April 20, 2024

Do we live in a post-racial society in the secular community?

People of Color Beyond Belief is hosting a webcast to debunk the notion that we live in a post-racial society. It is starting right now, and is moderated by Sikivu Hutchinson.  The panelists are Kimberly Veal, Black Freethinkers & Black Skeptics Chicago Donald Wright, Houston Black Non-Believers Raina Roades: Black Freethinkers – The RSS Feed & Rhoades to Reality.  They are having some technical issues, whicj I think may be related to a feedback loop with the speakers and the microphones. Hopefully, they can figure the problem out.

5 thoughts on “Do we live in a post-racial society in the secular community?

  1. At best you could say we live in a post-‘in your face- unapologetic- phuck you (insert racial slur)’ society to some degree. But I have still seen today everything from flat out racial slurs to grimaces of distaste. And both ‘white on whatever’ to ‘whatever on white’.

  2. Calling attention to problems that we really should have, but have not yet eradicated among our intellectually superior selves? Oh dear.

    3…

    2…

    1… aaaaand enter the White’s Human Rights Movement.

    “So what if I called him an unevolved monkey-man and told him to take my bags? None of my white friends complain when I behave like that! They should just stop being so sensitive and take some responsibility for themselves for once! Don’t you know all of those non-whites are committing genocide against us by having children?!”

  3. I was listening to The Thinking Atheist some months back, and he got a call from someone claiming to be a Shaman. Immediately, Seth (the host) started laughing and making cracks to the effect of, “Do you wear feathers?” Call me overly sensitive, but that sounded a bit racist to me, particularly since Seth lives in Oklahoma.

    I understand why some secular-minded people want to ridicule religious or spiritual people (fair is fair), but the “feathers” comment didn’t sound like something directed at shamans so much as a crack about Native Americans. There might be some spiritual symbolism behind the feather, but in the end it’s a symbol used, even by secular Natives, to represent our heritage. And I would think that someone like Seth would know this.

    Are we a post-racial society? No. Not even within the secular community. This one incident shows it, but there are so many more examples plastered all over the news, especially the “underground” news services that run less popular stories (such as border patrol abuses on reservations) that it’s impossible to ignore.

    That said, I do think we’ve come a long way, and I believe that most of the residual racism that we have to deal with is rooted in religion and religious teachings. We just have a way to go, still.

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