Speaking about bad ideas...atheism and race!

[sqbr]

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 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.

Comments

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

If you mean that atheist discussion tends to show racism, i.e. a belief in the inherent superiority or inferiority of groups of people with certain similar genetic characteristics, then I would say "Not in what I've read; they tend to focus on cultural differences and ignore superficial biological differences."

Two kinds of racism honey.

Old: about biological prejudice

New: about cultural prejudice. So showing cultural prejudice is a kind of racism.

'new' racism tends to be what's causing a lot of the problems in australia at the moment, or at least is what people will admit to.

(Shorthand version of a lecture I sat through for TWO hours, and almost managed to stay awake for so people, correct me if I'm wrong here, I have to give a talk on this next Tuesday).

And of course you've got the brilliant thing that if any culture is steeped deeply in a religion, evangelical atheists are going to have a problem with it, therefore showing 'racist' tendencies. The sensible ones, probably less so, but discussions tend not to happen as often with them.

Guess what, arguing this with you counts as homework :D

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, but that perception still has to be tied to race (biological differences), otherwise it wouldn't be racism. An Australian Christian of middle-Eastern descent, for example, seems more likely to encounter racial prejudice in Australia than a white Muslim (correct me if I'm wrong!)... while the prejudice is based on cultural differences, those differences don't necessarily exist. They're just part of a package which associates "middle-Eastern" with "Muslim" (and "Arab"). The assumption that everyone of a particular race is of a particular culture is what links a sense of cultural superiority to racism.

Just to clarify, that isn't to say that prejudice against people of other cultures is okay. The assumption that everyone of a given culture has the same views and opinions is prejudice: assuming you know something about a person given no evidence. Once you have evidence that an individual supports ideas or actions that you consider ethically (or, I guess, morally) wrong, it's no longer prejudice; it's just a judgement.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

THAT IS NOT A CLARIFICATION POST THAT IS YOU RAMBLING AND MAKING THE ISSUE MORE COMPLICATED THAN IT NEEDS TO BE.

Actual clarification:
New: about cultural prejudice. So showing cultural prejudice is a kind of racism.

Should say New racism: about cultural prejudice, along ethnic lines. I.e. Saying "all those bloody muslims are too different to fit in, with us Aussies." When talking about middle-eastern migration.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

And yes while it is a simplification, everything you've been saying, is just that, with added words.

(Okay now that I've started arguing this, while he's offline and yelling back answers, I'm going to stop).

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

Okay, less rambly version:

There are people who are culturally European but are not white. There are also people who are white but not culturally European. The first group is more likely to encounter racial discrimination in European culture than the second.

Clearly the issue of an individual's cultural background is not important. Instead, it is the view that people who are biologically different must be culturally different that makes it racism.