no one is saying that omg
they are saying that racism exists in atheism which it DOES. white people are not exempt from being racist when they are atheists.
Racism exists in atheism? Really? Atheism.. the collective disbelief in anything.. contains racism? I never knew that.
It makes a hell of a lot more sense to conclude that racism is abundant in the new age atheism movement, which is headed by figures such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, and Christopher Hitchens; plenty of racism and sexism to go around with the lot of these folks.
The atheism movement of course has racism and sexism. What I’m trying to say is that atheists are not exempt from being racist because apparently, religion brought about these -isms in the first place, which is simply not true.
No, the atheism movment doesn’t “have” racism and sexism; it’s just that some of the more well known members of this movement have been involved in some particular situations where their apparent racist/sexist nature was exposed. Again, these people in no way represent all atheists who do or do not self-identify with the new age atheism movement.
I disagree.
have been involved in some particular situations where their apparent racist/sexist nature was exposed.
It’s not apparent, it’s real. When there are situations where Richard Dawkins publicly defamed Western feminists for whining about their oppression when Muslim women have it so much harder, then that is absolutely sexist. I’m not saying that these atheists represent me, or other atheists, which is what my post was talking about. I have never said that. But it’s not just ‘apparent’ your choice of wording is making it seem that this are just false accusations, which they are not.
I agree with Juthika, and I’ll add that when some of the leading figures of a movement have -ism issues, then the movement itself has -ism issues.
If not we could all just sit down and wash our hands and pretend that feminism is A-OK, because it’s only some of the leading individuals who are pulling some racist/cissexist/ableist shit once in a (not rare enough) while.
There’s just this little issues that when a leading figure of the movement says something, then a whole lot of the rest of the movement will follow, agree and take to heart.
So yes. Just like feminism has a shitload of -isms in it BECAUSE some of feminism’s leading figures over the years have put that stuff into feminism, so does atheism have racism and classism and ableism, because some of the leaders of the atheist movement is putting that shit in there.
Feminists don’t get to claim that feminism is A-OK because those racists aren’t real and true feminists. Likewise atheists don’t get to claim that the atheism movement is innocent, because Dawkins & co aren’t representative of everyone. No one is ever representative of everyone else within a movement, but they can still be a leader, and denying the kind of influence such a leader has on the thoughts and opinions and therefore also on the actions of other people is disingenuous at best.
Mhm. This is a large part of why, as an atheist, I now tend to give Movement Atheism the side-eye more often than not.
Yeah no seriously, I know plenty of “movement” atheists who aren’t racist, but when your most visible members are writing racist books and leaving vitriolic racist comments on blogs and in bed with racist causes, you’ve got a problem. An institutional problem.
Though what I see isn’t just “racist” as such it’s more like…against racialized Muslim women. Black, Arab, Asian…So there’s Islamophobia which is racist/Orientalist/colonialist, and also misogynist. Very, “we have to save brown women from brown men”. You know? They’re only interested in treating racialized Muslim women like people if the women agree with everything they say. No not everyone is like that, but it’s a disturbingly strong trend.
Reblogged for additional commentary.
One of the specific problems I have with these bigoted leaders is that they take what they say is their anti-religion stance and preach it like it’s an anti-religious people stance. And I don’t care what the identity marker for that group of people is, if a person is in any way anti-any-kind-of-people, then there’s a really serious problem with their ideology.
Emphasis mine. This is just that same White Man’s Burden/All They Need Is A Honkey aspect of lots of movements filled with people who want to save the poor ignorant brown people from themselves. Dressing it up in progressive movements, religion, or whatever else doesn’t change the underlying racism & misogyny that plagues society. Addressing the symptoms never does seem to cure the disease.
