When I founded African Americans for Humanism (AAH) in 1989, our goal was to attract more people of African descent throughout the world to organized humanism. We were successful in establishing and/or strengthening 72 African humanist groups in 30 African nations. We also helped to strengthen a humanist group in Haiti and Curacao, and we established contacts with Black humanists in Barbados, the Netherlands, Canada, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, England, and other nations.
The problem is that much of what passes for Afrocentric thinking is downright bigoted, unscientific, sexist homophobic, and utterly irrational. I started thinking about this topic as a result of a notification in my inbox from the Harlem Humanists. The group invited one Black freethinker to discuss “How to be Afrocentric without drowning in the dogma of Afrocentrism or any other ‘ism,’ including our own.”
Many people believe that humor is always harmless and could not possibly have any negative consequences. Whenever anyone disagrees with this simplistic view, they are dismissed as lacking a sense of humor, killjoys, etc. However, anyone who has had just a single course in humor studies understands that there are different kinds of humor that appeal to different kinds of people. Some kinds of humor are rooted in meanness, cynicism and misanthropy.
Every time a new book about my greatest hero Malcolm X comes out, I am reminded of my brother’s questions: “Do we really need another book about Malcolm X? How much more can we learn about him?” However, this book, like the late Manning Marable’s 2011 tome, _Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention_, is an excellent contribution to the literature on the life and times of Malcolm X.
When many people use the term “secular” they mean atheist or agnostic. However, one can be religious yet fully committed to the defense of church/state separation and to keeping religion out of other areas in which it clearly does not belong. Moreover, one can be religious yet favor reason, experience and observation over faith, and have a completely secular worldview.
Many people accept the idea that, though sacred texts might be wrong on many accounts, they are relatively harmless and not worth taking the time to critique. Furthermore, they believe that a belief in Satan, like a belief in God, is a relatively harmless belief.
This latter belief is what concerns me for purposes of this writing. It is amazing that people can believe this given what we know about history. To begin with, all we have to do is consider how many groups have been demonized, harmed, and viciously attacked by religious fanatics.
According to a story reported in the May 14, 2014 issue of The Challenger of Buffalo, Black people take the Bible more seriously than most other groups. The American Bible Society’s fourth annual State of the Bible survey found that African Americans were more “Bible friendly” than other groups. African Americans were leaders in the use of technology in perusing the Bible, and they read the Bible more than other groups.
_Fanaticism: The enthusiasm of the stupid. -_ Ambrose Bierce
In the January 2014 issue of _GQ_ there is a fascinating article on stars from the _Duck Dynasty_ reality television show that appears on the A&E network. The program features what the article refers to as some of the most recognizable people in the U.S. — Christian patriarch Phil Robertson and his family. I want to tell you why the show is harmful drivel.
Another important movement in the history of humanism was the Harlem Renaissance. This major literary and arts movement was led by such humanists as the poets Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown, the writers Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer and others. (One can learn about writers and thinkers such as these in my first book, African-American Humanism: An Anthology, my contributions to Tom Flynn’s The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, and in many of my other writings.) This humanist movement had a profoundly positive influence upon the ways in which African Americans saw themselves.
For years, African Americans in particular have complained that what the U.S. needs is an honest national conversation on race. This idea is bandied about as though the supposed need for such a conversation should be obvious to everyone. However, why is such a conversation necessary? Moreover, why do so many people assume that such a conversation would be beneficial to any or all of its participants? Has there ever been such a national conversation on any topic?
Many people that believe in true democracy hold two competing ideas in their minds. On the one hand, they believe that consenting adults ought to be able to do as they please, as long as they are not hurting anyone else. On the other hand, many advocates of democracy want to protect adults from what they consider to be dangerous ideas and actions. Such freedom loving people give lip service to the virtues of free inquiry and liberty, but they do not truly believe in them - at least not where certain topics and actions are concerned.
There are always numerous instances in which prayer clearly fails. For example, when the late Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, was severely burned in a fire set by her grandson, many ministers gathered to pray that God would save her. However, sadly, she died. No doubt, many theists maintained that God moves in mysterious ways. This all brings to mind the following limerick:
Many Christians in particular and theists in general harbor the notion that those that are true practitioners of their faith are incapable of performing particular actions. For example, many Christians maintain that true Christians do not engage in premarital or extramarital sex, smoke cigarettes, do drugs, dink alcoholic beverages, etc.
Most Muslims claim that true Muslims do not and cannot engage in terrorist threats or actions. This idea often takes a bigoted twist. For example, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, many Muslims claimed that the attackers were not true Muslims. Some went further and proclaimed that they must have been atheists, because no one that truly believes in God could be capable of such actions.
However, this mindset is not limited to theists. Many humanists claim that true humanists cannot be sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. However, this notion that someone that truly embraces a worldview is somehow incapable of performing immoral actions is terribly flawed.
Richard Pryor used to joke about the fact that Blacks were disproportionately represented in the U.S. criminal justice system. He once remarked, “You talk about goin’ down there lookin’ for justice, that’s just what you find, just us.”
Sadly, not much has changed since Pryor expressed such sentiments in the 1970s. Indeed, the October 9, 2013 issue of the African American weekly newspaper, The Challenger of Buffalo, carried a story with the headline, “1 in 3 Black Males Will Go To Prison in Their Lifetime, Report Warns.”
Many theists believe that there is nothing more important than praising God. In their estimation, praising God is more important than helping your fellow human beings, saving the environment, getting to work or school on time, etc. They certainly believe that it is far more important to praise God than it is to praise deserving human beings.
Some years ago I attended a humanist conference. In attendance were African American humanist scholar Anthony Pinn and my old colleague, Verle Muhrer, of Kansas City. Pinn was astounded to hear some cold, callous remarks coming from a self-professed humanist. I told Pinn that it should not be surprising that humanists are capable of such callousness. After all, they are fallible human beings. Moreover, I pointed out that some humanists imagine themselves to be completely objective and above and beyond any negative influences of their culture, history, etc. This prompted Muhrer to say that perhaps we need a book titled “The Arrogance of Humanism” to complement Forrest Woods’ excellent book, “The Arrogance of Faith” — a superb critique of the role of biblical teachings in the defense of slavery.
“Does any snowflake in an avalanche ever really feel responsible?”
In light of the verdict of not guilty handed down by the Black-free Southern jury in the George Zimmerman case, many people are calling for soul-searching, the always predictable but never initiated, let alone completed, national discussion on race, etc. I will not write about the disgust I felt after the verdict. However, one respondent brought a lot of thoughts to my mind.
This is what is so upsetting about race scholars. Miele and Sarich write on several pages in their book about the “implications” of the work of other scholars. However, they expect the readers to believe that they are blissfully unaware of the insidious, invidious, racist and downright dangerous implications of their own research. They want to present themselves as kindly, well-intentioned scholars whose research could never influence and encourage racism of any kind. This is nothing short of cowardly and disingenuous, at best.
Malcolm X once said that he did not want to put a label upon himself, because it could be problematic. Many people are of the same opinion. After all, some labels have negative connotations. Moreover, many people believe they know exactly where a person stands on any given issue based on the label that a person embraces, or has placed upon herself or himself.
