ATH: Secret Language Dominance - "Bilalian vs. Black"

QUESTION: In the United States we're faced with Muslims being identified as "black" or as "Bilalians" and in the meantime the same name has been applied to the many Afro-Americans who from time to time are being referred to as Bilalians when they may not even be Muslim???

WDM: And I think the problem is the concept; your understanding is being collected from outside of America or from somebody who is not American. So when a

Pakistan, an Egyptian, a Sudanese, a Saudi Arabian or some other non-American Muslim hears the name Bilalian, he thinks that this name is a religious name.

Bilalian is not a religious name. We have adopted the name Bilalian as an ethnic name to replace these other terms that we think are not as rich, ethnically speaking. They are not as rich because to identify with skin color is not as rich ethnically speaking as to identify with an ancestor who identified with Africa and also identified with a great ideology. So we are identifying with a person rather than identifying with skin color.