I understand that you’ve done academic analyses of education apartheid. I’m talking about a “softer” phenomenon – the deeply ingrained notions that science and math are “white” subjects. Would you disagree that such attitudes are imposed by teachers and families upon children, and those children grown into adults who impose that attitute upon themselves and their kids? Is that not an “othering” of ourselves that we need to take responsibility for? I think some comments in this interview are an example of that.

I fully agree that science does not equal social, racial or gender justice. The first time I hear a white atheist leader claiming that it is, I’ll walk straight up to that person and inform them otherwise.

“Science” does not equal social, racial or gender justice; that is her point, and the thrust of her entire critique, period. Eminent scientists of color like Graves, Hammonds and Washington, as well as humanist scholar Anthony Pinn, have all argued this in their work. The educational apartheid that consigns students of color to science illiteracy is based on the institutionalization of non-college prep drop-out mill school cultures that operate on a “deficit model” that criminalizes Latino and especially Afr-Am youth with disproportionate suspension and expulsion, assignment to special education classes, and “tracking” policies that shut them out of AP and honors classes. Students of color are academically disenfranchised because they are disproportionately shunted into schools with overcrowded classrooms that lack highly qualified culturally responsive teachers who are trained in their subject area; a full complement of A-G college preparation classes; and school counselors that aren’t saddled with hundreds of students. Aside from the critique in “Moral Combat,” there has been no secular humanist critical consciousness around the “New Jim Crow” immorality of educational apartheid. So we’re fucking tired of being patted on the head and told that all backward false consciousness-mired religious Negroes and Mexicans need is a little bit of Darwin and inequality will disappear. None of the big rock star white atheists or white atheist/humanist organizations have been on the frontlines of our issues — i.e., racist mass incarceration, sexual violence against women of color, racist/sexist reproductive justice policies, undocumented immigrant rights, lethal police force, apartheid education policies, epidemic homelessness amongst straight and LGBTQ youth of color etc. On the other hand many radical, progressive and liberal religious organizations of color have been and continue to be–-joining with the few secular community-based orgs of color that are out there. That is what radical atheists/humanists of color who espouse social and economic justice are agitating about and challenging (building on historical traditions of liberation struggle forged by non-believers and skeptics of color like A. Philip Randolph, Hubert Harrison, James Foreman, DuBois etc. whose scientific materialism was ALWAYS deeply informed by a global class critique of capitalism, racism, imperialism and workers’ rights) in the science-as-magic bullet white male atheist stance which, steeped in privilege and entitlement, is willfully ignorant of the politics of coalition-building. And that is why the mainstream atheist movement will continue to be lily white, academy-besotted and 1% driven (as evidenced by the scores of conferences we have attended in which POC can be counted on one hand and Latina/AA/Asian women are virtually non-existent), while courageous women of color like Diane will be marginalized and underrepresented.

For further reading:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/12/24/an-excerpt-from-moral-combat-black-atheists-gender-politics-and-the-values-wars/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blackskeptics/2012/03/21/calling-out-racism-on-the-rdf-site/

http://www.thenewhumanism.org/authors/sikivu-hutchinson/articles/prayer-warriors-and-freethinkers

Honestly, why the hell should they be “on the frontlines” of what you consider (and say) are your issues?

I dunno maybe because, as you no doubt had to have read,

On the other hand many radical, progressive and liberal religious organizations of color have been and continue to be

And them being issues that concern all of soceity and anyone who says they embrace humanistic values.

I get intersectionality, but what you sound like you’re basically saying is that in order for you to bother with the New Atheists, they’d basically have to give up atheism as their issue and focus on stuff you care about instead. I agree that social justice of all types should be more on their radar than it is (personally, speaking for myself, I’m kind of tired of most of them ignoring women generally, and everyone ignoring handicapped people, whom I notice you never mentioned, incidentally), but I disagree that they should need to focus on those issues. Only so much time in a day.

With allies like that, who needs enemies? Can’t we all focus on issues we’re interested in and consider that we might be going to the same place in different ways?

For further reading:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/12/24/an-excerpt-from-moral-combat-black-atheists-gender-politics-and-the-values-wars/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blackskeptics/2012/03/21/calling-out-racism-on-the-rdf-site/

I agree with the blackfemlens article in that, of course, science is not a magic bullet against hierarchy, racism, sexism etc., this is pretty obvious. While it is nice to note that biology currently does not lend support to racist ideas, values such as gender and racial equality can not come as corollaries out of the scientific process as a matter of principle but must simply be agreed upon by society.

Your article seems to go much further than that, and dismisses science as a source of inspiration and as a central foundation of atheism based on the existence of racist scientists and racist notions in science in the 19th and early 20th century. Science is not owned by white people. Science is not a sociological trend, and I find the tendencies by equality activists themselves to paint science as a construct that is somehow supposed to be “male”, or “white”, quite disturbing. Reality is described by science, and nothing will change that. By linking it with the sociology of its past propoents, I fear that you are locking the door to knowledge for minorities who should instead try to own science as something that transcends race, gender, culture. Am I wrong? Have I misunderstood you completely?

And of course a numerical balance in TV and film roles doesn’t help much if these roles portray race in a privileged and stereotypical way – you go into this right after the sentence I quoted.