For years, many White nontheists have been concerned about how to make the humanist movement more diverse. When many people think of the movement, they think of older White males. Indeed, the so-called Four Horsemen – Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens are/were all White males.

There have been many noble attempts to diversify the movement – including my formation of African Americans for Humanism (AAH). For 24 years, even after I left AAH, deeply committed White nontheists from all over the United States and Canada had welcomed me into their homes. They set up speaking engagements with me in the media, at libraries, at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and so forth. It had always seemed clear to me that most White humanists sincerely wanted diversity in the movement.

However, in recent years, there seems to have been backlash from some angry White nontheists. Some influential Whites complain about “Social Justice Warriors” (SJWs) that have the audacity to complain about police brutality, police killings, and other actions.

I never thought I would see the day that anyone would proudly condemn social justice. On the contrary, the only people who complained about Social Justice Warriors such as Martin Luther King Jr. and his humanist allies in the past were White supremacists and their enablers. Today social justice continues to be the main area of interest for many non-White humanists.

Recently, racism and White supremacy have become major talking points for some members of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Many people have shared stories about racist hiring practices within the UUA. This controversy caused UUA President Reverend Paul Morales to resign. Now many members of the UUA are thinking deeply about the problem of racism within their ranks.

The UUA, along with the Society of Friends (a/k/a Quakers), Buddhists and Baha’is, have been among the most humanistic religionists in the world. Many Unitarian Universalists also identify as agnostics, humanists and atheists. They attend humanist conferences, promote church/state separation, and so forth. They are mostly progressive.

Still, they are human. A couple of decades ago, I read an issue of one of the group’s journals. I was shocked at the many homophobic letters to the editor I read. However, all human beings are flawed in numerous ways, and it is naïve to believe that all human beings – no matter how committed to ethical behavior they might try to be – can reach a point of perfection.

To combat racism in organized humanism it is necessary to combat it in the broader society. Racism does not exist in a vacuum. However, it does exist in socialist as well as capitalist societies. The fact of the matter, however, is that the most successful efforts in combating it have come from those much-maligned Social Justice Warriors. Religionists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and secular humanists such as Lorraine Hansberry, A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer and James Forman, helped to transform the views and actions of White supremacists throughout the U.S.

Today, however, some White humanists denigrate the Black Lives Matter movement and all other efforts at social justice. Sadly, though, these cynics offer no alternatives. They simply assume that the struggle against White supremacy has already been won, and that there is no work left to do. Such an attitude will never lead to the diversity for which so many humanists have been striving.

Many White humanists believe that theirs is the natural default position. They wonder why more non-Whites do not attend their functions. The situation is reminiscent of those White high school students who ask the question, “Why do all of the Blacks sit at the Black lunch table?” It never occurs to those White students to sit at the Black table, or to warmly invite Black students to sit at their table.

There are many reasons why Black students sit at the Black table. They have shared cultural experiences, shared music tastes, shared religious experiences, and so forth.

Similarly, Black humanists may have certain interests that many White humanists may not have. Yet when Black humanists want to form organizations in which they focus their attention on their interests, they often receive hostility from White humanists.

When I started AAH, 99% of White humanists seemed to back my efforts. However, there was the occasional White humanist who said such efforts would necessarily be racist – even as Whites were members and taking active roles in aiding the organization.

The problem has been especially acute since there have been other Black nontheist groups such as the Black Nonbelievers of Atlanta, Black Atheists of America and others. These groups have never discriminated against Whites. Yet many Whites have charged them with racism based solely on the fact that they are addressing issues pertinent to the Black experience.

Many of these are the same White humanists that bash Social Justice Warriors. These White humanists focus on evolution, church/state separation, debates on the existence of God, and so on. They have their own narrow conception of what organized humanism must be. They have no imagination or interest in what it could be or ought to be.

Aside from becoming involved in social justice efforts, White humanists could volunteer their time in non-White communities. They could feed the hungry and teach the illiterate how to read. They could build homes for the poor. They could teach poor children how to use computers. They could engage in many acts of humanistic kindness that would not even cost them a lot of money.

It should be noted that non-White humanists in the U.S. are not the only ones that have complained about racism in the humanist movement. Africans, for example, have complained that White humanists have been extremely cheap with their resources. Many big-time White humanist leaders never seem to even consider going to Africa to promote their worldview. Moreover, some White humanists are downright condescending in their relationships with African humanists.

In conclusion, if White humanists do not work towards combating racism in the larger society, they will never be able to tackle it within their ranks. And if they are not able to tackle it within their ranks, they certainly have no justification for charging non-White humanists with racism when they choose to start organizations focused on their own tastes and interests.