by Sikivu Hutchinson
It’s not easy being a Black atheist, “partly due to the fact that the history of African American civil and human rights resistance is heavily steeped in Judeo-Christian religious dogma.” If you’re a woman, it’s worse. “While black male non-believers are given more leeway to be heretics, black women who openly profess atheist views are deemed especially traitorous, having abandoned their family role as purveyors of cultural and religious tradition.” Church dogma exerts a warping influence on the culture. “In these (black) communities,” notes one Black writer, “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.”
“Out of the Closet”: Black Atheists
by Sikivu Hutchinson
“The history of African American civil and human rights resistance is heavily steeped in Judeo-Christian religious dogma.”
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 like 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.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.
No matter one’s actual deeds, life path or personal mores, to be unquestioningly religious in some quarters is to be inoculated from criticism. Noting this historical irony in his blog “The Black Atheist,” Wrath James White states, “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.” For Wright, this “is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embrace of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slave masters and oppressors.”
“Proclaiming one’s non-belief amidst genial wishes to ‘have a blessed day’ is never easy.”
While there have been critical appraisals of African American adoption of Christianity within the context of European conquest and racial slavery, few propose atheism as a corrective. Indeed, atheism would seem to fly in the face of a cultural ethos that frames earthly pain and suffering as a crucible for achieving rewards in the afterlife. In the midst of extreme brutality religious faith can either be seen as a means to mental health, or, as Karl Marx put it more bluntly, an opiate.
In this sense contemporary black religiosity is the legacy of a culturally specific survival strategy. Many black secular community-based organizations still look to the black church as a coalition partner and resource. Disturbingly, the church is often uncritically perceived as the “backbone” of the black community. However, as the debate over California’s Proposition 8 demonstrated, the notion that there is a monolithic “marching in lockstep” black community is terminally outdated. On issues of gender and sexual orientation, the overwhelming opposition of many prominent black churches to granting civil rights to partnered African American gays and lesbians is morally indefensible. When it comes to attitudes about traditional gender roles, gender-based assumptions about black female religiosity are double-edged. While black male non-believers are given more leeway to be heretics, black women who openly profess atheist views are deemed especially traitorous, having abandoned their family role as purveyors of cultural and religious tradition. Images of black women faithfully shuttling their children to church and socializing them into Christianity are a prominent part of mainstream black culture. If being black and being Christian are synonymous, then being black, female and religious (whatever the denomination) is practically compulsory. Black women with children who don’t fall in line, who raise their children as atheists, may find their race credentials revoked.
“Black women who openly profess atheist views are deemed especially traitorous.”
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. Yet, in this, the most swaggeringly “liberal humanist” of all nations, “coming out” as an atheist in a culture that parades religious dogma as a substitute for true morality may be one of the final ideological frontiers for African Americans.
Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM. She can be contacted at sikivu@blackfemlens.org
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Atheism, religion, and christianity.
I would like to take the time to respectfully disagree with you about the nature of religion in the Black community. First, I am not a christian nor do I practice an official religion of any sort. When people ask what religion I am I usually say that I am non-religious though not atheist. With no disrespect to the atheist community. Howver, what you are speaking of when you speak of christianity is a Greco-Romaniticized version of an African spiritual system. It is quite clear from the history of the teachings of Jesus, even as it is taught in European theological seminaries that an African concept was highjacked and repurposed for the express purpose of exploitation. All religion is nothing more than a way of organizing community and teaching the people what is considered important to that community. While I agree that christianity was and is used as a means of exploitation what we see now as christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus. The elites always look for ways to play on the ignorance and fear of the masses to advance their own aims and secular humanism is just as easily exploited in that way. At the root of all religious tradition are always several concept, they are: justice and in the absence of justice; charity, Mercy and in the absence of Mercy; grace, caring for the less fortunate, family and the care of children and the elderly. I agree with the atheist that in most societies we rarely practice these concepts but that does not negate the need to have these as the standard. As for the use of Christianity to enslave Black people we most remember that the true religion of those that created and manipulated this diabolical system is not christianity nor judaism, nor Islam but power and money. These people will use any tool available to advance that cause. We must remember the communist used a religious belief in Atheism to enslave large parts of the worlds population so too did the Nazi party. Moreover, the patriarcal tendecy within western religion is owed more to culture than religion. In fact, it is one of the things that the west hates most about African society as it was originally practiced having a strong tradition of matriarchy and being mainly matrilineal. In conclusion, I do not care what religion you practice or if you practice one at all as long as you seek to advance the community building themes that are supposed to be at the root of these tradition but are rarely seen in real life.
Your Worldview
What a pleasure to read your wise and humane commentary. Thank God for the Church of the Web! Peace and love, brother!
Great Article!
There is nothing much destructive than this toxic genocidal religious ideologies i.e christianism, islamism etc on the "african" people in general.
I am from "africa" and wow what the article just explained above is worst of in the continent. At this moment in time, I am in a state of awe, asking myself, had these people (africans) not yet come to their senses that this conventional toxic religious ideologies isone of the most potent weapon that has been and is still being used to exterminate them?
Beside, what ever happened to our cultural root african traditioanl spirituality? Should I even express how surprise I am to be witnessing how my own people even demonize their root cultural spirituality even more than how their genociders will do?
Much more as the ariticle rightly explains, I am even more surprised that the descendants of the brave men/women who sent through the unthinkable called slavery are now romancing in this same poisonous ideology that was used to justify the very unthinkable process that their ancestors went through. Even if their ancestors did embraced it, I can come to their support because they were going through a terribly situation. Today, its time to use intellectual reasoning and shun this embarrassing thought pattern.
Growing up , I was sedated and dead into this grave called christianism as well but my curious mind was always open and little by little I came to realise its a destructive ideology that slowly extinct my existence. From thence I quickly shunned it. I have been trying to pass the message to my friends and those around me only to labelled "satan" "devil" etc. It makes me laugh because even their oppressor is now laughing at them on how they now embrace the very tool that was used for their conquest.
Its real a shame and total disgrace that the entire "african" people are stil mostly existing within the box and don't even want anyone to mention anything outside that box. They deliberately refused to wake up. They are willingly committed to ignorance. I am concern because this jeopardizes my own life because the slavers are still doing their slaving work now indirectly with the consent of the people without the people even knowing that they have consented to be enslaved through adopting the slavery in their minds. Due to this, I am enslaved as well since I can't fight alone.
I will tell any "african" out there who is falling to any of this conventional toxic genocidal religious ideology that, WE STILL HAVE OUR AFRICAN SPIRITUALITY. So, they should do well to retrace their roots. Its a total SHAME that we can't be ourselves.
I challenge all these religiou dead people with this infamous
Kenneth Eng's infamous article: Why I Hate Blacks
http://www.weneedtostop.com/2008/01/kenneth-engs-infamous-article.html
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To conclude, I would like to connect with all black people who are atheist out there especially blackwomen. One price I am paying now for my stance is loneliness as everyone around me just flee as if I am some sought of alien from outer space. Any reference to balck atheist group will be appreciated. email is cnngwa(att)yahoo(dot)com
thanks. again, Great article.
free thought
I understand why the monker "free thinkers" has been adopted by atheists. I have long held that the most destructive invention of man (read "men") has been organized religion.