J Crutchely full interview

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[00:00:05] Imam Tariq: Bayan on Demand offers a growing library of courses taught by highly regarded scholars and practitioners. Designed for masjid board members, school administrators, imams, chaplains, youth workers, parents, and more. With classes on Islamic theology, adolescent development, non profit management, and the history of Islam in America and more, Bayan on Demand provides accessible knowledge for just 10 a month.

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[00:01:06] Imam Tariq: alaikum. May the peace that only God can give you upon you. Welcome to the American Muslim Podcast presented by. I'm your host, Imam Tariq El-Amin, and it is my pleasure to bring to you another conversation with another leader, men and women who continue to answer the call to leadership, and they serve in a variety of ways.

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[00:01:52] Imam Tariq: And how about this? She's also a descendant of a signer of the declaration of independence. [00:02:00] Today's conversation is in two parts. So without any further delay, here's our conversation. Hope that you enjoyed. How are you doing? rahmatullah. I'm good. How are you? Alhamdulillah. It is a pleasure to have you on.

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[00:02:37] Imam Tariq: Big ways, small ways, but it's always serving a need. And so I'm excited to have a conversation with you, not just about your experience at BAND, but. Really, to talk about who is Sister Jackie, first and foremost, it's not just about the work, but it's about the people doing the work. So, where does it all start for you?[00:03:00]

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[00:03:26] Sr. Jackie: And from my mother's side, we have ancestry from the American colonial past. So I'm a descendant of a signer of the declaration of independence. And growing up with that and understanding that I didn't really get this idea of what privilege was. So I grew up in a very diverse area and I love that I grew up in a diverse area because it left me questioning.

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[00:04:13] Sr. Jackie: That kind of led me to university where I did my undergrad and I say I got three useless degrees, but alhamdulillah those three degrees led me to Islam. I did it in sociology, cultural anthropology, and Spanish because what that gave me was an understanding and a vocabulary for what I saw growing up and what all the confusion I have because in school.

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[00:05:08] Sr. Jackie: And that on, in terms of how it applies to race in the United States. That's a big thing. Let's pause just for a second. Sure. That's the first time I've heard of that. So number one, we're off to a wonderful start because these are always learning opportunities. So, could you say a bit more about that as a field and, and repeat the name of that again?

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[00:05:56] Sr. Jackie: And then I wanted to connect that [00:06:00] to how people of color in the United States were being treated today. And that's, was a very interesting to me. It was because there is this profound having that diverse background and knowing where I came from a place of privilege and seeing sides of internalized racism that white people expressed.

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[00:06:47] Sr. Jackie: It's taught within the Quran. Now, our communities are a different story. We still got to work that out, but. You know how the Qur'an teaches about it and how the Prophet you know, honored everyone and [00:07:00] uplifted everyone and saw the value in everyone despite like their ability or disability or their color or their capabilities and what Allah gave them and intellect and that really hit my heart in terms of that Everything that I was seeing like this is right This is it's one of the reasons that led me to Islam that this Um, sense of like social justice that Allah made us equal in front of him.

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[00:07:47] Sr. Jackie: And I can be rewarded the same as a man. And that goes across the board of all humanity. And I found that extremely validating in terms of my values and my morals and the things in the world that didn't make sense [00:08:00] to me and that I wanted to contribute to making things make a little bit more sense. Now, listening to you, where you introduced your lineage, where you come from, you presented, you says, on my father's side, I have this and my mother's side have this, you didn't say it.

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[00:08:45] Imam Tariq: What is your perspective on that lack of nuance, the lack of language that really expresses who we are? In the public space and if that is something that you were aware of growing [00:09:00] up as a Catholic and maybe Catholicism has nothing to do with it, but was it something that you might've been aware of considering that you hung around everybody that you may have found in Islam?

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[00:09:35] Sr. Jackie: That's what led to my curiosity. And like, even when it comes to whiteness, right? There's this kind of almost like either lack of obsession or obsession of like where you came from also as a white person, like that, perhaps like you're not diverse or there's nothing within your background that is worth celebrating because it's just the quote unquote norm.

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[00:10:16] Sr. Jackie: They earned that privilege either through violence that happened, right, or in the case of Italian immigrants, they got their government involved in Louisiana to, to basically say, if you don't treat Italians correctly, we're going to start a war. There's a lot of history and what does that mean? What does white, whiteness even mean?

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[00:11:00] Sr. Jackie: And so part of. Understanding that lineage makes me also want to allow for our umma to place everyone at an equal level. Let's compete in what's good. Let's be just. Let's get this together. And so that's one of the things that I'm very passionate about. I participate in, like, anti racism halakas once a week.

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[00:11:45] Imam Tariq: Absolutely. I think about the statement and I wish I could remember exactly who said it, but it was a, um, a, a black woman scholar. She might have been an anthropologist. [00:12:00] Um, Who said something along the lines of how do you stand up straight in a crooked room? And I'm relating that to the acknowledgement. I was nodding as you were saying what the Quran, the Quranic commandments, injunctions, what it espouses for us in terms of how we are to see one another is not necessarily how it is played out in real life.

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[00:12:52] Imam Tariq: Um, and, and even as Muslims, if we're not paying attention to those things, talk to us a bit about your work with the, [00:13:00] uh, anti racism Holocaust. So we just finished reading Islam and the Black American by Sherman Jackson. And his work, Marshal Lunt, it's like poetry, but it's dense and you have to read it.

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[00:13:37] Sr. Jackie: And one of the questions I think that came up because I was summarizing chapter five, which was, there was some very beautiful conclusions that I'm just like keeping with me. But one of the questions that came up was like this kind of like feeling of hopelessness of what can we even do? What can we even do?

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[00:14:37] Sr. Jackie: Um, what Allah A'la decreed, and he connected it so beautifully, um, and it's something I wholeheartedly believed in, I was so happy to read it, is that this type of Internalization of being better than something else. This is the sin that Shaitaan committed. That's right. By saying, I am [00:15:00] better, I am fire and you are clay.

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[00:15:28] Imam Tariq: Absolutely. Plain and simple. Absolutely. Shaytan, Iblis, before he was Shaytan, uh, he was the first racist. Right? Yeah, and he was ready to stand on that. With your upbringing, are there things that you can see now, right, as an adult looking back that were particularly formative for you, that led you to this decision to pursue three different degrees?[00:16:00]

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[00:16:24] Sr. Jackie: My cousin made fun of me for it at a wedding, and I was like, oh yeah, that definitely was me. Um, but I was so confused all the time. I was just confused because I would just observe what's going on and try to relate to people and try to relate to the world. And there was just this constant confusion that really led me into wanting to study originally anthropology just to understand people in the past.

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[00:17:11] Sr. Jackie: Even now, like studying Islamic leadership with Bayan and studying our ummah, taking classes with Zarina Graywell from Yale about the Muslim landscape in America. And her, mashallah, her mentor was Sherman Jackson. So it, it just comes this full circle moment of, yeah, these were things that. I noticed, and I can tell you when I first converted, I stayed away from the community.

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[00:17:52] Sr. Jackie: They have all different ideas of what Islam is, they're segregated. You have your black masjid, you have your Sufi masjid, you [00:18:00] have your Salafi masjid, you have your Arab masjids, and it's very segregated. And people have different ways of actualizing Islam. And because of my upbringing and school and schooling in undergrad, I recognized that pretty quickly.

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[00:18:42] Sr. Jackie: And to this day, like, that's what I'm seeking. I'm seeking, like, true Islam. And inshallah I'll get there and continue to get there. That's a lifelong journey. And we all just need to humble ourselves to that. Shallah. Community, it definitely is a huge part. And [00:19:00] we are urged to be in community. I guess when we talk about social dynamics, especially when we have Different cultures, different backgrounds coming together, and not just different background, but different interpretations, right?

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[00:19:50] Sr. Jackie: Yeah, I think that's a really good question and it speaks to converts altogether too. So I talk about this with a lot of different [00:20:00] converts. And perhaps it's different for someone who is Black who with their cultural background enters the community because there is a space. There is mushal law. I love going to Black mishads.

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[00:20:33] Sr. Jackie: And we forget that Allah Subh'anaHu chose us to be Muslim and he likes my laughs and he likes my loud voice and he likes my leadership abilities. And he chose me and what's not bad within me is good. Sometimes I think when you come into the religion. You do try to shrink yourself into somebody else's idea of what it means to be a good Muslim and what it means to be a good Muslim woman, [00:21:00] that I need to be softer, I need to be smaller, I need to shrink down, I need to be submissive.

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[00:21:23] Sr. Jackie: And he said, no, what's your Muslim name? And I was like, I picked Asiya and he's like, that's your name. I'm calling you that. And in my head, I'm like, Jackie, my name has a great meaning. Like, I like funny names. So, um, I let him have that. He was very happy to meet me. Um, Alhamdulillah. I can, I, I didn't have enough time to explain that in the five minutes in our Uber rides.

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[00:22:07] Sr. Jackie: Whenever I go to teach, whenever I go to speak, I always wear convert women designer clothes. I'm like, I'm, I, this is me, I'm not showing up. And I like wearing a bias, they're comfortable, I'm gonna wear them to the mission, but when I show up as a representation of what a convert is, I'm gonna show you what that looks like to me.

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[00:22:44] Sr. Jackie: 25 percent of Muslims are converts and, um, half of those converts are black converts. So if we're not taking care of all of our communities, if we're not taking care of our black communities, we're not taking care of our convert communities. Another thing specifically with being a [00:23:00] white convert is you are past the mic pretty early.

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[00:23:21] Sr. Jackie: And no matter how much knowledge I got on my own, that didn't, you know, it didn't weigh out with the responsibility. Inshallah, it's never going to weigh out with the responsibility. I'll have to always continue to seek knowledge, but that was. Just a prime example of what happens with, in comparison, like white converts versus our Latino converts versus our black converts versus our Asian converts.

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[00:24:14] Imam Tariq: And that is the reality of tokenization. And I think as an African American, as a Black American Muslim, I can relate to that experience and in certain spaces where, Oh, let's call, let's get the Blackie map. And put him on our board, but let's not listen to him. Right. Exactly. But I think more importantly, as we see this conversion that is taking place, this ripple of Islam is, it is spread, it is spreading out over time and we become much more representative of that.

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[00:25:19] Imam Tariq: The real maturation and development of our community. Um, do you have any thoughts on that? Internalized, the internalized white supremacy, I think simply put is like when our community sees a white convert. They're like, mashallah, they found Islam and they're, they're so great. They're so great. They, they took away from the dunya.

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[00:26:02] Sr. Jackie: Because our brothers and sisters, no matter who they are, can contribute to this probably more than I can. These brothers and sisters that we're overlooking, and we're looking at almost a burden, or that Islam saved them, could be the person that saves your kid from leaving the deen.

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[00:26:44] Imam Tariq: Number one, I definitely want to hear your thoughts on leadership, uh, your, your philosophy, what you hope to bring from it. Or what, what you hope to bring to. Uh, leadership, and I'll stop there. I want to hear [00:27:00] from you. Sure. So my philosophy is like definitely servant leadership role. I take leadership as a responsibility.

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[00:27:23] Sr. Jackie: Um, but if I am the most qualified person in the room, I'm going to say, Hey, these are my qualifications. For example, when we started a chapter in Embrace in Pennsylvania, we had a discussion about who was going to be the lead. And so the brother automatically goes, I'll, I'll do it. And so I said, can we get to know each other a little bit more?

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[00:28:02] Sr. Jackie: It was like, okay. And I appreciated that they were able to recognize that. And so one thing that women in leadership shows is they, it shows that there is this almost like the equalization, like we get everybody's. Uh, opinions, we want to see what everyone is bringing to the table to, to make things happen.

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[00:28:47] Imam Tariq: And so, that doesn't mean that I take a step forward, that means that I Empower others and it's the same of how I got on the podcast, right? Mashallah, we're going to have a Ramadan series and I [00:29:00] volunteered these three beautiful Muslima women to give their perspectives and I was like, I'm taking a seat, sit back.

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[00:29:29] Sr. Jackie: And I think that more leaders should really take it as that responsibility and that support role. It's almost like a marriage. Like what is the responsibilities of husband in a marriage? He's supporting, he's taking care of the. You know, everything, the emotionals, the finance, the logistics, you're making sure your family can thrive.

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[00:30:08] Imam Tariq: The student, yes. So we have a BAYAN student committee. And the BAYAN student committee came out of a need and a desire for BAYAN students to have a little bit more autonomy in how we start relating to the world and to this country. We wanted to show everyone how wonderful this program is and how much we've learned and how much it's preparing us to be better leaders, to be better chaplains, to be better.

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[00:31:00] Sr. Jackie: Many of us work full time. We can't afford to get a master's, but this is the future of our careers. Chaplains, they don't get paid very well. You are helping fund somebody's career that they're going to be giving so much communal benefit. They allowed us to have a voice in decision making and ethics as well, and that was very important to us, and a lot of institutions would not allow that.

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[00:31:51] Sr. Jackie: And that leads me to these three wonderful, mashallah, muslimah sisters that I get to have the pleasure of [00:32:00] calling friends. You guys are going to get to know Amanda Hessen. And she is also a white convert to Islam, and she has this beautiful blended family. And she is absolutely a marvel. Six children, and going to band full time, and really trying to internalize that within her own life, and within her own family, and doing that work on the ground.

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[00:32:46] Sr. Jackie: And she wasn't supposed to speak, and they gave her a mic, and this girl had a, like, a halakha, a speech ready, like, mashallah, I was like, that was just on your heart, and you didn't prepare for it? She's a [00:33:00] wonderful human being that I get the pleasure. And last but not least, we have Dr. Kai Horne Alamin, our sister Sophia.

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[00:33:28] Sr. Jackie: I love talking to her and picking her brain and having those catch up conversations. I'm really excited to hype these girls up and for everybody to get to know them as well because each of them have such beautiful and redeeming qualities. Our community needs and that our community needs to hear. Hmm.

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[00:34:07] Imam Tariq: It's a leadership that is for the benefit of humanity. It's for the benefit of this nation. So if the UMA gets it right, then America will get it right. Give me your thoughts on this, based on this unique aspect of your ancestry, right, that you have someone. Who's a signer of the Declaration of Independence , in your family.

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[00:34:30] Sr. Jackie: Growing up, eh, we used to do heritage projects in school and I was blessed to have all of that information ready for me. On my dad's side, we have a genealogy website dedicated to that side of the family, and then as a qualifying member for the Daughters of the American Revolution, we have a lot of information about our ancestors on that side.

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[00:35:13] Sr. Jackie: Were they enslavers? And they were. And so coming to terms with that, this is, there is this one side of being a An ancestral legacy of the quote unquote American dream and constitutional landscape and starting this nation and all of the things that they teach you in school and the good things that come with that.

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[00:36:15] Sr. Jackie: American legacy, but as someone who has this quote unquote American legacy, and where is my responsibility in holding this country accountable to the values that it teaches us that when we're kids that aren't quite aligned with our history. And so that I think is the best way to be a patriot, is to hold the country accountable for those values.

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[00:36:57] Imam Tariq: So one of the things that is central to [00:37:00] Islam is the idea of repair, right? When a harm is done, it is to repair, but it's also very clearly gives a bit of a license and.

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[00:37:41] Sr. Jackie: Absolutely. When my undergrad, I read an article about how white guilt is useless in terms of helping with repair. I brought it to class and my professor looked a little bit shocked. She's like, let me see that. And she looked at the author. She's like, okay, this is fine. This is a good thing. I was a little worried that I had [00:38:00] come across a harmful concept, but Hamdulillah, I, I had it.

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[00:38:29] Sr. Jackie: And that I think. That's a beautiful Islamic concept that we need in the masjids, we need in our communities that we are doing that internal self reflection. When we enter the masjid, we are removing those internal biases and that's a lifelong thing. Everybody is biased, right? Maybe you're biased against old people driving.

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[00:39:22] Imam Tariq: Yeah, I like to say that we're not responsible for what we inherit. But we are certainly responsible for what we produce, for what we leave. So tell me, are you the only Muslim in your family or are there other Muslims?

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[00:39:42] Sr. Jackie: Can I ask

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[00:39:49] Sr. Jackie: My family, they responded in, it wasn't the worst that I've heard, but it's definitely not the best. , I actually started [00:40:00] practicing Islam a couple of years before I converted. So I was wearing hijab for a year before I converted. I was doing Ramadan three years before I converted.

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[00:40:30] Sr. Jackie: I make a plan and I don't want to do it halfway. So that scared me. I was like, do I have 30 minutes in the day to pray extra in my life? Like, it seems like I barely have 10 minutes or. Is fasting for an entire month realistic or is me dressing modestly in this country realistic and, and quitting drinking or other things that are so normalized.

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[00:41:21] Sr. Jackie: So that was a big deal. These things that I couldn't do was almost like I was going against my family and their culture and how they feel we should be together. And so they would make a lot of comments. They still do sometimes make little comments here and there. It was very difficult for them to accept.

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[00:42:03] Sr. Jackie: Or, I got halal meat so that Jackie can eat what we're eating. And things like that. It took some time showing. A lot of patience and respect and showing them that I'm the same person, even though I look different and have different habits now, to get to a better place. And I'm proud to say that we're very close today.

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[00:42:42] Imam Tariq: because that is a huge shift for a lot of people, especially as you mentioned, there are so many things that are normalized that people don't pay attention to until the people around them stop doing those things.

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[00:43:01] Sr. Jackie: Yeah, it was a family tradition to put, what is it? Lottery tickets in people's birthday cards. Right. And so I'm like, guys, I'm not participating. I will not buy the lottery tickets. I will not share the cost. Please don't give them to me.

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[00:43:20] Imam Tariq: You said that you were practicing for over a year, right? But you said before you actually converted, so make the distinction for me, because you were fasting, you were wearing hijab, uh, were you making Salah?

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[00:43:49] Imam Tariq: So what's the delineation for you? So, because in your heart at that time, when you're fasting, you're making the Fajr, at this point, you're In your heart, you've already said, you know, there's no God, but Allah [00:44:00] Muhammad is his messenger.

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[00:44:07] Sr. Jackie: Cause, and even though I grew up Catholic, in my mind, I'm like, nobody really believes in like the, it's not like the full trinity. It's like, God's at the top. And like, there's these other things, you know, like the way they taught us, it wasn't like, as, you know, like Jesus is God, as most people think. So I didn't never really believe that even as a kid.

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[00:44:32] Imam Tariq: I

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[00:44:50] Sr. Jackie: That was a hard pill to swallow. At that time, I was just thinking, I believe in one God, so regardless of if I'm praying this way or I'm praying the way that I prayed as a [00:45:00] Catholic, it's the same God. And during Lent, which right now we're in the season of Lent, Lent used to be a full fast just as Ramadan was.

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[00:45:34] Sr. Jackie: And so, and then Allah led me to him through this practice, through just trying to get closer to him. I accepted Islam as truth.

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[00:45:54] Sr. Jackie: And I think when you talk to Sister Hazel in the last episode, she talked about how there's all [00:46:00] these many moments in your shahadah story.

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[00:46:24] Sr. Jackie: Why is she wearing hijab? Everyone was kind of distant at that time because I started practicing before I actually became Muslim. So I got to experience that loneliness even before converting. The closer I was getting to Islam, the further away I was getting in my marriage. My husband and I had separated and I made duat to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.

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[00:47:16] Sr. Jackie: And it was subhanAllah, the first lesson that I learned is that if Allah isn't first in your heart, everything will fall apart. But when you put Allah first, you have that kind of inner peace. And that was the moment I was, that, the, that exact moment I was ready to take shahada. And I called my friend and I said, Hey, you know, your dad's an imam.

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[00:47:58] Sr. Jackie: And if I die, I hope that Allah [00:48:00] knows. That I'm working towards the path towards him. So I did not take my Shahada that day. He accepted that. He was like, if you want to wait for the party, I was like, I don't care about the party. You got to have a party.

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[00:48:13] Imam Tariq: Yeah, they were having a party

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[00:48:36] Sr. Jackie: He accepted that and encouraged me to take that time. Eight years later, alhamdulillah, I'm still here and inshallah I'll still be here because we know that a lot of converts do end up leaving the religion. It's potentially around 7 out of 10 who enter who leave, uh, and I think that Taking it seriously really helped me in those difficult times of faith that [00:49:00] I had put all of this work into making sure that this was my truth and this was the truth that I believed.

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[00:49:06] Imam Tariq: yeah. It's interesting that you mention that number, seven to ten years or maybe somewhere in between where people who convert leave, right? We've seen that and sometimes it doesn't take seven years. Sometimes it's, two years, six months. What I've personally seen is a lot of times that's related to a lack of support, a lack of affirmation, of really just not feeling included.

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[00:49:53] Sr. Jackie: Yeah, so seven out of ten converts leave Islam. My prediction is exactly what you said. [00:50:00] It's closer to probably within the first year to four years that people will leave.

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[00:50:38] Sr. Jackie: So now we have text groups, we have, Telegram. We contact on a regular, almost daily basis, whether it's for our classes or the student committee we formed, or just in general, if I'm going through a hardship, whether it's school or personal, I've had sisters reach out to me just to talk and make sure I'm okay.

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[00:51:30] Sr. Jackie: There's this powerful network of people we can lean on and ask questions and connect across the country. They're all super involved in their communities. And I think that's pretty incredible.

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[00:51:53] Imam Tariq: When we think about what it means to do good for humanity, let our work contribute to the [00:52:00] legacy of uplifting humanity. Is there a particular aspect of your work, your leadership, or even what you aspire to do? that contributes to that idea when Allah tells us, I've raised you up as a nation for the benefit of humanity.

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[00:52:37] Sr. Jackie: That makes me feel like I have contributed to something. But when it comes to the American Muslim landscape, I do like to be involved with the convert, , space. So that's how I started serving. That's how I started, realizing that I had this responsibility and that led me to Islam is, , being that support person [00:53:00] for converts, being in BAYAN has kind of changed how I approach that.

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[00:53:24] Sr. Jackie: When I'm talking to converts, it's easier for me to relay, information and show them where is their gray area? Where is their black and white? Because a lot of times converts are so set on what is the halal and the haram. What do I have to do? And what do I not have to do? And a lot of times that answer is.

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[00:54:07] Sr. Jackie: S., and teaching these classes, I am also a grant writer. I work with another convert sister, and we both help write grants for Muslim organizations that are doing good. We're currently working with another company called Zayla, which is by American Muslim convert Lisa Vogel, that employs refugees in Turkey, Uyghur refugees, and then also, Inshallah, opening a factory in Jordan to employ Palestinian refugees.

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[00:54:58] Sr. Jackie: That's awesome. [00:55:00]

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[00:55:04] Sr. Jackie: Inshallah. Inshallah, and more projects once I graduate. I have a lot of ideas.

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[00:55:13] Sr. Jackie: April 2025, so at the end of this year.

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[00:55:24] Imam Tariq: org and make a donation to the Muhammad Ali scholarship. While you're there, go ahead and get yourself a subscription to Bayan On Demand. We've got 30 classes, we're adding more, and it's just 10 a month. Get your subscription, join our community of learners, and remember we will see you next week.

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