can say whatever they want to say, or simply wait for People to take a breath so they can jump in and say whatever they want to say. Add unbridled emotions to this otherwise poor display of communication and it’s a sure shot recipe for disaster. Rarely do you cee effective communication taking place between People where one person speaks while the other is listening, and then they exchange roles until they both have an understanding about the information being exchanged. It’s a skill! A discipline even, and not everyone is interested in really hearing what others have to say. If you listen closely you’ll notice that they really just like hearing the sound of their own voice bouncing off of you.

The Third point I want to make is in regards to Professionalism and Public Image. There is no substitute for Professionalism, none. How many times have you gotten terrible, unprofessional service at a Store/Restaurant and have vowed never to go back again? Hey, the food or goods may have been great quality b.u.t. because of the lack of service you received, maybe even on more than one occasion, you decided to not patronize this establishment anymore. Well, teaching Civilization is the same way. As Civilized People, we must always anticipate People’s needs and exceed their expectations! This is the greatest service you can provide for someone, so it’s important that we’re Professional; or People will decide to never come back, AND tell many other People about how negative their experience was! Because of our standards of being those who have “knowledge, wisdom, understanding, culture, refinement, and are not savages in the pursuit of happiness” (17/1-40), our job is 25/8 (not 24/7). We are not only on the Stage of Humanity, we set the Stage, and as The Fathers and Mothers of Civilization, People should always be able to look at us as models of Integrity and Wisdom. Even on our sick day we should be great! This means that our outward Public Image should coincide with the Principles and Values we inwardly subscribe to. What People cee on the outside should be synonymous with what’s ticking on the inside. How we’re living at Home should be a reflection of what we’re doing Abroad. Everyone who claims to be God/Earth is an Ambassador of our Culture. If you’re a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or etc.., you are an Ambassador of your Religion/Metaphysical System. What is the purpose of claiming something, that’s supposed to help you become a better person, if you don’t care how it effects (looks, feels, instructs, etc...) others? To me, this sounds like someone who wants the milk and no responsibility for milking the cow. It looks like a person who wants fulltime pay and benefits without being responsible for doing the work… Not only is it selfish, immature, and Egotistical, b.u.t. it’s also completely inconsiderate to expect that People be receptive to any and everything we want to say/do (our Public Image), and then dismiss their thoughts/feelings about it by proclaiming, “I don’t care what People think/say about what I do”. Not only has this person closed themselves off from receiving any comments or constructive criticism that will be effective in helping them grow, b.u.t. they’ve put a great big sign on their back that reads, “please kick me!” Being aware of our Image and how we represent ourselves to the Public is only an advantage to us, and the lack of awareness or outright inconsideration of our Public Image will always be a disadvantage and eventually our demise.

In closing, I want to encourage all of us who claim to uphold the meaning of Civilization and duty of a Civilized Person to continue taking the higher road and being a beacon of light/life amongst our People and the Human Family as a whole. What we’re saying/doing should matter first to the person in the mirror, and then this ‘Consideration’ must extend to our Family and Communities. By claiming Righteousness, we have taken upon the responsibility of adding our contributions to make this World a better place than when we got here. This is a Professional endeavor and demands the work of People who are unwilling to cut corners, take shorts, and do a half-ass job. That is unacceptable! This means that we must provide exceptional service to our People by anticipating their needs and exceeding their expectations of what being the True and Living God/Earth, a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or etc... is!

Peace,
Saladin