(In the US, the nickname “March Madness” refers to a historical obsession with college basketball during the month of March.)
Hyper-attuned to invisibility, I perk up abruptly when I hear a remarkable but “dated” story. How could I have missed that? Such was the case when Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf came to my awareness. His name was so unfamiliar I had a hard time remembering it, even as I found the man unforgettable. I happened to hear an interview with the filmmaker of a recent documentary about this forgotten basketball legend. Again, I am no sports spectator. But I am fascinated and compelled by the energy, drive, and exquisite body awareness of talented athletes, and have great admiration for those who use their visibility and influence for larger, humanitarian ends. And I am similarly compelled when they vanish from the public mind. How can the seeming amnesia of neglect be so “easy?”
I found many aspects of Abdul-Rauf to be unforgettable. Born in 1969 in the depths of the still racially segregated Southern US, with the name Chris Jackson, he never knew his father. It was a source of persistent grief that his mother “could” not tell him and never did. Already beset with both poverty and hunger, at an early age, young Chris began to suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome. For years, mysterious and nameless, the illness kept him endlessly driven by unstoppable compulsive movements and rituals. It might take him 45 minutes to put on his shoes as he wildly took them off, put them on, took them off, put them on, over and over again. His already beleaguered single mom would become impatient and angry with his noisy opening and slamming, opening and slamming the refrigerator door, taking forever to get the simplest tasks done. Young Chris desperately prayed for the overpowering agony to stop. Finally, after years of struggle, at age 17, the compulsion had a name. He was diagnosed, and although the tradeoffs of the various psych medications (as many of my readers probably know all too well) were another kind of nightmare, at least to some degree, his shame was alleviated.
Basketball was a wonderful discovery for Chris at the age of eight. He called it a “natural love.” He spent hours alone on the street, as he said “using his imagination.” He would imagine all sorts of plays, huge other players, attempting to guard him, complex basketball configurations. For hours on end, he would respond to those phantom situations, over and over again. He proceeded to at least try to “make basketball my father,” in that it took up a lot of his time, and gave him a sense of belonging. And to his surprise, he discovered he was particularly good at it. He also had the secret wish that “maybe if I got really good at something, my father wherever he might be, would want to know me and be with me…” Although his dream about his father never did come true, he did become that good.
NBA stars from various eras rhapsodize about him. Said Shaquille O’Neal, “watching Mahmoud, was like watching God play basketball.” Phil Jackson said “He was Steph Curry before there was Steph Curry.” And local guy, (the only one whose name I knew,) Steve Kerr said “To watch him have Tourette’s Syndrome and still destroy the best players in the league… I had no chance against Mahmoud.” And he was “barely” 6 feet tall.
About the uncontrollable repetitive drive of Tourette’s, as an adult he himself said “It was definitely a blessing, a major blessing. I would’ve stopped practicing after an hour and a half, two hours, and gone on home. But Tourette’s Syndrome said ‘NO!’ ” the forced repetition honed his exquisite skill.
His name was so unfamiliar I had a hard time remembering it, even as I found the man unforgettablehere are so many dimensions of change and transformation.
Fatherlessness
So what does Mahmoud’s story have to do with trauma and neglect? Surely going undiagnosed with an agonizing disability is familiar to many survivors, especially as countless unknown or unremembered stories are carried and told by the ailing body. Even more than that, however, I was struck by how at age 30, by then an accomplished professional basketball player, Jackson found a home in Islam, both in the spiritual sense, and most likely in the attachment sense as well. He began by reading, first the Autobiography of Malcom X, and then experiencing the love and welcome of the Muslim community, he discovered a kind of affiliation, a sense of belonging, and a meaning system, that seemed to be what had been missing for him. I have to wonder if it had to do with fatherlessness.
I generally think of the mother when I think about the survival need to be attached. It seems organic that the parent to whom the child is literally attached for a significant period of time be at least at first, the primary attachment figure. However, affiliation, belonging to a pack, is also a survival need, at least for mammals. When I looked up the origins of the word affiliation, I found it was adapted from the Latin affiliare “to adopt as a son,” for me it has seemed that acceptance, being good enough, belonging in some way to the world, being part of something greater, were associated with my father. I craved my mother’s love and attention, from my father I longed not only for attention but to be known, and for him to be proud of me: acceptance. I wonder if that is what Mahmoud sought and found in Islam.
At age 30, Jackson changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Inspired by other athletes before him, like Mohammed Alli, and by his own conscience, he began to find it impossible to stand during the National Anthem. He could not stand for injustice, for a history of racism and slavery. He knew that a lot of people who had followed and admired Cassius Clay, were not crazy about Mohammed Ali. He was aware that he risked a lot, yet he was willing to utilize his prominence as a public figure in the service of his beliefs. Some 20 years before Colin Kaepernick valiantly took the knee, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, took his stand. And it cost him dearly. Not only was his basketball career dramatically destroyed; he and his loved ones terrorized by death threats, but the “dream house” he was building for his family was dramatically burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan.
Meaning
Remarkably, Mahmoud has for the most part overcome his anger and bitterness. Although he regrets that he has not done more humanitarian work, like Kaepernick does, he has continued to teach and speak where possible, and his memoir, In the Blink of an Eye: An Autobiography, was published by Kaepernick’s publishing company.
A recent documentary detailing his story, Stand is indeed excellent and worth watching. It is now available on Showtime. Admittedly having researched more and more deeply about Mahmoud, I feel the movie does not convey the extraordinary depth of the man. And when all is said and done, he has no regrets, and Islam has filled in the missing meaning system, the void left by his massive trauma and neglect. Still, I have to wonder, why had I never heard of him? Granted I am not a “sports fan,” but he does indeed belong on the monument with Alli and Kaepernick. I wonder if Ali also had a “missing” father. I will have to look into that.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
