Diversity (and Black people specifically) in the Atheist Movement

This second installment off the recent Texas Freethought Convention takes off from a panel called "Diversity in the Movement" which I was part of together with Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and Secular America, Jason Torpy of Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and Rich Rodriguez, of Rational Response Squad. There are many dimensions to diversity, but this installment will focus on Black people.

The conference as a whole was kicked off by an excellent talk that PZ Myers gave on mutants. PZ, as he is prone to do, made an entertaining and invigorating sport of scientifically refuting creationist bullshit. Almost like a bonus track, he threw in several scientifically rigorous lines of refutation of Spiderman and other comic books.

At a certain point, PZ explained that neanderthals interbred with early humans in Europe (after these early humans left Africa). As part of discussing mutations and how we are all mutants (be very afraid!), he explained that everyone with European or Asian background had some neanderthal DNA woven into our make-up. On the other hand, Africans and African Americans don't (I am sure this is not totally true as most Black people in this country have some European DNA at this point, but the main point he was demonstrating was valid and fascinating).

However, when PZ asked Black people in the audience to raise their hands – part of his engaging speaking style – there was a very long pause as everyone looked around the auditorium... searching... searching... searching for anyone Black. Finally, a young woman way in the back stood up, waved her hand and took a bow.

Now, it turns out there was more than one Black person in the room. But not very many more. This was rather shocking, and in some ways a very important lead-in to the "diversity" panel.



Sikivu Hutchinson & me
at Texas Freethought Convention

While I appreciated everyone's comments and perspective on the panel, I was especially pleased to be sharing the stage with Sikivu Hutchinson. I very much enjoyed (and recommend) her book. I interviewed her for Equal Time for Freethought and you can listen to it here.  She brought alive the reality of the New Jim Crow that confronts Black people; mass incarceration, institutional racism, and a white supremacist power structure. She spoke as well to the degradation and oppression of women, the assault on women's right to abortion and the special demonization of Black and Latina women who get abortions.  

I highlighted a quote from Bob Avakian's Away With All Gods that, "Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed."  Most oppressed people are still denied any real scientific education or exposure to atheism and this is something atheists must take much greater responsibility for changing.   It is a form of profound disrespect for people to think they are too stupid to come to understand the way the world actually is and to fail to struggle for them to take up science and unchain their minds from religious shackles. At the same time, there is tremendous oppression and crimes – from police brutality to mass incarceration to the assault on women's reproductive rights and beyond – that everyone needs to be coming together to fight and to build a movement for revolution to get rid of once and for all.   This fight should include both religious and atheist people.   I posed a different synthesis – of militant atheism but also of not making atheism a dividing line; instead making the fight against oppression and exploitation the dividing line (which actually divides both atheists and religious folks sharply, but in a much more favorable way in terms of bringing about a much better world in this world, the real world, the only world there is).

During the Q&A, one man posed that he wasn't sure that the right questions were being asked. Rather than ask, regarding Black people, "Why don't they come to our events?" and then having Black people always ask, "But why don't you take up our issues?" white atheists ought instead to support Black atheists in taking atheism to Black people.

I want to share my answer to this.


While there is importance to Black atheists fighting – and being supported in their efforts to fight – for atheism among Black people, it is profoundly wrong to equate "them" coming to "our" events (speaking of "them" as Black people and "our" as if all of us at an atheist convention primarily identify as "white atheists") with the notion of Black people insisting that "we" take up "their" issues.

The oppression of Black people is NOT "Black people's issue." The oppression of Black people is woven into the fabric of American society.  "There would be no United States as we know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth." (1:1, BAsics, from the talks & writings of Bob Avakian).  After that, it was Jim Crow and generations of racist terror in which every Black person lived under an active death warrant. It may or may not have been carried out, but it was always there and every Black person knew that any white person could accuse them at any time and they could be lynched, or wrongly imprisoned and sent to a chain gang (an incredible and important book, Douglas A. Blackmon's  Slavery By Another Name), or for no reason at all. Today, it's the New Jim Crow. 1 in 9 young Black men is in prison. Prisons institute widespread torture – by standards of international law (things like years and decades of isolation! – something California prisoners are currently hunger striking against), rampant police brutality and murder, the worst education, the worst health care, and the largest transfer of wealth out of the Black community in history through the recent mortgage crisis.

The retrenchment, in new forms, of the longstanding oppression of Black people in the U.S. is one of the great moral questions of this era. If this is not "your issue" then you are not leading a moral life. There is NO EXCUSE for white people (or other people not of African descent) in this country to treat this like someone else's problem.


To underscore further the problem with the kind of thinking reflected in the question posed, a bit more...


Black people don't owe any atheist organization their participation. I believe it would be very good if more Black people were atheists and if more Black atheists were involved in atheist organizations and activism. It would be even better if more Black people and more atheists (and the two are not mutually exclusive) were getting into the movement for revolution and transforming themselves in the course of coming together to transform the world. But this would be good because it would benefit Black people as a whole and humanity as a whole. That's why it's important. Not because Black people have an obligation to atheists organizations.

On the other hand, everyone on U.S. soil has a responsibility and a moral obligation to fight against the not-merely-historic but present-day-reality of profound and systematic oppression of Black people in the U.S.A.

Troy Davis was just recently legally lynched:  Overwhelming evidence of his innocence. 7 out of 9 witnesses recanted. No physical evidence linking him to the crime. A million people worldwide petitioned for a new trial. Thousands protested. Former prison wardens called for the Georgia prison officials to refuse to participate in the execution.  Former FBI Chief William Sessions called for commuting Davis' death sentence.  But Troy Davis was murdered by the U.S. State. I feel like screaming as I type. This is everyone's responsibility.

Okay, fine – a lot of white people (and frankly, a lot of immigrants from every part of the world) are kept ignorant of this reality.   But, you who are reading this – and those of you who had enough heart and interest to attend the diversity panel over the weekend – it is not acceptable and there is no excuse for remaining ignorant.  Follow the links in this article. Read up. Learn. Here is an excellent place to start, a special issue of Revolution dealing specifically with, "The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of this System and the Revolution We Need."  

“The young man was shot 41 times while reaching for his wallet”…“the 13-year-old was shot dead in mid-afternoon when police mistook his toy gun for a pistol”… “the unarmed young man, shot by police 50 times, died on the morning of his wedding day”… “the young woman, unconscious from having suffered a seizure, was shot 12 times by police standing around her locked car”… “the victim, arrested for disorderly conduct, was tortured and raped with a stick in the back of the station-house by the arresting officers.”

Does it surprise you to know that in each of the above cases the victim was Black?¹

If you live in the USA, it almost certainly doesn’t.

Think what that means:" read more...

* * *

Another point that I want to highlight was a comment from Naima Washington during Sikivu Hutchinson's presentation later that day. She said a number of things, building off much of what Sikivu spoke to about how Black people are viewed still in animalistic terms. Naima spoke to how Black people have been viewed as able to tolerate higher levels of pain, able to work harder without fatigue, and in other ways being physically predisposed to enslavement. She detailed how these myths continue in myths, including through myths of innate athletic super-prowess. (An important aside, Dorothy Roberts recently exposed how Black people are systematically prescribed significantly fewer pain-killers for the same medical procedures out of prejudices and assumptions about Black people.)  Then, at the tail end of her remarks, Naima commented that, while she is concerned about the number of people of color in the room, she is more concerned with the number of people of conscience.

Excuse my religious language, but A-Fucking-Men.

The participation of Black people (and other oppressed people) matters. It matters a lot. But even more – and frankly as a foundation to whether there will be an increasing basis for attracting and involving Black atheists – is whether there is a foundation of conscience. Once again, and as a conclusion to this entry, there is no foundation of conscience that does not include a firm stand against the oppression of Black people as "everybody's" issue.

Speaking in Houston - October 7 and 8!

Hey everyone!

This Friday and Saturday I’ll be speaking at

Atheist Alliance International – Texas Freethought Convention

I’m on panels on both Friday & Saturday, including a talk called

The Emancipation of Humanity

and a World Without Gods;

A Revolutionary Perspective

if you're in Houston area...hope to see you there!

Challenging People to Think: Activism for Atheism

[Originally published in On The Issues Magazine - fall issue on activism]

by Sunsara Taylor

People generally think of activism as something you do. But activism aimed at changing how people think is equally important. There is, after all, a profound connection between what people think, as well as how people think, and what they are willing – or not willing – to do.


In particular, the belief in god and the specific content of the world's major religions constitute huge shackles on people's minds and, as a result, on their behavior. Every major religion is highly oppressive, especially toward women. Religion has led people to take actions that are harmful to humanity; religious faith interferes with rational thought, and, religion frequently stands in the way of people's willingness to throw themselves into the struggle for liberation in the actually existing material world.

This, then, is the story of how, in the course of my revolutionary struggles – I am a communist revolutionary -- I came to activism on behalf of atheism.

Seeing Holes in the Cloth

I didn't come from an atheist background. Actually, I grew up a deeply believing Christian. As a little girl, I even read my Bible at night to my stuffed animals (so concerned was I for their eternal souls).
Religion interferes with rational thought

My Christian convictions initially dampened my own activism. I can remember the feeling of profound disorientation that arose when I first defended an abortion clinic in North Dakota back in 1995. I had longed to stand up in support of abortion doctors since the assassination of Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola in 1993. But at my first clinic event, I was confronted by Father Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life, on the other side of the barricades. I didn't know of all the ways he had whipped up an environment that led to doctors being killed; all I saw was his white collar, a symbol, which, to me, conveyed absolute moral authority. His presence on the other side and his direct challenge to me -- including through the use of the scripture -- shook me deeply.

Afterward, I struggled for months to sort this out. This process eventually led me to cast off belief in Christianity and in god altogether. I found no material evidence for the existence of god, although most people are indoctrinated with and surrounded by religious belief. Believers say that they accept the idea of god on faith, but there is tremendous historical evidence that every myth about god is man-made.

I became more outspoken about atheism as I saw how believing in things that one doesn't understand is not harmless: it interferes with rational thought, keeps people ignorant and causes real suffering.

For example, while organizing resistance to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush years, I frequently encountered Christian fundamentalists who were convinced that George W. Bush had been chosen as president by god. The fact that Bush had lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was irrelevant to these fundamentalists because, they insisted, he was acting on higher truths than those of mere men.

People's religious beliefs also keep them from taking effective political action, even in the face of screaming outrages. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I made several trips to New Orleans. Residents of the Ninth Ward shared stories with me of being trapped in the floodwaters, discovering deceased loved ones upon return and wondering what had become of their still-missing neighbors. However, more than a few of these residents disregarded my suggestions of resistance against the government's criminal response because, they insisted, the real cause of the hurricane was their own sinfulness.

Of course, there are many people whose religious beliefs motivate them to struggle against injustice. I have worked with and learned from many of them over the years. I certainly don't think belief in god should be a dividing line in the fight for a better world.

At the same time, the content of the major world religions -- Christianity no less than any other -- is horrifically oppressive. The Bible was written by human beings who lived in patriarchal, slave-owning, agrarian societies before the development of science. Consequently, the Bible is saturated with the ignorance and prejudices of their times. For example, the Bible insists that women obey their husbands as the lord (Ephesians 5:22); that homosexuals be executed (Leviticus 20:13); that disobedient children be stoned to death (Matthew 15:4), and that slaves obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5). Upholding these Bible myths is upholding enslavement and oppression, and is very harmful to real people in the world today.

Beyond the harmful content, taking things on faith stands in the way of seeking to understand the real world causes for why things happen and the real world possibilities for radical change.

Exposing People to A Different Way

My activism for atheism involves explaining what atheism is -- many people around the country have never been exposed to atheist thinking at all. I engage in panels and debates at university campuses, in community forums or on the radio. In 2009, I appeared on a Black talk radio station in Atlanta. Some callers debated me fiercely over scripture, others felt they had the space to announce their own atheism for the first time, but almost everyone thanked the host for bringing them a perspective they'd never heard on Black radio before. At times, my advocacy on atheism taken me right into the thick of religious zealots. In 2006, I attended a stadium rally of tens of thousands of Christian youth who were preached to by Navy SEALs, Franklin Graham and George W. Bush himself (via a letter). I went with a group of revolutionaries to learn more, to write about it and to directly challenge the youth to get out. Much to my surprise, in the middle of the event, my face was projected onto the huge JumboTron screen that showed a television debate I'd done with the group's leader, Ron Luce. Suddenly, my anonymity disappeared and I felt the "battle cry" crowd look at me as the personification of the devil. Still, just in the last month -- all these years later -- I received a copy of a letter from someone who met us at that rally, had since broken with fundamentalism and now wanted to do something better in life.

In championing atheism, I am not merely giving people new information (as important as that is). I am challenging people to think with a different method. I prod them not to follow someone just because of the person's claimed religious authority and not to accept things on faith. Instead, I want people to evaluate things based on evidence, to ask questions (including about what I am saying), to seek answers in the material world and to put their energies to transforming this world. "Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed," wrote Bob Avakian, author of Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World. I seek not merely to "balance" my commitment to "unchaining the mind" with my commitment to "radically changing the world," but to working for the best possible dynamism and mutual reinforcement between those two interrelated missions.

I came to the fight for atheism as part of my larger commitment to the liberation of humanity through communist revolution. My approach of engaging people around atheism differs from that of other activists who are building political resistance but insist that any debate over religion just "gets in the way." It also differs from those who are single-minded about atheism and look down on those with religious faith as if they are stupid or have no insights.

Fighting the attacks on women driven by Christian fundamentalism

Taking up the fight for atheism has especially strengthened my ability to fight for the liberation of women. When I stand in defense of abortion clinics, whether in Mississippi or Colorado or elsewhere, I see pro-choice people, particularly young women, go through the same kind of disorientation that I felt when I first heard "my" bible used against me. I am able to help them see that they are up against human authorities -- both the patriarchal humans who wrote the Bible and the patriarchal humans who are wielding it to terrorize doctors and shame women -- not up against the "word of god." Not everyone casts off her belief in religion, but a seed is planted, and the young women feel a weight lifted to have this question addressed head on.

On the flip side, I struggle for the atheist community to put more energy into fighting the attacks on women driven by Christian fundamentalism. After giving a talk on this subject at an international atheist conference, women thanked me and shared their stories of abortion. One young woman burst into tears as she explained that even though she grew up pro-choice and been active in the atheist movements, she'd never heard anyone say that abortion was okay. She had begun to feel like there must be something wrong with her for never having felt remorse about her abortion.

People who are atheists can do more to open people's minds. For one thing, they can come "out" about it. Many people have never met an atheist and are denied the opportunity to consider it for themselves.

Atheists can challenge people to confront the passages in the Bible or other religious texts that command injustices. Ask, "Would the world be better, or worse, if those commandments were followed?" It is not an insult to challenge people to cast off beliefs that are not founded in reality; it is an insult to think that anyone is incapable of coming to understand the material world without the lens of religion.