The consequence of misunderstanding racism

It seems I’ve been having this fight more and more since I started blogging about it: people don’t particularly like my definition of racism. Some argue that it is too broad, and that acts that are not maleficent should not be branded as ‘racist’. Others argue that using the word in this way strips it of its power – that ‘racist’ should be a term that shuts down conversation. I do not recognize the validity of either of these arguments, for reasons I have explained in my definition post. Briefly, an act does not have to be distinctly negative to be racist, and as a direct consequence the word should never be used to shut down conversation; rather, it should be used to accurately label those things that are motivated by an ideology that a member of an individual group is representative of the entire group.

Despite all the pretty talk about the so-called “post-racial” America, the United States has a serious race problem:

Mrs (Shirley) Sherrod was videoed giving a speech in March at a dinner of a Georgia chapter of the NAACP, a prominent civil rights group. The clip was picked up on by conservatives as evidence of anti-white racism in President Barack Obama’s government and within the NAACP, an organisation seen as Democratic-leaning.

The remarks in question were part of a story Mrs. Sherrod was telling about being reluctant to help a white farmer gain government assistance because of her history with white people. The offending clip can be seen here:

Pretty bad, right? Racist, in fact! A government employee discriminating against someone based on their race! It’s perfectly right to fire her, isn’t it?

The entire speech is 44 minutes long, and it was distilled into a 90-second clip by Fox News. Your bullshit radar should immediately go off. But of course, you’re a reasoning, thinking adult. You know whose bullshit radar didn’t go off?

Mrs Sherrod was promptly sacked, her remarks condemned by the administration and the NAACP.

That’s right, the NAACP (who, by the way, hosted the event, and heard her remarks in context) and her boss, Secretary Tom Vilsack, leaped into the fray with both feet before examining any of the evidence. Here’s the full speech, with the remarks in context (start watching at about 17:30):

Taken in context, this is a story about how this woman was able to realize that the black/white issue she had been taught was in have a rich/poor issue. She saw the man being mistreated at the hands of other white people, and realized the issue was about haves vs. have-nots, with race being a coincidental heuristic. It’s a positive story about learning to put racial history and animosity aside, and to deal with things as fact.

(@21:20)”Working with him made me see that it’s really about those who have versus those who haven’t. They could be black, they could be white, they could be Hispanic. And it made me realise then that I needed to help poor people – those who don’t have access the way others have.”

So why was such a snap judgment made? Why did this woman get fired immediately without having an opportunity to tell her side of the story? Why did the White House have to intervene and backtrack from a hasty and stupid decision? Because the word ‘racism’ was thrown into the conversation. As soon as that word comes up, conversation shuts down. Brains shut down. In order to avoid even the appearance of complicity with racism, we make stupid and hasty decisions. All this because we are so paranoid over talking about race and racial issues. Well the conversation is happening now.

It sends a chill down my spine whenever Glenn Beck gets something right:

But in this case, the blind squirrel finds a nut of truth.

I am officially a Twit

It’s been 6 months here at the Manifesto, I’ve been lucky enough to generate a decent number of regular readers, and sporadically I get a flood of new traffic. If you’re interested in keeping up-to-date with the latest posts and information, and you use Twitter, you can follow me (@Crommunist). Plus there is a picture of my sexy face, so you can bask in its gloriousness and gloriosity.

“Ground Zero Mosque” is contentious issue

You may have heard recently about plans to build a mosque close to the site of the World Trade Centre remains. Many people are outraged that “they” would try to put up “their” religious centre near where “they” committed an act of terrorism. I put the “they” in quotes for what I hope are obvious reasons – it wasn’t representatives of the Muslim community that hijacked the planes. It wasn’t representatives of the Muslim community that rejoiced when the towers fell.

But it was Muslims, and its easy to paint “them” with the same brush.

So a group that is representative of the Muslim community (whatever that may be) wants to put up a mosque in Manhattan. The stated purpose of the mosque is an admirable one: show the terrorists that Muslims are Americans too, and that they stand solidly behind the United States in ensuring religious freedom. However, the monster of prejudice and mistrust is rearing its ugly head:

A landmark commission hearing may determine the future of a proposed mosque near Ground Zero. The ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee said Monday he favours an investigation into the funding of the mosque.

Given the reality that terrorist groups and foreign governments who are friendly with those groups are peddling influence in the United States, a review of the funding is perhaps warranted. What isn’t clear to me is why this structure and not others are of particular importance, unless it’s simply due to its locale. Mayor Bloomberg, who is opposed to such investigation, surprises me for taking the stand that he does; however, I don’t necessarily disagree with him.

Amazingly, the network media is doing exactly what I hoped they’d do:

Entitled “Kill the Ground Zero Mosque”, the video calls the proposed mosque a “monstrosity” that will invite further attacks on the US. The advertisement has received over 100,000 page views on YouTube. Neither CBS nor NBC, two of the major US television networks, will screen the advert.

The important thing is not whether or not they refuse to air it, but why. It appears that the reason has nothing to do with “not offending Muslims”, but more to do with the actual values of the United States:

In emails obtained by the news website Politico, NBC Universal advertising standards manager Jennifer Riley wrote that because it did not make a distinction between terror groups and the religious organisation behind the mosque, “the ad is not acceptable under our guidelines for broadcast”.

This is not blind capitulation to the sensitive feelings of the Muslim community, but a recognition of the need to distinguish between terrorists and people who share their religious label. As far as I am concerned, this is being handled correctly. This is how secularism can work, even if I don’t like the fact that in excess of $100m is being spent on a site of religious worship.

CFI Vancouver Presents PZ Myers: Atheism in the Scientific Battleground

It was a big weekend for Vancouver skeptics. On Friday, July 30th, we hosted biology professor, speaker and celebrated science blogger PZ Myers. Sunday, August 1st saw us marching (“dancing” would be a more accurate term) in Vancouver’s Pride parade.

UPDATE: You can now follow me on Twitter, you lucky people!

On Friday, July 30th, CFI Vancouver was proud to host biology professor, speaker, and author of the popular science and skepticism blog Pharyngula, Dr. PZ Myers. Dr. Myers presented an hour-long discussion of the role of atheism in the scientific battleground.

As the event was hosted and organized by CFI, this is not the official writeup. Since I was on hand with my camera, I did videotape the entire presentation. Once again, however, CFI laid out all of the groundwork to make this happen, so I will not post the video online, preferring instead to send the traffic their way. I will, however, post a couple of segments and a summary of my own reactions to both the presentation, and meeting PZ himself.

Ethan Clow, head of CFI Vancouver, meets PZ Myers

The Presentation

Much has been made of Dr. Myers’ confrontational style; people seem to expect him to be a fire-breathing ogre who preaches hatred of Christians from a pulpit made of Creationist’s skulls. Having seen video of him speaking before, I went in expecting exactly what we got – an interesting, humorous, and gregarious biology professor from Minnesota. The talk took place at the University of British Columbia’s Wesbrook building, and was attended by about 300 people (CFI will have actual numbers).

The focus of the presentation was in like with Dr. Myers’ usual stance on the issue of how ashamed we should be to call ourselves atheists – we need to be visible, we need to be consistent, and we need to stand up for our principles. He started with a brief discussion of why it is impossible to ‘disprove evolution’:

I really like the Newton/Einstein example, because it’s a perfect illustration of how science is supposed to work – we adjust our models to fit the observed evidence, not chain them to our preconceived notions of how we think they should look. That’s why quantum physics is so weird – because the universe is a weird place.

He then moved on to a topic that was a bit of a sore point for me: the ‘dictionary atheist’. He describes those of us who say that atheism is merely the absence of belief in God, and nothing more. He then calls that out as a bullshit position:

My feelings were a bit hurt, because I have been advocating that exact position. However, as I was to discuss with him later, he makes an important point, which is the basic underscoring of his presentation – namely, that Atheists (note the capital A) do believe in things. We’re not Atheists by accident, or because we haven’t yet heard how awesome YahwAlladdha is, but because we reject superstition and appeals to invisible authority as a basis for building a functioning society. We believe that evidence, reason, and an abiding respect for humanity is a much higher standard to which human beings should be held than the fear of a paternal sky-genie.

I will not do a play-by-play of the entire talk, partially because I don’t really feel like transcribing the entire hour-long presentation + ensuing Q&A, and also because I think Dr. Myers’ speaking style is best captured on video. I will be pushing hard on CFI Canada to release the video in a timely manner, so please stay tuned.

The Post-Event Reception

After the talk, there was an opportunity for guests to sit down and share a beer and some appetizers with PZ. This was the part of the evening I had most looked forward to, so I bought my ticket to the reception early. I was lucky enough to get a chance to ask him about some things that have been on my mind.

Someone made cupcakes, with this special cake-topper for PZ

The so-called ‘Burqa Ban’

Regular readers will know that I have been wrestling with the issue of France, Belgium and Quebec passing law that bar women from covering their faces when interacting with government employees and while in public places. I asked PZ what he thought on the issue. He told me that while there were arguments to be made on both sides, his default position is to side with human liberty – women should be allowed to wear what they want, even if the establishment doesn’t like it.

Being a leader of the skeptic movement

I’ve always been curious to know how people like PZ, or Dawkins, or Hitchens feel about the appellation “leader of the skeptic movement.” Is there a sense of pride of being a senior statesman in a major political and social movement? Does he even consider himself a leader, or just another person with a dog (albeit a big one) in the fight? He replied that unlike any other group in history, the entire purpose of the Atheist/skeptic/humanist movement was to have no leaders (he used the phrase “Atheist Pope”). The whole point, he said, was to motivate people to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

His stance on ‘dictionary atheism’

Because I took it personally, I asked him about the virtue of identifying as atheists. He himself noted in his presentation that there were many people who were nihilists, believing that because there is no God, life is therefore meaningless. I suggested to him that even further, there were people who are atheists because they hate religion, or religious people, or out of rebellion against their parents… for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with skepticism. These people are covered by the label ‘atheist’ without being skeptics of any stripe. PZ replied that while those people do exist, as skeptic atheists we can drive the public perception of atheism as people who have deep beliefs that are guided by evidence, not merely a negatively-defining group.

Summarizing thoughts

I really enjoyed my night out with PZ and the Vancouver skeptics. We stayed out late drinking, shutting down both Moose’s Down Under and the Railway Club. We talked about science, atheism, politics (apparently I’m an asshole because I self-define as Libertarian :P) and a number of other topics (including the intricacies of PZ’s spam filter – one of the highlights of the night was reading an e-mail that a local kook had sent him regarding the oil spill in the Gulf). I was lucky enough to also be able to speak with Mrs. Myers (The Trophy Wife) about my own history as a religious person and how to talk to those of us we are close to who still believe.

One of the things I was most struck by was the gender ratio at the talk. There is a general view of the skeptic movement that it is predominantly white males. As a black guy, I have observed this to be the case at many of our skeptical events. However, both the talk and the reception were evenly attended (still mostly white people, but this is Canada). One attendee, when I pointed this out, said that PZ’s decidedly pro-feminist stance on issues was a factor which helped her decide to show up. Skeptics take note: if you want to balance the gender scales, reach out to women.

I am looking forward to seeing the full video available online, as it is a much higher quality than I was able to take on my little camera. As I said above, I will be pushing on whoever I need to push on to get it up and running as soon as possible. For more (and better) photos, be sure to check out Fred Bremmer’s Flickr page.

Thanks to PZ for linking to this page! Welcome to all Pharyngulites.

Vancouver Skeptics in the Pride Parade

It was a big weekend for Vancouver skeptics. On Friday, July 30th, we hosted biology professor, speaker and celebrated science blogger PZ Myers. Sunday, August 1st saw us marching (“dancing” would be a more accurate term) in Vancouver’s Pride parade.

UPDATE: You can now follow me on Twitter, you lucky people!

Yesterday, skeptics from the BC Humanist Association, the SFU Skeptics, and of course CFI Vancouver gathered at Robson and Thurlow to take part in Vancouver’s annual Pride parade. This parade is ostensibly intended for members of the gay community to stand up and be seen without fear. Over time, it has become a venue for community groups to show their solidarity with the gay community.

What were we doing there?

Humanists have long been in solidarity with the gay community. The central tenet of humanist thought is the idea that the ultimate good is for human beings to be able to determine their own lives. A corollary of that is the belief that the way to judge the morality of an action is its consequences to humankind. Demonizing homosexuals makes no sense to humanists, since being openly gay makes people happy, and hurts nobody.

In addition to our philosophical allegiance to the gay cause, humanists and skeptics see a meaningful similarity between the gay community and our struggle for mainstream acceptance. It’s barely been 31 years since the Stonewall riots, which one might call the beginning of the gay movement. In that short time, we’ve seen major social progress for gay people in North America and Europe, and we’re seeing progress in places like South America and Africa.

Atheists face similar discrimination and misunderstanding in the face of hyper-religiosity worldwide. Luckily, thanks to vocal mainstream atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, and of course PZ Myers, atheists have entered the public domain and are actively taking part in the conversation. Our presence at the Pride parade was, for us, one more step towards mainstream recognition and acceptance.

What did we do?

About 15 skeptics (sorry, I should have counted and I didn’t) met in the staging area for the parade, with bright colourful clothes, face paint, signs, banners, a recumbent bike, and a great deal of optimism and energy.

In addition to the BC Humanists and CFI banners, we carried a large banner with the now famous slogan “There’s Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life” from the Atheist bus campaign. The virtue of this slogan is that while it is definitely an in-your-face proclamation of our position, it is about as inoffensive and positive as any such a slogan could be.

We marched the prescribed parade route in between Worksafe BC and an anti-bullying campaign. Sadly, we were not able to march alongside the religious groups, or what I termed the Cognitive Dissonance Squad:

How did the crowd react?

Honestly, I was expecting the crowd to be either indifferent or hostile. Vancouver is a city with many faiths and many churches, and where people don’t often challenge each other’s beliefs. We were mounting a fairly aggressive and open, unashamed assertion of our position, much the way we did previously with Deepak Chopra.

Once again, however, the people of Vancouver surprised me. Far from being merely tolerant, we had an overwhelming amount of support from the crowd. Everywhere we went, we were confronted by cheering, applause, and people laughing as they read the banner, eagerly pointing it out to their friends. Many (I assume) atheists in the crowd shouted their assent, seemingly grateful that there was a group there supporting their beliefs. You can see what I mean in the following video:

The crowd shots I’ve included in that video are not cherry-picked – they are a fair representation of the entire crowd at the event. The response was unbelievably and uniformly positive. Please forgive the shaky camera work – I was dancing my skeptical ass off.

Some summarizing thoughts

What we have seen in our past forays into ‘skeptivism‘ is that people are generally receptive to new ideas. While I personally fall more on the confrontational side of the confront/accommodate debate, I recognize that a variety of methods are needed, since each individual is different. The city of Vancouver acted, to my eyes, like a group of people who were ‘closet’ atheists, and who were waiting for someone or some group to stand up and say “we’re here, we’re skeptics, get used to it.”

The past few months have seen major growth in the skeptic community here in BC, with the addition of a third Skeptics in the Pub site in Richmond, and the start of a branch of CFI in the Okanogan. We’ve picked up a great deal of steam and visibility thanks to our presence at Pride, and we hope to continue this momentum into the fall. We hope that other skeptic groups, particularly our comrades in the USA, undertake similar acts of open skeptivism, and that they receive the same positive response we enjoyed.

Thanks to PZ Myers at Pharyngula for linking to this post! Welcome to all Pharyngulites.

“The N Word”

I’ve been concentrating too hard on religion with my think pieces, and have decided to take a break from that to focus some attention on race issues. I am re-posting some notes I wrote last February for Black History Month on my Facebook.

This post originally appeared on February 8th, 2010

This is the only circumstance under which you will hear me use the word “nigger”. I thought I would get it out of the way immediately, so we can dispense with the tired euphemism “the N word.” Here goes… (deep breath)

Nigger nigger nigger, nigger nigger. Nigger? Nigger nigger nigger.

There. It’s out there in black and white (pun fully intended). I make jokes, but there’s really nothing particularly funny about this word. In fact, repeating it over and over didn’t make its impact any less meaningful, like it does for other words. Nigger is perhaps the least-understood word in the common lexicon, although thankfully it is far less common than it was 20 years ago (or indeed, 60 years ago), and continues to baffle people to this day. It’s a word that cannot be fully comprehended without knowing its history.

First off, I want to dispel a myth. Nigger is not a “bad word for black person” or simply “a racial epithet.” It isn’t a naughty word, or a mean name, or something you shouldn’t say when there are black folks around but joke about in the privacy of your country club. The word “nigger” is a bastardization of the word “negro”, the original European terminology for a person with dark skin from trans-Saharan Africa. As organized slavery became the engine for the economy of the United States, “negro” became “nigger” in the same way that “you all” became “y’all”. In that respect, I suppose, it was a fairly innocuous moniker, since one could argue that “negro” is not, in and of itself, a derogatory term.

However, slavery in the United States became a much different animal from slavery as it had been practiced throughout history. Historically, slaves were people of no noble birth or who had been captured in war who were sold to citizens, and who could, eventually, buy or otherwise earn their way (or the ways of their children) into freedom. African slaves in the United States were not captured in war, they were kidnapped, poached basically, by agents of the American government. They were shipped, inspected, branded and sold in exactly the same way one would sell livestock (this, while horrible, is actually not very different from standard slavery practice… or modern-day prostitution). What made American slavery so unique, however, is that the slaves were treated, and thought of, as animals. “Nigger” was a term used to dehumanize African slaves to reduce them to the level of farm equipment. “Nigger” wasn’t a term for a black person, it was a word specifically designed to remove African slaves’ personhood. Niggers weren’t people, they weren’t even merely slaves – they were an entirely sub-human species of animal.

Nigger was actually a scientific term for a while. Because African slaves had been sufficiently dehumanized, scientists of the day felt comfortable making all kinds of wild, unfounded claims about the nature, physical characteristics, intelligence, and even moral rectitude of “the nigger”. These completely unscientific, evidenceless assertions made their way quickly into the common consciousness; the effect of them was felt centuries later when black people were being denied the vote. Black people, it was said, were not intelligent, trustworthy or hard-working enough to deserve full rights under the law. This was backed up with bogus scientific claims from racist doctors, and was the reigning official understanding for quite a while.

This is what the word “nigger” means. The meaning of some words changes over the years, as their connotation shifts due to common vulgar usage. The word “vulgar”, for example, denotes the common, everyday vernacular, but it has connotatively come to mean rude and inappropriate (obviously I meant it denotatively, not connotatively). However, since nigger dropped out of common usage before it lost its sting and association to history, its meaning has not changed. In other words, it’s inaccurate to say “well that’s not what I meant when I said it.”

More recently, the word was re-bastardized into the more commonplace “nigga.” I personally have mixed feelings about this usage. The idea was to take the word “nigger” and re-purpose it to reduce its impact and take ownership of it. However, while I might sympathize with the aim, I don’t think it has accomplished its goal. It requires general knowledge of the difference between the two words, including the full history of “nigger” to make such a re-purposing genuine. For the vast majority of people in North America, the history is not well-known, thus the difference between nigga and nigger becomes nebulous, inscrutable, and largely ignored.

So what about rappers, comedians, and other celebrities who use the word “nigga” as part of their language? Are they wrong to do so? In a rare moment for me, I am going to equivocate rather than pronouncing what the “right” thing to do is. Considering the history this word has, I myself can’t imagine why anyone would want to use it, even in its diluted form. It is a word so foul as to preclude any reasonable use except to discuss it as a literary term. Every time it is uttered, it stirs up the ghosts of 400+ years of black exploitation and systematic oppression. Without the proper forum and tools in which to discuss it, those ghosts can never be laid to rest. I think there is next to no justification for its use whatsoever.

However, the word does force discussion of the issues that I have been raising in these posts. Putting it out in the forefront of media means that the world cannot rest on its laurels, and must discuss the glaring race problem that still persists in our society. The rapper Nas composed an absolutely brilliant album, originally titledNigger (due to pressure from various groups, the album went untitled), which touches on all these topics and more. The title was intentionally designed to generate just such a discussion. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you should. That such high-minded debate is being championed by someone who is on the level of the common man (or as close as you can get to that level without drinking the Krunk Juice) suggests that maybe we are more ready to have this conversation than I thought.

It’s not my place to make decrees that govern a community that I, admittedly, am not a big part of. The sociopolitical standing of black people in the United States is very different from that of black people in Canada; and while I feel sympathy and a sense of camaraderie, I am more like a non-voting member of the community – I can take part in the discussion but don’t have any official powers. To put it plainly, I’m not going to tell Nas what he can and cannot call himself, but I will never call anyone a nigga.