Hello everyone. Words really cannot express how flattered and excited I am to be included with some of my favourite bloggers here at FreeThoughtBlogs. This is a problem, because as a blogger, it’s sort of my job to express things in words. Despite this disappointing shortcoming on my part, I am overwhelmingly grateful to have you cast your eyes on this humble page. You probably have questions, and I will do my best to anticipate and answer them.

Who the hell are you?

I go by the handle ‘Crommunist’, not as a poorly-veiled allusion to any particular political philosophy (besides the one of my own devising), but because my last name (Cromwell) was shorted in youth to ‘Crommie’. When a friend astutely pointed out how this made me sound like ‘Commie’, I seized upon the opportunity to re-brand myself online as Crommunist. I am a health services researcher living and working in Vancouver, Canada. When I am not working, I am also a part-time musician and member of the Vancouver branch of the Centre for Inquiry.

What makes you think you deserve to be here?

I’ve been blogging steadily since March, 2010, but my intermittant blog career stretches back nearly a decade. The Manifesto originally began as an opportunity to clarify some thoughts and ongoing questions that I’d been having with issues I felt were important, and quickly morphed into a platform for me to discuss issues of race, religion, politics, law, sex, and a whole host of other topics. Since my humble beginnings, I’ve had my skeptical activity and arguments featured on Pharyngula, been a guest feature on Friendly Atheist and Skeptic Money, as well as anti-racist blog Racialicious. I’m also a regular author on Canadian Atheist.

The FTB powers that be first extended me an invitation back in July to contribute here. I have been a fly on the wall of many of the blogs here at the FTB collective both before and after launch, but I strongly suspect that I had a patron who lobbied for my inclusion. I will not name who I suspect this party to be, but I will say that I will make it my business not to disappoint her/him.

Why should I read/what are your qualifications?

I have been derided on the occasions where my work has been featured outside of my personal site as an ‘unqualified blogger’. I will be the first to admit (in fact, I had admitted long before I received any such attention) that my academic qualifications are modest and ancillary to most of my blog topics. I am aware that this makes my work completely unpalatable to the upper crust of those who read blogs. If you are one of those, I apologize for being a person who has ideas without the credentials to back up such conceit. If you are someone who is able to evaluate ideas based on their content and not their speaker, then I invite your critical eye.

As for why you should read this blog, the main bread and butter of the Crommunist Manifesto has to do with race, racism, and race issues. While I cannot claim a degree in these topics, I have spent a lifetime agonizing over these realities and what they’ve meant for me personally. I would never dream of claiming that my personal experience can be abstracted to every black person on the planet (in fact it’s probably fairly atypical). However, while there are lots of blogs about race, and lots of blogs about skepticism, I seem to have tapped in to a small niche crossover market where there isn’t a lot of representation. If you are interested in discussions of how race, like religion, shapes the world in which we live – often in ways we don’t discern right away – this might be a place worth spending some time.

Why is race worth talking about? Isn’t it all socially constructed anyway?

If theology has taught us anything (and that’s a big ‘if’), it’s that something does not have to be real (in an empirical sense) to exert major influence, or do major harm. However, a few people simply embracing the fact that the emperor is naked does not negate the thousands more that gape at his resplendent finery. I want us, as a community of freethinkers, as a society, as a species, to apply the principles of skepticism to the topic of race. We should note the effect it has, while pointing out as loudly and often as possible that we are labouring under a falsehood – that people can be meaningfully sorted by superficial physical characteristics. Waiting for racism to go away on its own is not an option. Well, not a good one, anyway.

One thing that I’ve learned from reading Blag Hag is that there is a world of similarities between feminist thought and anti-racist thought. Many of the issues are transferrable, and align quite well with the humanist principles that most freethinkers espouse. If you think that feminism and the treatment of women are within the scope and compass of FreeThoughtBlogs, then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble accepting the need for discussing anti-racism. If you don’t think these issues are important, then please stick around and allow me to try and change your mind.

Why not blog about your scientific background?

I do occasionally dip my pen in the ink of the stuff of my day job. I try to do this sparingly, mostly because I would like to do my best to stave off the equation of my online persona with my professional identity. I do not work as a professional blogger, I do not blog at work, and my opinions as expressed here are in no way affiliated with my employer. However, I chose to devote my time to studying the equitable and affordable delivery of health care for a reason – and it sure weren’t the big paycheque. I am passionately interested in health care, so I will occasionally discuss those issues if I feel they’re relevant.

I am sure there are more questions, and I am happy to answer as many of them as I can (although many of them may be answered in my helpful FAQ). Please feel free to drop a comment on this, or any other post. Until then, I bid you welcome, and hope that you will keep on reading.

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DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed at The Crommunist Manifesto are solely those of the author named in the title of the post (which is most often Crommunist). Crommunist specifically disavows any association between any content appearing on this site and any other person or group, including (but not limited to) employers, political organizations, academic institutions or non-governmental charity organizations unless specifically stated otherwise. At no time should anything appearing here be construed to reflect the position or opinion of anyone other than the author. The author is not responsible for any remarks taken out of context or misinterpreted.

To avoid having to re-hash a number of topics that I’ve already explored, I am setting this page up as a general destination for some of the questions or comments I get most commonly, grouped by category for your convenience. If I have referred you here, it’s because you asked one of these questions or some permutation thereof. Please take the time to read and understand before re-stating your question.

Why are you called ‘Crommunist’? What is ‘Crommunism’?

When I was 12, my classmates used to refer to each other in diminutive forms of our various last names. In such a fashion, I became “Crommie”. An astute classmate pointed out the similarity between that nickname and “Commie”, and began calling me a “Crommunist”.

Since that time, I have developed a set of political and philosophical principles that borrow from Enlightenment philosophy, methodological skepticism, anti-racist and feminist thought, and various other tidbits borrowed from books, movies, plays, what-have-you. While they bear little or no resemblance to actual communism, it is useful for me to bundle them together as “Crommunism”.

Interestingly, I do define “Crommunism” in contrast to “crapitalism”, which is the exchange of valuable goods and energy for meaningless crap. Under the umbrella of ‘crap’ I place religion, pseudoscience, most of modern conservatism, arch-liberalism, cultural relativism, and a variety of other topics that I take great pleasure in skewering at every available opportunity.

General stuff

• We’ve gotten much better about ______. Can’t we just leave it alone already?
• What is your position on free speech? On hate speech?
• Isn’t everyone entitled to their opinion? Who are you to say I’m wrong?
• Criticizing ideas rather than the people who hold them.
• Why are you/atheists so angry? (Really, tone trolling of any kind)
  A different tack on this argument: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Religion

• Why don’t you believe in a god/gods? What is your deconversion story?
   (Part 2)
  (Part 3)
  (Part 4)
• You have to believe in science, just like I believe in religion.
• Why can’t you just let religious people/alt-med subscribers/other non-rational group believe what they want?
  (Part 2)
  (Part 3)
• Why do you want to take religion away from people?
  (Part 2)
• You should try not to offend religious people!

Race/Racism/Anti-racism (many of these questions are answered in video form)

• What is ‘race’?
  (part 2)
  (part 3)
• What is ‘racism’?
• What is ‘white privilege’?
• What makes you qualified to talk about race?
• You’re not really black.
• I don’t notice race/why not just treat everyone equally? 
• I’m not a racist.
• Racism is just what liberals say when a conservative speaks/I can’t be racist – I’m a liberal!
• Why should I feel guilty just because I’m white?
• I’m not a white supremacist – I’m a racial realist.
• How do we get more black people to identify as atheists?
• Why do we want more black people in the freethought movement?
  (Part 2)
• Why do you need to call yourself a ‘black atheist’? Why can’t you just be an atheist?
• “The N word” is just a word! By choosing to be offended, you grant it power. 

I don’t hold out any great hope that this will be sufficient to forestall these questions being asked again and again, but hopefully it will help stem the tide a little.