![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Speaking about bad ideas...atheism and race!
Note: I am posting links to two posts in anti-racist communities. Keep in mind that the assumption is that readers are familiar and agree with anti-racist ideas so they're not explained or excused, and I'd rather you reply here unless you genuinely mean to join them (in which case, as always, read the userinfo first!) Also, as I say in the first post, please do not use this as a chance to snipe at other people's religious groups.
So a while ago I posted a post called How to reconcile anti-racism with atheism (or other religious belief) to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
debunkingwhite, and thought about posting it here since it's something I'm interested to discuss with other atheists but at the time didn't feel up to dealing with the discussion. But hey it's not like I have anything better to do at the moment...
I actually think Towards an Intersectionality of Atheism and Race is a better post on the subject, though :)
EDIT: So, being rambly, I conflated racism towards people of middle eastern descent with Islamaphobia and cultural intolerance. These are of course three separate things, albeit with a very high correlation coefficient (even though, as australians should be very aware, most muslims aren't from the middle east!) In general I think atheists tend to be less explicitly "I hate all brown people" racist and more culturally intolerant anyway.
Anyway, for those of you who are atheist: do you agree there's a racist subtext to a lot of atheist discussion? Sam Harris (a moderately well known author) is certainly quite annoyingly bigoted against muslims. Something I didn't mention in the post but which has struck me since is that while libertarian "yay individuality!" american-style atheists may focus on Islam as a symbol of Religious Dogma And Oppression, left wing european-style atheists can treat the jews as symbols of Evil Conniving Capitilism. And of course, when people talk disparagingly about "jews" and "muslims" there is pretty much always a racial subtext.
There was a woman at Femmeconne who insisted on seeing middle eastern women as helpless victims of their society who need to be saved by Brave Enlightened Feminists Who Know What's Best (supporting the local women's groups (who do exist!) in doing their own thing is just not as rewarding or something) The fact that colonialism has always painted itself as "helping the poor victims of uncivilised societies who don't know what's good for them" (and that pretty much every time a society uses this justification, it ends up oppressively and selfishly colonialist, see the "liberation" of Iraq) is something I think a lot of people don't like to admit.
Those of you who are not atheist, how do you deal with bigotry in your own religion? I know my christian and (secular) jewish relatives have complicated Issues with Islam, and the common protestant view of catholics as superstitious and exotically weird is pretty problematic (the whole "How do we stop them from breeding too much and taking over?" thing goes to a bad place pretty quickly)
Then of course there's the huge issues with mix-and-match religions appropriating bits of other cultures' religions without engaging with them deeply or giving anything back to those communities. But that's not something I feel qualified to talk about much since it's something I don't do (It's always much easier to critique behaviours you know you're innocent of yourself :D) But this post about Taoism was interesting.
So a while ago I posted a post called How to reconcile anti-racism with atheism (or other religious belief) to
debunkingwhite, and thought about posting it here since it's something I'm interested to discuss with other atheists but at the time didn't feel up to dealing with the discussion. But hey it's not like I have anything better to do at the moment...I actually think Towards an Intersectionality of Atheism and Race is a better post on the subject, though :)
EDIT: So, being rambly, I conflated racism towards people of middle eastern descent with Islamaphobia and cultural intolerance. These are of course three separate things, albeit with a very high correlation coefficient (even though, as australians should be very aware, most muslims aren't from the middle east!) In general I think atheists tend to be less explicitly "I hate all brown people" racist and more culturally intolerant anyway.
Anyway, for those of you who are atheist: do you agree there's a racist subtext to a lot of atheist discussion? Sam Harris (a moderately well known author) is certainly quite annoyingly bigoted against muslims. Something I didn't mention in the post but which has struck me since is that while libertarian "yay individuality!" american-style atheists may focus on Islam as a symbol of Religious Dogma And Oppression, left wing european-style atheists can treat the jews as symbols of Evil Conniving Capitilism. And of course, when people talk disparagingly about "jews" and "muslims" there is pretty much always a racial subtext.
There was a woman at Femmeconne who insisted on seeing middle eastern women as helpless victims of their society who need to be saved by Brave Enlightened Feminists Who Know What's Best (supporting the local women's groups (who do exist!) in doing their own thing is just not as rewarding or something) The fact that colonialism has always painted itself as "helping the poor victims of uncivilised societies who don't know what's good for them" (and that pretty much every time a society uses this justification, it ends up oppressively and selfishly colonialist, see the "liberation" of Iraq) is something I think a lot of people don't like to admit.
Those of you who are not atheist, how do you deal with bigotry in your own religion? I know my christian and (secular) jewish relatives have complicated Issues with Islam, and the common protestant view of catholics as superstitious and exotically weird is pretty problematic (the whole "How do we stop them from breeding too much and taking over?" thing goes to a bad place pretty quickly)
Then of course there's the huge issues with mix-and-match religions appropriating bits of other cultures' religions without engaging with them deeply or giving anything back to those communities. But that's not something I feel qualified to talk about much since it's something I don't do (It's always much easier to critique behaviours you know you're innocent of yourself :D) But this post about Taoism was interesting.
no subject
Can I use this as an example the next time someone asks me why I am anti-feminist? I know non-white, non-christian women and men who are turned away from feminism because of this attitude and my gut reaction was "Why the hell didn't anyone take her out the back and give her a fucking slapping?!?!?!"
The fact that colonialism has always painted itself as "helping the poor victims of uncivilised societies who don't know what's good for them" (and that pretty much every time a society uses this justification, it ends up oppressively and selfishly colonialist, see the "liberation" of Iraq) is something I think a lot of people don't like to admit.
Which continues today through international aid programs... I was talking to an old lecturer of mine about this, and commented "I've always been cynical of Australia's aid program, now that I've worked in it, even more so".
"Those of you who are not atheist, how do you deal with bigotry in your own religion?"
I'm going to use veganism as a belief system here, as like atheism it is based on rationality and can actually be backed up with science because my person theistic beliefs don't follow any particular doctrine (even though I'm a recovering Catholic- that guilt will always stay with you).
I have seen alot of debate/argument within the vegan community about being "culturally sensitive", some people argue that when travelling or in the home of a friend who is from a different cultural group it's ok to eat non vegan things lest you cause offence. I think that even if you are seen as being totally crazy you can still explain veganism in basic terms to people.
I've seen alot of views on things such as ritualistic animal slaughter which is framed in a racist context, rather than in a logical one (ie people from here do this and they suck inherently, rather than people who do this suck regardless of where they are from).
The other issue that comes up from time to time is people using culture/race as an excuse to eat animal products. This can be particular difficult if someone grows up with different attitudes towards animals. For example someone who is Hindu who lives in a farm in India has a totally different view on dairy and cow use/abuse than someone who grows up in urban Australia who is white and Christian. I think that this needs to be acknowledged, that there are differences not only in the way animals are used in different places but also that people come from a different understanding point to begin with.
no subject
ngggg...I'd rather you didn't, just because femconne is supposed to be a welcoming pace blah-de-blah and I would hate for people to feel like things they say are going to be used as foder against them etc. Unless you removed identifying details more (as I should have done I guess). I feel kind of bad for mentioning it here but it was such a good example...And people definitely didn't stand for it, I'm not saying everyone was super enlightened about race but on the whole people wouldn't let anything really egregious pass without comment (thus a step up from the unisfa room :/)
I'm going to use veganism as a belief system here, as like atheism it is based on rationality and can actually be backed up with science because my person theistic beliefs don't follow any particular doctrine
That was really interesting, thankyou.
no subject
A welcoming place, unless you have the biological misfortune of being male... (sorry I've hashed that one out with others in the past)
I was going to only mention it in broad terms ie the attitude that some "western" feminists have that all islamic women are oppressed and not acknowleging the views of those particular women on the issue not a "gee WA feminists suck because of this".
on the whole people wouldn't let anything really egregious pass without comment (thus a step up from the unisfa room :/)
Good grief, has the UniSFA room gotten *that* bad now? Back in my day...
no subject
And yes, last time I was in the unisfa room people were imo far too apathetic about letting racist/sexist/homophobic etc stuff slide. I mean, people would comment sometimes, but in general there was an "Eh, they know we don't like it, causing a fuss is too much trouble" attitude, afaict.