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'Out of the Closet'— Black Atheists

by Sikivu Hutchinson - L.A. Watts Times

Thanks to Layla for the link.
http://www.lawattstimes.com/opinion/opinion/773-out-of-the-closet--black-atheists.html

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In some black communities it’s akin to donning a white sheet and a Confederate flag. In others, it’s ostensibly tolerated yet whispered about, branded culturally incorrect and bad form, if not outright sacrilege.

For black atheists like myself, proclaiming one’s non-belief amidst genial wishes to “have a blessed day” is never easy in the seemingly innocuous context of casual chit chat between black folk.

Yet, according to The New York Times, a small but growing segment of the American population, galvanized by the hyper-evangelical climate of the Republican Pleistocene, have begun organizing nationwide and becoming more vocal about their atheism.

Although African Americans are not visible in the “movement,” some are easing away from religion. For black atheists, actively breaking with religious tradition is an even graver rejection than that of white intellectuals electrified by the “pew-storming” rhetoric of atheist gurus such as Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins.

This is partly due to the fact that the history of African American civil and human rights resistance is heavily steeped in Judeo-Christian religious dogma.
...
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http://www.lawattstimes.com/opinion/opinion/773-out-of-the-closet--black-atheists.html

Posted: Friday, May 29, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #382855 by Logicel on May 29, 2009 at 5:26 am

Excellent article. I now have a woman crush.

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2. Comment #382856 by rokeisland on May 29, 2009 at 5:27 am

I find it both ironic and somewhat terrifying that the black population in America today can still rail about being persecuted, but feels free to persecute itself. Where is the sense of community that brought them through the civil rights struggles £

Other Comments by rokeisland

3. Comment #382858 by HandyGeek on May 29, 2009 at 5:30 am

It's amazing to me that people that pride themselves on modeling after the zombie god are also the most intolerant.

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4. Comment #382860 by Sally Luxmoore on May 29, 2009 at 5:31 am

I wonder if there's an Obama effect here?
I think the knowledge that he was brought up as a humanist, even if he's trying to look vaguely religious now, has had an influence.

Other Comments by Sally Luxmoore

5. Comment #382861 by Die Griek on May 29, 2009 at 5:32 am

Sad as it may be, but it is in this context where the saying of Napoleon rings true: "Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet".

This message was taken to the extreme by the ruling white elite during the 1700 and 1800's, who exploited the effects, that religious dogma had on opressed people.

I'm glad, it seems, that these effects is starting wear off amongst the black population.

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6. Comment #382870 by Murray Keedis on May 29, 2009 at 5:50 am

Wonderfully written. I would like to see Ms. Hutchinson vault to the upper echelons of atheist spokespeople. Her intelligent prose would be a tremendous asset to all of us trying to get the message out.

Other Comments by Murray Keedis

7. Comment #382871 by AfraidToDie on May 29, 2009 at 5:52 am

If you suppress a group long enough, and deny them adequate education, they'll grasp for hope even in the imaginary after life. Religion is the placebo for despair and ignorance. I hope Bill Mahr schedules her for a guest!

Other Comments by AfraidToDie

8. Comment #382873 by CaptainMandate on May 29, 2009 at 5:53 am

I thought this bit summed up the international image of america very well:

On the national level, the contradictions between American secularism and religion have produced a schizoid tension in the U.S., whereby religious fundamentalism and intolerance for secular thought have become the norm. When it’s practiced in the non-Western world, Americans routinely brand this kind of propaganda as backward and extremist.

Rokeisland

I find it both ironic and somewhat terrifying that the black population in America today can still rail about being persecuted, but feels free to persecute itself. Where is the sense of community that brought them through the civil rights struggles £

I believe it was the great philosopher of the mod movement, Roger Daltrey who once wrote:

"meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

Other Comments by CaptainMandate

9. Comment #382877 by Die Griek on May 29, 2009 at 6:01 am

Comment #382870 by Murray Keedis

I would like to see Ms. Hutchinson vault to the upper echelons of atheist spokespeople. Her intelligent prose would be a tremendous asset to all of us trying to get the message out.

The Ayaan Hirsi Ali of African Americans

Other Comments by Die Griek

10. Comment #382878 by AfraidToDie on May 29, 2009 at 6:04 am

1. Comment #382855 by Logicel: I now have a woman crush.

It's called jungle feever; I'm feeling it too! This time it is brought on by brains plus black.

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11. Comment #382886 by rod-the-farmer on May 29, 2009 at 6:20 am

Despite the White Anglo Saxon Protestant religious justification for slavery and domestic terrorism, African Americans converted to Christianity and utilized it as a source of succor, community and spiritual redemption.

Well, now that slavery is pretty much gone in the U.S., it is probably safe to drop white mans' religion.

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12. Comment #382891 by Layla Nasreddin on May 29, 2009 at 6:37 am

Many African Americans have converted from Christianity, which they consider the 'white man's religion', to Islam, which they consider more 'authentically' African. (Which is rather ridiculous -- Islam started out as an Arab religion, so it is no more 'authentically African' than Christianity.) I suppose a contributing factor is that many of them have had a lot of experience of Christianity and how it's been used, but not Islam, and so they are free to project all sorts of hopes and dreams on this 'new' and rather exotic religion, for instance, that it, unlike Christianity, is uniquely colorblind (discounting the actual situation in much of the Middle East, where there is a lot of straight-up racism among Muslims). I've read quite a few stories of people converting because they read the Autobiography of Malcolm X and came to see embracing Islam as a manifestation of black or African pride or something similar.

It's interesting that so many would choose to trade in one 'oppressors' religion' with another!

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13. Comment #382893 by Anvil on May 29, 2009 at 6:44 am

12. Comment #382891 by Layla Nasreddin:

Shit! That raises the possibility of The Caliphate of Eire!

Anvil.

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14. Comment #382894 by CaptainMandate on May 29, 2009 at 6:44 am

Layla

there was that boxer bloke...

I believe the Million Man March is an islamic african american thing. although it's an alternative to christianity (the white man's religion) it's a shame it happens. the crime of the white man was to demonise blacks, the rise of black islam in america is a reaction demonising the white man

it is a shame that after all the years of struggle to obtain freedom and equality, it then turns to a quest for revenge

god would be so proud

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15. Comment #382907 by Anvil on May 29, 2009 at 7:03 am

Cap'n:

Yeah, possibly, but somewhat understandable.

I recall a cartoon (it may have been a dream?) where a young black American is screaming at a diminutive old American white lady:

"Ma'am, I'm Young, Black, American, Islamic, and Proud!"

"Oh, good. What were you in prison for, exactly?"

Said a lot.

EDIT: I can't remember the setting but I think he had just taken the last seat on a bus?

Anvil.

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16. Comment #382933 by CaptainMandate on May 29, 2009 at 8:03 am

Anvil

yeah it is understandable but I guess some of us have this romantic idea of the oppressed rising up to be better than their oppressors. One thing the history of religion can teach us is that that all people can learn fomr oppression is how to oppress (see judeism/christianity/islam)

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17. Comment #382934 by Richard Dawkins on May 29, 2009 at 8:05 am

Many African Americans have converted from Christianity, which they consider the 'white man's religion', to Islam, which they consider more 'authentically' African. (Which is rather ridiculous -- Islam started out as an Arab religion, so it is no more 'authentically African' than Christianity.)

Isn't it worse than that? Didn't Islam spread through Africa because of the slave trade, Arabs taking African slaves and paying African chieftains for them? Isn't the Swahili language (which contains a great deal of Arabic influence) the lingua franca of East Africa purely because it was spread, from its origins on the coast, by Arab slavers?
Richard

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18. Comment #382936 by root2squared on May 29, 2009 at 8:30 am

17. Comment #382934 by Richard Dawkins

I would guess for African Americans, since their ancestors were enslaved by Americans rather than Arabs, there would be an emotional reaction against the religion of the Americans, which mostly happens to be Christianity.

I think that might be a bigger factor rather than them considering Islam more authentically African. Also, Islam is the one of the high visible products on the snake oil shelf.

Picking religion is, of course, not based on any reason or logic.

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19. Comment #382938 by Roger Stanyard on May 29, 2009 at 8:31 am

We need to be a bit careful here.

Much of the Arabic world is in Africa and has been for some 1,300 years. All the Maghreb countries are basically Arabic and, therefore, largely Muslim. There is a strong case to say that Islam has been endemic in Africa since its earliest days. Its historic presence is not all about black slavery.

There is a very strong case that Islam is more authentically African than Christianity. I don't have any numbers to hand but suspect that Islam is more widely practised in Africa than Christianity. Nigerian and Egyptian Muslims alone probably account for a third of the population of Africa.

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20. Comment #382940 by Ygern on May 29, 2009 at 8:38 am

Wikipedia has Christianity pipping Islam in Africa by a few percentage points:
45% to 40.6%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Africa

If their map is accurate then Christianity is more widely predominant as well.

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21. Comment #382941 by Richard Dawkins on May 29, 2009 at 8:48 am

Wikipedia has Christianity pipping Islam in Africa by a few percentage points:
45% to 40.6%

And Christianity is growing in Africa. There is a megachurch in Nairobi to rival Ted Haggard's in Colorado Springs, and it uses very much the same style of service and preaching.

Richard

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22. Comment #382942 by CaptainMandate on May 29, 2009 at 8:48 am

The big irony of African Americans picking Islam as their religion is that it is the religion of servitude, to convert to Islam is to willingly offer yourself up as a slave to Allah

Now personally I think the only thing worse than being forced into slavery is to go in willingly

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23. Comment #382946 by God fearing Atheist on May 29, 2009 at 8:50 am

[scarasm]

Isn't the advantage of Islam that it is "an equal opportunities enslaver" - black, white, green - all the same to them.

[/sarcasm]

Other Comments by God fearing Atheist

24. Comment #382947 by Lucas on May 29, 2009 at 8:51 am

Great article. I hope this trend continues.

Although I must say, I don't think atheists are the most internally persecuted group in need of outing in the black community. Black homosexuals, especially men, are almost flat-out denied their blackness by the rest of the black community. I once walked by a woman in Harlem who was dressed in African robes screaming the most vile and hate-filled epithets against gays. It was disgusting. Even more disgusting was the fact that no one on the street seemed to disagree or have any interest in telling her to shut up. I certainly couldn't, as I was the only white guy within blocks. That was the day I learned that the people in inner city ghettos were not that different than the trailer trash I grew up around in the midwest: poverty creates ignorance and intolerance no matter what your genetic background may be.

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25. Comment #382951 by happyatheist on May 29, 2009 at 8:59 am

I'm black (African American) and female and have been an atheist since I was 16 (probably sooner...and I turned 38 today)...My family was never religious but my dad had religious texts on our bookcase next to many other works of fiction...He encouraged my sis and I to read everything we could and to decide for ourselves what we "believed."

I never had a problem expressing my non-belief to anyone who brought it up...and I always used the word "atheist" rather than some other "softer" word that spared the feelings of the ultra-sensitive.

There have been numerous occasions where I was thought to be a "Christian" by certain people simply because I laughed and smiled a lot (got that from my free-spirited mom)...The idea that atheists can be happy, fulfilled people and not bitter, angry a--holes just didn't make sense to them. Whatever. LOL!

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26. Comment #382954 by Anvil on May 29, 2009 at 9:03 am

25. Comment #382951 by happyatheist

Yeah, Happy, they really can't understand why we can be happy, smiley, moral, content, fulfilled... (etc' etc')... human beings!

Anvil.

Edit: I'll second The Cap'n, there... Many Happy Returns.

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27. Comment #382956 by CaptainMandate on May 29, 2009 at 9:03 am

Happy Birthday Happy Atheist! XXX

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28. Comment #382959 by Ignorant Amos on May 29, 2009 at 9:19 am

25. Comment #382951 by happyatheist

Happy Birthday!!!

Nice post.

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29. Comment #382963 by Stewart Cowan on May 29, 2009 at 9:34 am

And you wonder why the Western World is going downhill faster than the Norwegian bobsled team.

Stewart Cowan
www.realstreet.co.uk

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30. Comment #382973 by Ed-words on May 29, 2009 at 10:30 am

Sally Luxmoore #4

Obama is looking more than "vaguely" religious.
Check out his Notre Dame speech and his court defense of US National Prayer Day, etc.etc.

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31. Comment #382977 by zengardener on May 29, 2009 at 10:38 am

Nice article.

“In these (black) communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God."

Atheism is the ultimate sin. That is the selfish meme at work. These other people can at least find forgiveness, even switching to a different religion is still worshiping the same god. Atheists are not likely to even care.

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32. Comment #382978 by InTheSkyGirl on May 29, 2009 at 11:00 am

I too am an African American Atheist (and female). I will be wearing my 'Atheist' t-shirt on the bike ride home in another desperate attempt to kill the stereotype, provoke thought, and drum up members for my local humanist group. All in a day’s work!

I can relate to everything the author mentions. One of my earliest letting go of god moments came when I made the mistake of asking my uncle, a minister, about his objection to female clergy existing, let alone sharing the pulpit. The smug justification of women being less than men (according to the bible of course) set me on the path of rejecting the faith. I was about 16, I guess.

My dad and brother were there too for this discussion. When I questioned the fairness of it all, my uncle sternly said, 'That's just the way it is. You have to take it or leave it". The smug expressions on the faces of these three black men in front of me forced that little voice in my head to say "Well I guess I'm going to have to leave it". It numbed me then to think that men who were used to being on the receiving end of discrimination could so seamlessly discriminate against others. It took a few years, but I am free of their life-hating, women-hating, self-hating dogma. This is probably more a story for Convert’s Corner (sorry about that).

I'm 39 and the only one who is outwardly atheist in my family (along with my kids and husband). Ridding the black community of god will have to come from the women I think; the men derive too much respect and power from it and they are loathe question something that would very well result in them loosing that status. As it has been pointed out here before, improving the economic and educational opportunities for women will go along way to giving religion the heave-ho for good. A good critical reading of the bible would help too. It pretty much sealed it for me.

Good article.

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33. Comment #382983 by zengardener on May 29, 2009 at 11:13 am

InTheSkyGirl
ride safe.

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34. Comment #382992 by InTheSkyGirl on May 29, 2009 at 11:47 am

Thanks zengardener. Will do! :-)

I'm always on the lookout for a stone cast in my direction to be honest when I wear the shirt. My state may show up blue on the political map, but still there are plenty of social conservatives around. A few times I have gotten smiles and waves even. I'd say they are in a dead heat with the number of perplexed looks though.

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35. Comment #382993 by Irat on May 29, 2009 at 11:56 am

16. Comment #382933 by CaptainMandate

We need a pseudo-thought terminating cliche here:

"Abuse begets abuse."

Also, happy birthday, Happy Atheist!

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36. Comment #382998 by Ai Deng on May 29, 2009 at 12:07 pm

This was really an interesting article...I was listening to a radio station after work around the time of pre-election 08', it is essentially a station that caters to the Black community, and they were taking caller responses to a parent who wasn't certain what to do about her child recently deciding they did not believe in god. None of the callers saw this as a good sign, but took it more as a teenage rebelious type of action. One male caller, said if his daughter did this he would beat the child until she believed...no, I'm not joking, he actually said it. Subsequently, a caller hinted this man was too harsh. It makes me think such a man has adopted the persona of the slave driver, but perhaps this is coincidence.

Nevertheless, I feel a deep sense of happieness and victory when I hear black voices of skepticism.

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37. Comment #382999 by bewlay_brother on May 29, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Comment #382873 by CaptainMandate on May 29, 2009 at 5:53 am

I believe it was the great philosopher of the mod movement, Roger Daltrey who once wrote:

"meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

A great song, but it was actually Pete Townsend who wrote it. Daltrey merely sang it..very well, in my opinion.

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38. Comment #383041 by dochmbi on May 29, 2009 at 2:47 pm

5. Comment #382861 by Die Griek on May 29, 2009 at 5:32 am

Religion is true to the common man, false to the wise, and useful to the rulers.

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39. Comment #383069 by KiwiInOz on May 29, 2009 at 5:19 pm

Is Anvil the new prophet? He/she predicted CaptainMandate's comment almost exactly.

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40. Comment #383079 by Sonic on May 29, 2009 at 7:16 pm

InTheSkyGirl wrote -

This is probably more a story for Convert's Corner (sorry about that).

No, thank you very much, your post was well structured, and it provided context on the topic. And I'm glad you interpreted "take it or leave it" at face value.

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41. Comment #383081 by Sonic on May 29, 2009 at 7:20 pm

By the way, I see two comments by Richard on the Alternate Comment Thread. Both comments seem relevant and responsible (as if I needed to say so). For his comments to end up here, physically what would have to happen? Would some number of different user accounts need to click troll?

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42. Comment #383088 by Bacchus on May 29, 2009 at 8:23 pm

Comment #383081 by Sonic

By the way, I see two comments by Richard on the Alternate Comment Thread. Both comments seem relevant and responsible (as if I needed to say so). For his comments to end up here, physically what would have to happen? Would some number of different user accounts need to click troll?

As I understand the process, it would only need five people with malicious intent, or one such person with five user accounts, to send all of the posts to the alternative thread. Clearly, another method is required to isolate trolls, perhaps rank filtering.

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43. Comment #383093 by prolibertas on May 29, 2009 at 9:27 pm

I'm starting to think 'irony' is the watchword of religion. St. Paul says 'Slaves, serve your masters with all fear and trembling, as unto Christ', and white plantation owners quote this as justification for slavery, and yet Christianity is somehow associated with equal rights progress?

By people who later turn around and deny equal rights to gays??

And don't get me started on blacks converting to Islam... the worship of an even more ruthless celestial slave-driver childishly demanding obedience on pain of eternal torture.

Irony irony irony!

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44. Comment #383104 by trvlnprof on May 29, 2009 at 11:38 pm

Wow, Dawkins is relegated to the status of troll on his own website. How does that happen?

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45. Comment #383105 by Layla Nasreddin on May 29, 2009 at 11:38 pm

I'm not sure why Richard's comments got moved to the Alternate Thread, but anyway...

Many African Americans have converted from Christianity, which they consider the 'white man's religion', to Islam, which they consider more 'authentically' African. (Which is rather ridiculous -- Islam started out as an Arab religion, so it is no more 'authentically African' than Christianity.)

Isn't it worse than that? Didn't Islam spread through Africa because of the slave trade, Arabs taking African slaves and paying African chieftains for them? Isn't the Swahili language (which contains a great deal of Arabic influence) the lingua franca of East Africa purely because it was spread, from its origins on the coast, by Arab slavers?

Well, that was more the case in East Africa. In North Africa Islam spread quickly after the Arab conquests and migrated southward through the Sahara along with the trade (and slave!) caravans. There were a number of black West African Muslim kingdoms such as Mali and Songhai in the 13th-16th centuries, and Timbuktu was once one of the foremost cities of learning in the Islamic world. Ibn Battuta, the famous 14th-century traveler, approvingly noted the Malians' zeal for religion: "They place fetters on their children if there appears on their part a failure to memorize the Qur'an, and they are not undone until they memorize it."

I used to get a kick out of the fact that the Swahili word safari comes from the Arabic safar, meaning journey or trip. Even the word Swahili means "of the coasts" in Arabic (sawahil), singular sahil or sahel, also the word used to describe the transitional area between the Sahara (sahra' is Arabic for "desert") and the more temperate regions to the south.

#18 Robert Stanyard

There is a very strong case that Islam is more authentically African than Christianity. I don't have any numbers to hand but suspect that Islam is more widely practised in Africa than Christianity. Nigerian and Egyptian Muslims alone probably account for a third of the population of Africa.

How on Earth do you figure that one? Before Islam came along, North Africa was primarily Christian (St Augustine was from what is now Algeria), Egypt to this day is still 10% Coptic Christian (monasticism was invented by St Anthony in the Egyptian desert), and Ethiopia was one of the first Christian countries, adopting it in the 4th century AD. If one is looking for truly "authentic" African religion, why not return to the old African paganism, which was at least home-grown?

In any case, I tend to reject the entire notion of "authentic" culture -- "authentic" as decided by whom, exactly? Who gave them the authority to determine what are and what are not "legitimate" and "authentic" expressions of culture? The hell with so-called cultural purity, I say, because there is no such thing!

Other Comments by Layla Nasreddin

46. Comment #383107 by Steve Zara on May 30, 2009 at 12:20 am

I have been sent to the alternate thread before. Fair enough. That is the way things are supposed to work. But to mark Richard as either troll, spam, or offensive seems rather silly to me, and perhaps an attempt to sabotage the site.

There have been black people who have been open about supporting rationalism for some time, such as the rather excellent Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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47. Comment #383108 by epeeist on May 30, 2009 at 12:29 am

Comment #383088 by Bacchus:

As I understand the process, it would only need five people with malicious intent, or one such person with five user accounts, to send all of the posts to the alternative thread. Clearly, another method is required to isolate trolls, perhaps rank filtering.

I know of at least two people who have sock puppets on the site who might stoop to this. Time for blocking by IP address if it turns out to have been somebody with multiple accounts.

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48. Comment #383109 by Brian English on May 30, 2009 at 12:38 am

How did Richard get sent to the alternate thread? The peasants are revolting.

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49. Comment #383110 by Brian English on May 30, 2009 at 12:40 am

Epeeist, I assure you it wasn't me. My sock puppet is resting peacefully.

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50. Comment #383114 by gerard26 on May 30, 2009 at 1:14 am

The late American writer Richard Wright put it best for me "I have no religion in the formal sense of the word"... I too am atheist and black.

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