As a relatively rare woman in the humanist/atheist/freethinker/skeptic/etc. movement, I have an interest in the demographics of said movement. There are many, many thoughts as to why there are so few women and so few people of color and I always find it fascinating to hear the stories of difficulties coming to terms with being different.
Mercedes Diane Griffin Forbes at Unscripted has written a very interesting post on her transition from Christian to humanist, the particular challenges and benefits of humanism to African Americans, and how the complete integration of Black Life and Religious Life is a contributing factor to the difficulties African Americans face.
I asked myself, “Why were people so hell bent on worshipping a god that justified their enslavement?….in worshipping a god that justified the stealing of their land and the displacement of their people?” “Why could so many I encountered not even conceive of a morality not based on religion?” Racism affects the very reality upon which one values him or herself within the given societal paradigm. Living in America, it is easy to become consumed with self-hate and defeat. So many of Black and Brown people give up on their lives before they really ever begin! Because of this, the promise of life ever-lasting can be extremely appealing and religion continues as a most effective mechanism for perpetual bondage, keeping the masses intellectually and emotionally enslaved.
Culture can be broken down into three main concepts. The cultural seed, which is the determinative and explanatory aspect of a culture that puts into perspective the cultural manifestations of a people in reference to their historical and cultural evolution; the way a people must think in order to manifest its cultural seed; and the will of the culture, purpose, and collective behavior of a people.
I believe humanism can be the new cultural seed, upon which we build a stronger sense of our humanity, a deeper understanding of our connection to each other and to the world in which we live. The more I learned and the more I observed, it became obvious that the very seed from which African American culture had been shaped was fertilized by Christianity. And as is always the problem with toxic fertilizers, it cannot simply be washed away because it now a part of the fruit itself. Black life and church life have become synonymous, and the only way to adjust for this is by planting a new cultural seed, one fertilized with concepts of freethought!
I was glad to read this short essay. I have wondered about the emphasis on Christianity in the African American community, and the authority of ministers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Al Sharpton as political leaders as well as religious figures.
Recently on Bill Maher’s TV show, Richard Dawkins gave Bill Maher a gift of a T-Shirt that said “We Are All Africans”
http://theperplexedobserver.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-are-all-africans-dawkins-on-real.html
and although when I learned about that in a physical anthropology class, it was a huge eye opener to me and explained a lot.
When fair-skinned skeptics try to say that, though, I think it ignores the recent 500 years or so of recent history when black Africans have been kidnapped and enslaved, and even when slavery is officially off the books, Jim Crow laws have kept “minorities,” former slaves, second class citizens — with sneaky voting rights stumbling blocks, job discrimination, educational discrimination and subtle economic biases such as real estate redlining and law enforcement discrimination.
My very distant ancestors came from Africa, first via Northern Europe where they settled long enough to have evolved fair skin, green eyes and brownish hair — before my great grandfather migrated to the United States. I can’t say with a straight face to an African American whose ancestors arrived here chained in the bowels of a slave ship that we hail from the same continent and we are sistahs under the skin…. I’m sorry, but that is so inauthentic. I am glad if some African Americans have been able to turn in their faith for secular humanism – but I have not lived their lives and do not know what comfort their faith has provided them. I had always assumed that the promise of a better life in the hereafter, “pie in the sky,” was the answer. But that doesn’t explain why those that have crossed over, made it economically and intellectually, remain Christians, so I thought it must be the same as for a percentage of all humans… a need to have whatever it is that religion satisfies, and that there are some of us in all races, since race is an artificial human category, that are not religious. My opinion.
Dear Ms Miller:
The main reason Blacks in this country are so beholden to Christianity is that it was through the Church that the Negro slave found hope in the story of Exodus. Then upon emancipation; with the freedom to study and preach the gospel, were greatly influenced by Church dissidents. For many who fought and died to end slavery were the children of immigrants whose families had escaped from the religious persecution of Europe and Russia. Where, with the advent of the printing press and increase of literacy, the written word was made accessible to the commoner, who learned the true story of Christ and of Jesus’ teachings, and rebelled against ecclesiastical law. Dr. King’s life and death is a testimonial to the continuing saga of the Western World’s conflict of religious interests. Where it’s either more important to behold your neighbor or the Pope, depending on who puts more bread on the table.
And Ms. Hughes; if human kind did derive from a common African ancestor, it was very long ago. The black African of today is surely different in design and disposition. Plus with so many variations on theme, one would be hard put to pick the original tribe. Race is not artificial. The Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid subspecies are very real, and there’s much more than superficial color that divides them. Differences of environmental, stress and disease tolerances; food allergies and preferences: with hormonal, adrenal and sensual distinctions. It may not be politically correct, but the medical and genetic sciences are racist. What we’re dealing with here are semantics; to like burnets’-a preference, to hate redheads’-a prejudice, to believe blonds’ are stupid –bigotry: to perceive ethnic variation –racist.
In a wonderful turn of events, Desiree Schell from Skeptically Speaking covering this tonight!!
“The first show of our host station’s CJSR’s annual FunDrive campaign features a look at the science of race, with Guy P. Harrison, author of Race and Reality: What Everyone Should Know about Our Biological Diversity. Is there any real biological basis to race? And how does it compare with our cultural understanding?”
http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/episodes/83-race-and-reality/
Dear Skeptic Schell:
I’ll check it out. But it’s off-point. Ms. Miller’s query is not scientific. Biological differences are always subjuctive: depending on how WE draw the lines. Demigraphically, Caucaian is a minority race.
As a male of African-American descent, I have been asked what were my thoughts as to why there are so few women and minorities involved in the Atheist/Freethinker/Humanist movement. These are my thoughts…
I think that the greater a social group’s sense of disenfranchisement in life, the greater it’s need for the comforting opiate of religion and the “happy ending” offered by the belief that things will be better after a person die – a sad concept that gives people the needed emotional crutch to deal with injustices today, because a misguided sense of “fair-play”, demands a redress of grievances tomorrow, (even if you’re dead and it’s too late).
The corollary is also true. The more education, (and this includes global travel), understanding and control you have over your life and the aspects of reality that matter to you, the less you need, (or want), a divine figure looking over your shoulder, propping you up, protecting you, and certainly not telling you how to think and what to do.
The various factors above represent probabilities – not absolutes. And they are cumulative. So, if a person is poor, they have a greater chance of being theist then if they were rich. If the person is female the chances go up, and in the West, due to the lack of value imposed upon cultures belonging to those who have “black” or “brown” skin, the probabilities jump further still. Of course, after you factor in the assumed lack of any need or desire to fully educate those “whose real purpose is only to serve”, the odds skyrocket.
This explains why, (insert disclaimer here!), women are more prone to religious behavior then men, why the poor are more pious then the rich, why Minorities in the Western World are more devote as a group, why non-industrialized tribal cultures are theists of one kind or another, and why education and understanding facilitates the ability to conceptualize new paradigms outside of superstition and discard pithy platitudes that have no grounding in fact, such as, “What goes around, comes around”.
In the Western world, without the social acceptance, and education necessary to craft your own subjective reality outside of that which is projected upon you by the socio-economic values of the greater society, a person is compelled to seek self-ratification elsewhere. Even if it’s solace within the false embrace of a fantasy.
The imagined “need” and “acceptance” of the culturally shared fantasy that is religion, is repleat with both negative reinforcement from outside the cultural group, and positive reinforcement from within. This heightens a perceived need and strengthens an extremely pernicious grip upon the individuals psyche in the classic behaviorist psychology sense of stimuli, response, and constant reinforcement.
The above generalizations and stereotypes form the basis of my theory explaining the reduced number of white women to their male counterparts, and the almost complete lack of people of color, from either gender, who feel empowered enough to step outside the safety-net of cultural acceptance to identify themselves as Atheists in the Western world.
Regretfully, I have no facts or figures to back this up. It is based upon my observations, (being mindful of Schrödinger’s cat), from years of living as a member of different cultures, within various socio-economic strata, and amongst different peoples around the world, tempered by an informal study of human behavior and heaps of anecdotal evidence.
Mr. Leron:
Much better, now we’re getting somewhere. But not a theory, barely a hypothesize, and I’m sure Ms. Miller can draw her own conclusions. Where cautioned to reject an unfounded notion that religious virtue prevents freethinking. As Dr. Einstein said, “I want to think like God.”
I am submitting this link to a story in the New Yorker by science journalist Malcolm Gladwell that addresses the differences between strong relationships and weak relationships such as real friendships and cyber friendships, and the beginning of his story is the Woolworth sit ins of the beginning of the Civil Rights movement in the American South
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
The story explains how the four college students who started the sit in were actual friends and that the type of relationship that they had gave them strength to engage in such a courageous act. But the narrative also goes on to explain the role of the churches in the Civil Rights movement. It was an unexpected avenue in Gladwell’s piece, and reminded me of this SheThought thread.
Time is money because the outdated saying goes, and by reading this post, I realized that I saved myself numerous valuable time, which would have been otherwise spent on studying low consistency data all around the almighty web. Thank you for the straight to the purpose, valuable input!