I could learn something. The Black Skeptics are hosting a conference, Moving Social Justice. This is what atheism needs.
Called “Moving Social Justice,” the conference will tackle topics beyond the usual atheist conference fare of confronting religious believers and promoting science education. Instead, organizers hope to examine issues of special interest to nonwhite atheists, especially the ills rooted in economic and social inequality.
“Atheism is not a monolithic, monochromatic movement,” said Sikivu Hutchinson, an atheist activist, author and founder of Los Angeles’ Black Skeptics, one member of a coalition of black atheist and humanist groups staging the conference.
“By addressing issues that are culturally and politically relevant to communities of color, we are addressing a range of things that are not typically addressed within the mainstream atheist movement.”
I am so tired of running in circles with people who insist that religion is evil and must be crushed, who then also declare that atheism has no implications or consequences and only means that there is no god. I would like to listen to people who actually have a goal of the greater good driving their atheism and secularism, rather than hiding behind evasions and abstractions. I’m also a bit fed up with the hypocrisy of insisting that atheism must reach a wider audience, while obliviously refusing to expand to meet the needs of more diverse communities.
We’re really, really good at making middle class white people with college educations satisfied. We need to learn that pandering to that group of people can lead to choices that make other groups unhappy.
That sounds excellent, I wish I could go. Of course, given a choice, I’d be in Ferguson this weekend.
It’s been my observation that almost all atheists organizations are actually liberal organizations. Atheism is just a natural result of basic liberal values such as reason and justice. And yes, much as many of us think they are misguided, libertarians are part of this conversation. For a very strong indictment of the type of justice blacks see in America I can’t recommend too highly Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”. I feel this is a must read for anybody that considers themselves in favor of justice.
P.S. – PZ, you strike me as an archetypal liberal. Maybe you should be labeling yourself as such as your principal identification.
I would love to see a tightly reasoned book from you laying out your views in this area. My sense is that you have given it a lot of thought.
Not from where I sit. They take an idea to ridiculous levels, and expect to be taken seriously. Their post facto bigotry in the name of freedom is what removes their seat from the discussion.
I think you mean middle and upper class white men with university/college educations.
@pedz #2
Why? They make it perfectly clear that they are eager to be both unreasonable and unjust.
You mean like this: “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal”?
PZ:
It’s like watching a train wreck, seeing all the people screeching to a halt over that, their brains smoking, while they try to come up with a defense.
If I could teleport, I’d definitely be in St. Louis today. But this sounds wonderful as well.
Don’t be stupid. Libertarians don’t even believe their own bullshit. That’s how evidently bullshit it is.
Look at some of the big dust-ups leading to schisms in the atheist community. In every case, the self-styled libertarians were the ones advocating for State solutions to issues. In fact they fought against any control other than State. They want the only power to influence individual behaviour to be in the hands of the nanny State and its authorized actors.
Don’t believe me? Think back.
What about harassment at cons? The non-libertarian position is to come up with anti-harassment policies, and have them enforced by other attendees, the conference organizers, and hotel security, as warranted. The libertarian position, somehow, was that the State already has rules in place, and anything short of violation of those rules is fine and dandy. “How can you call it harassment if I haven’t broken any laws?” they ask. “Police or STFU!” they shout.
“Guys, don’t do that,” is the exact kind of non nanny-State-led behavioural modification they pretend they advocate for. No taxes were confiscated, nobody was jailed by agents of the State under threat of physical harm or death. Yet look at how they responded.
See how they act when confronted with Shermer. “Police or STFU!” they shout. There’s no room for non-State actors to mitigate his potential for damage, according to them. The State is the only actor capable of dealing with Shermer, they insist. When non-State actors even attempt to talk about him their first impulse is to invoke the State’s civil legal processes. He should sue for libel! they scream.
Again, these are the so-called libertarians. Their position is simply to support the legal authority of the State and to undermine any action on behalf of citizens to mitigate harm themselves. The cops already have hands with which to masturbate. What use are the libertarians?
Look, we don’t insist that the flat earthers get a seat at the skeptics’ table. We don’t insist that the creationists sit on panels at atheist conventions. Why should libertarians be part of any conversation?
And the AK rips em up, ratatat TAT!
It’s valuable just to have atheists interested in social justice issues working actively alongside other religious folk. As convincing as we try to be, a lot of conversions tend to happen through affiliation – you see that someone (a friend or other inspirational person) is doing right and fervently believes in something, and you want what they have (including a new community).
I stopped being a theist when I was a child.
I have a very hard time believing that anyone could be a theist as a grown-up.
Social justice issues are always important and it’s a good thing to stand up for. It also fills in for a gap that religion has been inadequately filling for a very long time. They say they care about people who aren’t well off or experiencing difficulties in their life but it’s often just a token gesture. Or it looks legit on the surface, but then another part of the organization completely undermines it by causing some of the issues that put people in the poor house to begin with (Example: Catholic Charities & their works contrasted with US Catholic Bishops and their push against birth control and abortion). Religion is a noxious growth that has extended into many parts of our lives and our culture. If we’re going to do away with it the likelihood that we’ll need to put something out there to replace it in the spaces it’s grown into is pretty high.
About the libertarians… As recent issues with various leading voices in the atheist community have proven, we can’t afford to have heroes. This isn’t a place to flee from religion only to fall into a cult of personality. This is convenient because you can’t afford them when fighting for social change either. The only way to form a coalition large enough to make a change is to stand with whoever is willing to say the right things – and ONLY when they’re willing to say the right things. If they drift off into mysoginy, racism, phobias about other people’s sex lives, phobias about other people’s sexual identity, phobias about government, whatever… Tell them to check it at the door, that’s not what we’re doing here. These hateful ideas can be tied to atheism just like they can to religion but we need to make them do the work of getting their own groups and gatherings together and not hijack everyone else’s. Being a springboard for assholes to speak on high is one trick I’d like to leave to the theists.