OPINION: Atheists support South LA pastor facing “tribunal” for LGBT advocacy



This article originally appeared on Religion Dispatches

Pastor Seth Pickens | Aaron Lee Dowell

Pastor Seth Pickens | Aaron Lee Dowell

On Sunday morning I went to a church service for the first time in decades.  

I was there as a community member to support Pastor Seth Pickens of Zion Hill Baptist Church in South Los Angeles. A few days before, I’d received an urgent plea from Teka-Lark Fleming, publisher of the local Morningside Park Chronicle newspaper, encouraging progressive Black folk to show up at Zion Hill in support of Seth’s pro-LGBTQ stance.

After publishing a column entitled “The 10 Reasons I Love LGBTQ folk” in Fleming’s paper, Pickens came under fire from church officials. The controversy erupted on the heels of internal criticism he’d received for performing a marriage ceremony for a lesbian couple last year.

See previously from Intersections’ Reporter Corps series: Growing up queer in Watts: What happens when school is still not a safe place [Read more…]

OPINION: Public enemy or talented tenth? The war against Black children



DayofDialoguebibleref In a predominantly Black South Los Angeles continuation school class packed with eleventh and twelfth grade girls, only half want to go to college, few can name role models of color and virtually none have been exposed to literature by women of color. Demonized as the most expendable of the expendable, Black continuation school students are routinely branded as too “at risk,” “challenged” and “deficit-laden” to be “college material.” Coming from backgrounds of abuse, incarceration, foster care and homelessness, these youth are already written off as budding welfare queens and baby mamas. They are at the epicenter of the war against Black children.

State-sanctioned terrorism against Black children is commonly understood as murder, harassment, and racial profiling–overt acts of violence which elicit marches, pickets, mass resistance and moral outrage. Last week, Republicans and Democrats alike fell all over themselves to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragic murder of four African American girls in the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Such overt acts of organized white supremacist terrorism against Black children have largely receded. Instead, they have been replaced by the socially acceptable state violence of school-to-prison pipelining, racist low expectations and the illusion of equal educational opportunity in the “post Jim Crow” era of re-segregated schools.

Blaming Black underachievement for low global standing

Last spring, in an offensive commencement speech to Morehouse College graduates, President Obama launched into his standard refrain about personal responsibility, sagging pants and absent fathers. Checking shiftless Black youth has long been one of his favorite presidential past-times. As progressive Black pundits have noted, this narrative not only plays well in Peoria, but on the global stage. For a nation brainwashed into believing the U.S. is an exceptionalist beacon, the underachievement of black students has become both shorthand for and explanation of its low standing in academic rankings. According to this view, the achievement gap between (lazy) Black and (enterprising) white and Asian students “drags” down the U.S.’ global academic standing. Steeped in a culture of pathology, native-born African American youth “squander” the opportunities seized upon by newly arrived immigrant students of color.

As a 2013 high school graduate and first generation college student of mixed heritage, Ashley Jones is well acquainted with toxic anti-black propaganda. She says, “Being Black and Thai…if I do well on a test or in class, then some people will comment, ‘that’s your Asian side.’” Jones comes from a South L.A. school where it is not uncommon for teachers to reflexively track students into college prep, honors and Advanced Placement (AP) classes according to race and ethnicity. She comments, “If you were to ask these same people about race, they would tell you we are all equal and anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to, but when you listen to them talk at nutrition and lunch, you hear Blackness constantly associated with violence, ‘being ghetto,’ and a lack of intellectual abilities.”

A recent L.A. Times article about Kashawn Campbell, a high-achieving African American graduate of South L.A.’s Jefferson High School who struggled to get C’s and D’s at UC Berkeley, exemplifies these sentiments. The over 700 responses on the article’s comment thread were relentless: the young man’s plight was due to inflated expectations, laziness, outright sloth, and the natural intellectual inferiority of African Americans. Even the National Review picked up the piece and dubbed it an example of a “Devastating Affirmative Action Failure.” Why, many commenters howled contemptuously, didn’t Walker’s slot go to a “real” achiever, i.e., a hardworking Asian or white student who genuinely deserved it? Missing from the near universal condemnations of affirmative action was the fact that Campbell’s freshman performance at UC Berkeley reflects the deficits of a neo-liberal public education system in which even high achieving students of color may be grossly underprepared for college work. High stakes tests, unqualified teachers, culturally un-responsive curricula, overcrowded classrooms, long term subs, high student-to-college counselor ratios and school climates that over-suspend, criminalize and push-out Black and Latino youth all influence whether a student thrives or languishes in a rigorous college environment. According to the Education Trust West, “Only one of every 20 African American kindergartners will graduate from a four-year California university if (these) current trends continue.”

kingdrew boys-1Advanced Placement

Yet the myth of the lazy Black student, mascot of a shiftless pathological culture, remains a powerful theme in anti-public education and anti-affirmative action propaganda. Last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) entered into an agreement with several Alabama school districts to redress the under-representation of African American students in advanced, honors and AP course enrollment (as well as test-taking). A key finding was that advanced math was offered in the seventh grade at white middle schools, but was not offered at predominantly African American middle schools. High school AP courses are gatekeepers to top colleges and universities. A high score on an AP test allows a student to receive college course credit. Nationwide, African American students are less likely to be enrolled in AP classes, especially the “elite” math and science courses that are virtually required for admission to top STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs. At 14% of the U.S. student population Black students comprise only 3% of those enrolled in AP courses or taking AP exams. According to the College Board, “The vast majority of Black high school graduates from the Class of 2011 who could have done well in an AP course never enrolled in one because they were either ‘left out’ or went to a school that didn’t offer the college prep courses.” Persistently racist attitudes about the academic and intellectual capacity of Black students are a major barrier to their placement in AP and college prep courses. In schools with diverse multicultural populations Black students are still routinely consigned to less challenging courses (even if they have high GPAs) and stereotyped as not being as capable as other students of color.

As one private college counselor argues, “With competition for college admission increasing every year, many students fear they won’t be accepted without five or six AP courses, and when it comes to the most selective colleges, they are probably right.” Eighty-three percent of colleges ranked grades in college prep courses as the single most important factor in their admissions decisions. According to the OCR, “enrollment in middle school advanced math courses – and, in particular, in 8th grade Algebra—sets students on the path for completion of the District’s highest level course offerings in math and science, including AP courses.”

Nationwide, African American students struggle with and are underrepresented in eighth grade Algebra courses. In Silicon Valley, fount of American technological innovation, fewer than 25% of Black and Latino students successfully complete Algebra. Moreover, only 20% of Latinos and 22% of African-Americans “graduate with passing grades in the courses that are required” for admission to UC and Cal State universities. Ultimately, the predominantly white and Asian make-up of Silicon Valley companies reflects the insidious ramifications of these disparities. Passing Algebra is a major predictor of later success in college. But if students of color don’t have access to college prep math in middle school (and then transition to high school taking less rigorous courses), gaining admission to and staying in college, much less graduating from college, will never be a viable option.

Anti-Black racism

Despite the mainstreaming of discourse about “diversity” and culturally responsive teaching, there is little focus on the unrelenting violence anti-Black racism inflicts upon even high-achieving Black students. The vitriol expressed toward UC Berkeley student Kashawn Campbell reflects the rawness of mainstream views about the moral failings of all Black students. Here, “even” high-achieving Black students are presumed to be “guilty” representatives of communities that reject presumably accepted “American” standards for academic success and personal uplift. Exceptional Black folk may delude themselves into believing that they can successfully manipulate this equation in their favor. But Obama’s destructive Talented Tenth palliatives merely reflect this nation’s deep investment in violence against Black children.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels and Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and the Values Wars.

OPINION: Trayvon’s class of 2013



Black scholars At Black Skeptics Los Angeles’ scholarship ceremony, my colleagues and I had the honor of awarding scholarships to five brilliant youth of color who are first generation college students. They are 17 and 18 year-olds who have known more struggle and sacrifice than many adults have known in their entire lives. They have each battled the dominant culture’s view that they are not white, male, straight, wealthy or smart enough to be genuine college material. They have all seen their neighborhoods—South L.A. communities powered by hard working people, students, activists, educators from all walks of life—portrayed as ghetto cesspit jungles where violent savages roam, welfare queens breed, and drive-bys rule. They have all mourned the absence of young friends and relatives who did not live to see their high school, much less college, graduation ceremonies. Looking around the room at their bright young faces, surrounded by proud family members, teachers, and mentors, the collective sense of duty and obligation everyone felt toward this next generation of intellectuals, activists and scholars was evident.

Because the ceremony occurred in the midst of national anxiety over the murder trial of George Zimmerman it was both a celebration of promise and a bittersweet paean to the burning loss and betrayal communities of color routinely experience in this racist apartheid nation. Trayvon Martin would’ve been 18 this year, a graduate of the class of 2013. He might have been college-bound, anxious, bracing against the fear of the unknown, heady with anticipation about the future. He might have been mindful of the psychological and emotional miles he’d have to travel to be freed from the prison of society’s demonizing assumptions. He might have experienced all of these feelings while grieving the untimely deaths of his own friends and being told that young black lives don’t matter.

Zimmerman’s acquittal for his cold-blooded murder is a turning point and baptism by fire in the cultural politics of colorblindness. It is a turning point for every middle class child of color who believes their class status exempts or insulates them from criminalization. It is a turning point for every suburban white child whose lifeblood is the comfort and privilege of presumed innocence. It is a turning point for every Talented Tenth parent of color who has deluded themselves about the corrupt creed of Americana justice. And it is a turning point for a collective historical amnesia in which race and racism are soft-pedaled through imperialist narratives of progress, enlightenment and transcendence.

For black people who have had faith in the criminal justice system and due process it is no longer possible to pretend that black life is worth more than that of a dog killed in broad daylight on a city street. People who kill dogs—or those who run vicious dog-fighting rings like NFL football player Michael Vick—receive longer prison sentences than do law enforcement officials (or their surrogates) who kill black people. For a predominantly white female jury that did not see the crushing loss in the murder of a young man pursued by a predator who was expressly told not to leave his vehicle by law enforcement; the life of a dog was apparently more valuable.

This is one of the indelible lessons in “democracy” and American exceptionalism that Trayvon’s class will take with them to college and hopefully spend their lives fighting to upend.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the founder of Black Skeptics Los Angeles and the author of the new book Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels.

Shakespeare in Watts: teacher activist Melanie Andrews



imageMelanie Andrews is the director of the internationally acclaimed Washington Prep High School theatre program in South Los Angeles. A native of Compton, California, she received her MFA in theatre from the University of Southern California and has worked as a director in China, Germany, Canada, and Mexico, as well as at regional theatres in the U.S. A documentary on the Washington Prep theatre program’s Shakespeare in Watts (a rendition of Romeo and Juliet) production is screening on Sunday, February 17th at Los Angeles’ Pan African Film Festival. Dr. Andrews is also a teacher-partner for the L.A. County Human Relations Commission’s Washington Involving Neighborhoods program and Black Skeptics Los Angeles’ 2013 scholarship fund.

What is your background in theatre?

I got into theatre by accident. I was a state champion debater for Compton Unified. As part of a work study program in high school I got a job at the Ebony Showcase theatre (now the Nate Holden Company) in South L.A. I started with the production Norman is That You (with Redd Foxx and John Amos). The girl that was playing a prostitute had an accident and I decided I would fill in for the part. I got the laughs and fit the suit and that is how I got the part. I was also encouraged by Ethel Waters when I performed at the Pasadena Playhouse. I taught at CSULB, Compton College, and Emory University in Atlanta. I am also involved in using the arts for the peace movement and human rights, especially as it pertains to human/sexual trafficking and violence against women. For the past several years I’ve been engaged with helping girls and women understand the impact of prostitution and sexual trafficking in local communities of color from a black feminist perspective.

What is the climate of local youth theatre in South L.A.?

Washington Prep is the little school that could. We have won over forty awards in theatre competition. I found kids that were hungry to do theatre. I’m classically trained and have brought that training to this school. It’s not necessarily in line with the norm of high school drama. Some of our acclaimed productions have been Zoot Suit and Positive Secrets, a drama on HIV/AIDS based on the voices and experiences of youth of color. We also mounted ‘Stop” a production on the sex trafficking of girls. We won five awards at the California State festival. Our other claim to fame is that 90% of the students involved in this program go to four year universities like Fordham, NYU, UCLA, etc. This program has boosted their academic success and college matriculation prospects.

What other productions are in the works?

Unfortunately, none of our productions are being funded. We don’t necessarily have the support of the administration. We’ve been told that our stuff is “nice” but that it doesn’t make money. The school has decided to go in a more “hip hop” direction. We got zero funding for Black History month. Like many teachers I’ve had to go into my own pocket to fund these productions. However, I believe these productions are necessary for students to know the Eurocentric canon in order to survive, navigate higher education and be culturally literate. Our students will be able to perform in different contexts and know their craft. Several years ago, I realized we had an excess of talent and a dearth of funding and that’s why I partnered with the British Academy program. I’ve had the pleasure of working at numerous Shakespeare festivals (in fact, I’m one of the few African Americans that has worked as a stage manager, dramaturge, actor and director for virtually every Shakespeare play in the Folio). The cast of Romeo and Juliet was mentored by members of the BA program. The students were able to learn the language of Shakespeare from actors that were immersed in it. They also received training from actors in the Royal Shakespeare Company. These professionals saw them as being important and the students lived up to those expectations. Now we have over one-hundred mentors.

What is the most rewarding part of working with youth at Washington Prep and how can the community help with this work?

Having them in class you get to see that everything that exists in the microcosm of the community exists here too. Everyone has a “heart light”—you just need someone to turn it on. In theatre we activate it with high academic expectations and the students rise to the challenge. They start going to class, they become community activists, they learn that they have power, and they demand things. Most of our kids are now in the top ten of their classes. They are focused on college, realizing that they not only have a future, but that they have a gift. So I welcome community members who can come and be mentors. We have costumes to design and sets to build. We need fundraisers, we need sets painted, and most of all we need the kids to be supported. We have kids in foster care, kids who are homeless and surfing on couches, and we have kids that are dealing with the random death of loved ones. Sometimes in rehearsals we’ll deal with death, rape, and other hard issues and they are able to connect their life experience with that. Romeo and Juliet is so real to them because they are living through it. I grew up in Compton. My father was murdered when I was young, and because of your mother, Yvonne Divans Hutchinson, and others guiding me I made it through that. Teachers like her told me what a difference I could make. I could have become suicidal or a drug addict. I’ve had multiple careers, but I come back to teaching because we are needed more now than ever. My students have gone on to be professionals in theatre, film, business, and politics and that is one of my greatest rewards.

Sikivu Hutchinson is editor of blackfemlens.org, freethoughtblogs.com/blackskeptics.org, Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars

More African-Americans leaving religious faiths



Black Skeptics of Los Angeles

Members of the Black Skeptics of Los Angeles

African-Americans are significantly more religious compared to the rest of the U.S. population, but a growing community of black atheists, like the Black Skeptics of Los Angeles, are steadily increasing each year.

The American Religious Identification Survey of 2008 found that from 1990 to 2008 the number of blacks without any religious affiliation nearly doubled from 6 to 11 percent. Among Americans, that number also jumped to 15 percent from 8 percent in 1990.

“There have always been African-American free thinkers, humanists, agnostics and atheists who have really foregrounded the connection between eschewing religion and the liberation struggle, particularly as it pertains to women and the LGBT community,” said Sikivu Hutchinson, founder of Black Skeptics of Los Angeles.

Hutchinson is part of a national advertising campaign that was launched this year by the African-Americans for Humanism. Her photo was featured next to writer Zora Neale Hurston on a roadside billboard in Los Angeles with the phrase, “Doubts about religion? You’re one of many.”

“If you have an ethos that says black women should be self-sacrificing, should not question male authority and patriarchy…those kinds of things need to be questioned. In my mind, it does emanate from this biblical context,” said Hutchinson.

Nicome Taylor, member of Black Skeptics of Los Angeles, joined the group in September and has seen its membership grow.

Taylor said she recently started a Meet Up group in January from the website meetup.com, and it has now blossomed into 30 members.

“I just feel good about meeting other people that thought like me. I mean kind of going through the whole process makes you feel a little crazy, a little bad after being indoctrinated with [religion] for a while,” said Taylor, who was raised in the church and believed God.

The Inglewood native said she always questioned her faith. It was after she came into contact with people who challenged her beliefs that she started on a quest for more knowledge.

“I had no idea, previously, who wrote the Bible. Even attending bible studies in church, they don’t teach you from a very objective standpoint,” said Taylor.

Through her research, she began to see falsities in the Bible and disagreed with passages on slavery and genocide.

“Without pointing the finger, [the church] is doing it indirectly by saying everyone else is wrong, and Jesus is the only way. There’s other people in the world that are brought up with their belief system as well so what makes us more right than them,” said Taylor.

Before coming out openly about her disbelief, Taylor discussed it with her family and friends. Growing up in a religious family, she said it was difficult for her family to accept the news. Some relatives even stopped talking to her.

“Leaving the faith can be difficult for anybody,” said Taylor. “In the black community, a lot of them don’t want to do that…it’s devastating for some people because it’s all they know,” said Taylor.

Life is a little bit easier for her now because she said her way of thinking has been freed. Yet, Taylor said she still faces challenges because atheists tend to be demonized within the church and among religious groups.

This can be attributed to the overwhelming number of blacks who claim to be religious.

According to figures from the Pew Research Center’s Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 87 percent of African-Americans belong to a religious group, and nearly eight in ten or 79 percent of African-Americans say religion is very important to them compared with 56 percent of adults in the United States.

Out of those figures, 59 percent of African-Americans attend historically black churches like the National Baptist Convention and the American Methodist Episcopal Church.

Pew’s research also found that historically black Protestant groups were among the most religiously observant based on several factors such as frequency of prayers and church attendance.

Jimmy Thompson said his first experience at church was as a child on Easter Sunday. He said he was in church for seven hours and after that day he never went back to church.

“I don’t talk about [religion] with people because I know people hold their beliefs very true to their heart, and it could turn into a vicious conversation because you challenge their belief,” said Thompson.

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He said religion was never discussed in his family and the only time they went to church was on holidays like Easter and Christmas.

For Daniel Myatt, a self-proclaimed skeptic who revealed he is one sermon away from being a minister had a very different upbringing.

“To say I embraced religion or the faith would be an understatement. It was just a part of me from my existence as far back as I remember,” said Myatt.

Myatt said he was raised in Chicago in a neighborhood where every corner had a Baptist church. His sisters are missionaries and their husbands are ministers.

Growing up, Myatt said his family would pray every Wednesday and teach them regular bible studies and lessons.

“I remember saying in my Sunday School class that I wanted to be a scientist so I can really prove God,” said Myatt.

He remembers that one of the first things he did after moving to California was watch Martin Scorsese’s film “The Last Temptation of Christ,” a film that his minister banned the congregation from watching. After the film, he worried God would carry out retribution on him.

“If I drive back to my city and my car stops my first thought would be God is punishing me for something I did wrong,” said Myatt.

Yet, living in California made him think in a different way. He said it was the first time he saw black people who did not go to church, which was unheard of in Chicago.

“My parents used to say Sunday morning you have to be in church, anybody’s church,” said Myatt.

He began to ask questions like why God’s word must be filtered through a pastor who is just a man, and why his marriage had to first be approved by a pastor who was divorced several times.

According to Myatt, it has been difficult for him to depart from his religious background and become comfortable with being a skeptic. The rest of his family knows he does not go to church or believe in God, but his father still does not know.

“It’s a revolutionary act to say I’m not going to church or I’m not a believer. I think a lot of people play the game and stay in it…because it’s socially safer to do so…culturally it’s expected,” said Myatt.

Religion and black churches play a pivotal role in the black community. Their prominence has become so well-known that it is even a frequent conversation piece in films like those by Tyler Perry. Even the preaching style of black pastors is caricatured in popular culture.

Javon Johnson, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Southern California’s Department of American Studies and Ethnicity, pointed out that the black church has played a historically vital role.

“On the one hand Christianity was certainly used to justify slavery, but on the other hand Christianity was also used to sort of move away…from slavery. It’s a double edge sword…but I also think it allowed political access that was denied by legitimate means,” said Johnson.

He attributes the possible growth of black skeptics to a changing political landscape. The way blacks were fighting for equality 100 years ago is drastically different than now, and it may also have something to do with the ebb and flow of history.

“Leaving the black church could be seen as deviant by many, but I think history has shown us that…what constitutes deviant changes over time depends on the cultural milieu at the particular moment,” said Johnson. “If history is indicating that it’s more and more OK for folks to speak out against the church, even in this god fearing country it’s safe to say that, it might become more pronounced over time.”

Pastor Seth Pickens of Zion Hill Baptist Church said he has noticed people moving away from the church but has seen more individuals claim that they are spiritual instead of religious.

“They’re very turned off by the church. Some of the politics and some of the scandals and everything that happens in the church, it turns people off,” said Pickens.

He said it should be a concern for pastors because it tells them what they are doing wrong. In order to remedy the situation, Pickens proposes that the core teachings of Christ, like love and self-control, should be taught.

In the three years he has been a pastor at Zion Hill, the congregation has grown from 87 members to over a couple hundred. He said the favorite part of his job is making the Bible more understandable to his congregation.

In February, Pickens and members of the Black Skeptics group held a roundtable at the church to discuss African-American humanism.

According to Pickens, many Christians are unwilling to engage with atheists in a civil way and have a dialogue, but the event revealed that many of them actually share one belief and that was building up the community.

“Whether you believe in God, whether you confess Christ or not if you see someone hungry you should feed them and many of the black atheists feel the same way. So, I don’t see why we can’t work together,” said Pickens.

Silence still equals death: Sexual violence and young women of color



April is sexual assault awareness month. It also marks the global observance of Denim Day for sexual assault survivors. Black and mixed race women have some of the highest sexual assault rates in the nation. Yet, recently, when young women of color in my class spoke on the disproportionate number of women of color victimized by sexual violence they initially trotted out stereotypes like “mixed race women are more likely to be raped because they are the ‘prettiest’ and “black women get assaulted more because they have ‘big butts.’ This intersection of internalized racism and sexism is most potent when youth grapple with how representations of young women of color in the media normalize sexual violence.

The normalization of sexual violence breeds silence in the classroom. In the clockwatching ten minutes-before-the-bell-rings clamor of my peer health workshop of 11th and 12th graders there is silence, deafening and thick as quicksand. I have asked them a question about the widespread use of the words “bitch” and “ho” to describe young women of color on campus. Several boys are holding forth in response. They are the same four opinionated boys who have been the most vocal throughout these sessions, always ready with a quip, a deflection or, sometimes, serious commentary that reveals deep wisdom. They are bursting with perspective on this topic, but the girls in the room are silent. Some twist in their seats, some study the tops of their desks in calculated boredom, transporting themselves outside of the room, slain by the language of dehumanization. Finally a few girls chime in and say they use the terms casually with friends, as in “my bitch or my ho,” supposedly neutralizing their negative connotations akin to the way they use the word “nigga.” Some claim the words are justifiably used to describe “bad girls” who are promiscuous and unruly, not realizing that black women have always been deemed “bad” in the eyes of the dominant culture, as less than feminine, as bodies for violent pornographic exploitation. When I wondered aloud whether white women call themselves bitch and ho as terms of endearment I got uncertain responses. My guess is that they don’t, not because white women are necessarily more enlightened and self-aware than women of color on gender, but because white femininity is the beauty ideal and hence the human ideal. Despite the misogyny that pervades American culture there is inherent value placed on the lives of white women. Every aspect of the image industry affirms their existence, and the spectrum of culturally recognized white femininity extends from proper and pure to “sexually liberated.”

This is exemplified by the tabloid media’s obsession with missing white women and white girls. Plastered on websites like AOL, relentlessly rammed down our collective throats in titillating morsels with whiffs of sexuality and scandal, poster child Caylee Anderson and company are a metaphor for Middle America’s Little Red Riding Hood fetishization of white femininity. Tabloid narratives of imperiled white females highlight the suburban virtues of white Middle America and not so subtlely evoke the social pathologies of the so-called inner city. Indeed, the spectacles of grief, mourning, and community outrage trotted out on CNN and FOX not only program viewers to identify with the injustice that has been done to the victim and her family, but to her community. In the world of 24-7 media these victims become our girls, our daughters, while the “bitches” and “hos” of the inner city symbolize the disorder and ungovernableness of an urban America whose values must be kept at bay.

In many regards this is part of the same “post-feminist” trend that tells women to sit down and shut up, to internalize the values of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and stay in their place. A generation of Bush militarism and corporate reign over media has turned sexualized violence against women into a billion dollar industry, as illustrated by global romance with gangsta rap, violent video games and Internet pornography. Yet the desensitization of young black women to these trends is perhaps the most painful. When I talk to my students about the staggering rates of sexual assault and intimate partner abuse in black communities they are quick to judge themselves and their peers for inciting male violence. Unable to see themselves and their lives as valuable they slam other girls for being “hoochies” and sloganeer violent misogynist lyrics without a second thought. Awareness about the relationship between pervasive violence against black women in the media and male behavior is virtually nonexistent.

This Denim Day Women’s Leadership Project students from Gardena and Washington Prep High schools will conduct training in classroom on gender equity and sexual violence; challenging their peers to critically examine the media, school, and community images that promote sexualized violence against women of color. Until we change the self-hating mindset of many young black women, silence—as the HIV/AIDS activist saying goes—does equal death, and we will be poised to lose another generation to a media-colonized sense of self-worth.

OPINION: Dangerous Distortions: Anti-Abortion Fascists and Third World Allies



By Sikivu Hutchinson and Diane Arellano

imageOn a recent Los Angeles talk radio show Louisiana state legislator John LaBruzzo lamented the “massacre” of millions of “baby women” by abortion. In this fascist’s warped mind abortion infringes on the civil rights of fetuses. LaBruzzo is the author of a bill that would abolish abortion on the grounds that denying fetuses civil rights is akin to the violent denial of black civil rights under slavery. According to male anti-abortion fascists like LaBruzzo, poor single women get abortions because they are forced to by predatory deadbeat dad boyfriends in training or by fathers who have committed incest. Hence, overturning Roe vs. Wade is consistent with gender equity and social justice.

As the national hijacking of women’s rights continues, the Right has become more and more skillful at manipulating pro-death anti-choice messages designed to make women believe that their interests are being served by powerful white conservative foundations and their “third world” allies. In Los Angeles, conservative Latino groups are now targeting Latino communities with a new wave of anti-abortion billboards similar to those aimed at African American women. The Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles is the architect of this latest assault on reproductive justice for women of color. As with the abortion-as-black-genocide billboards unleashed by the far right Radiance Foundation, the Latino billboards evoke reductive hyper-religious narratives of sinning promiscuous bad women and “breeder” good women.

The billboards claim that “the most dangerous place” for a Latino child is in the womb. Yet the reality of Latina fertility rates—three children are the national average for Latinas in their childbearing years—would seem to belie the need for this campaign. But of course reality in fascist propaganda is an oxymoron. Crafted as they are at the height of the recession, the economic subtext of these moral panic narratives must be exposed. The subtext of the campaign is that any form of access to abortion threatens the stability of patriarchal Latino families. Like black women, Latinas’ bodies are territory to be manipulated, controlled, and strictly policed vis-à-vis the regime of authentic Latino gender identities based on Catholic piety and female submission. As the most underrepresented and lowest paid group in the American economy, Latinas are especially vulnerable to socio-cultural narratives mandating that they stay barefoot, pregnant, and underemployed.

In the Latino community, the assault on women’s right to self-determination is also being spearheaded by former Latin American telenovela stars ready to lend their “expert” opinions on what Latinas in the US should and should not do with their bodies. The most vociferous of these is former boy band member and telenovela heartthrob Eduardo Verastegui. In 2008, Verastegui vied for the heart of the Religious Right with media appearances encouraging Spanish speaking Latino voters to vote yes on Proposition 8, California’s anti-same sex marriage initiative. He has returned to the spotlight as a founding member of Manto de Guadalupe, a nonprofit focused on “defending life from conception to natural death.”

On June 12th, Manto de Guadalupe sponsored a fundraising event in support of the development of the largest “pro-life” women’s clinic in the United States. This facility is slated to be built in South Los Angeles, which has one of the highest poverty rates in L.A. County. At the event, legendary Mexican telenovela star Veronica Castro introduced Texas governor and rumored presidential hopeful Rick Perry. Just a few days before the fundraiser, Perry introduced SB 9—sweeping legislation which would ban “sanctuary cities” or non-existent safe havens for undocumented immigrants—into the Texas Senate. SB 9 would further criminalize Texas Latinos by allowing law enforcement to inquire about the immigration status of those arrested or legally detained. Still, at the fundraiser, the predominantly Spanish speaking immigrant crowd cheered wildly for Perry.

The connection between the right’s anti-immigrant and anti-choice agenda is no coincidence. Criminalizing choice and undocumented immigrants is part of a larger scheme in which big government eliminates the rights of the underclass and expands “social welfare” for corporations, the wealthy, and the military industrial complex. Thus, right wing propaganda in black and brown communities must be met head on. Access to safe and legal safe abortions is not only paramount to women’s health but to economic and social justice. Pro-choice politicians like President Obama who waffle on the morality and necessity of abortion (talking only of the need to “reduce” the number of abortions), further distort the connection between unrestricted access to abortion and human rights. Indeed, the Left’s marginal response to far right anti-abortion fascism has enabled a climate in which Planned Parenthood has now been defunded in three states. If the war on safe and legal access to abortion does not shift to a national movement centered on how family planning and abortion are a fundamental human right, then the lives of black and brown women will continue to be expendable. And if the right wing of all hues continues to be allowed to define the terms of human rights and “social justice” women of color will be on the frontlines reliving the horror of the back alley.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars. Diane Arellano is a photo documentarian and youth advocacy educator based in Los Angeles. Her work examines sociocultural instability and flexibility, the intersections of marginalized communities, race, class, and gender roles. Sikivu and Diane run the Women’s Leadership Project, A South L.A.-based feminist mentoring program.

Church-goers and skeptics meet for ‘interfaith’ dialogue



imageCongregants of Zion Hill Baptist Church in South Los Angeles probably thought Pastor Seth Pickens was certifiable when he proposed a community dialogue with the L.A. Black Skeptics Group. Founded in March of last year, the group provides a safe real time space for atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, humanists, and skeptics of African descent. As the group’s organizer, I had been in conversation with Seth about a forum for several months after interviewing him for my new book Moral Combat. A thirty-something, literary Morehouse College graduate from the East Coast, he was open to the idea of an “interfaith” dialogue from the beginning. As the pastor of Zion Hill since 2009, he seemed deeply concerned about the ongoing national critique of the Black Church’s waning influence (see, for example, Princeton religion professor Eddie Glaude’s widely circulated Huffington Post piece “The Black Church is Dead.”).

The Zion Hill church building itself is a sprawling beacon of provincial beauty. About forty participants of all ages and beliefs gathered in one of the churches’ smaller sanctuaries to hear the panel. In my opening comments I framed black secular humanist traditions within the prism of black liberation struggle and cultural politics. Far from being marginal to black social thought and activism, secular humanism and social justice were deeply intertwined in the work of leading black thinkers like A. Philip Randolph, Richard Wright, and Zora Neale Hurston.

imageHowever, analysis of 21st century black religiosity should be situated within the context of deepening social, political, and economic crisis. Faced with double digit unemployment and skyrocketing rates of homelessness, the American dream is even more of a brutal sham for African Americans. In the wake of Obama’s election it is no accident that reactionary forces seek to dismantle what little remains of the American social welfare safety net. Indeed, the decades’ long Religious Right backlash against civil rights, women’s rights, and gay liberation is exemplified by the ascent of Tea Party-style white nationalism. Consequently, to paraphrase panelist Carol Pierce, the Black Church is still something of a “refuge” in a hyper-segregated nation.

So why did the panelists become atheists or agnostics? Jim Pierce, a retired engineer, expressed his dissatisfaction with the church’s sexist treatment of women. Thamani Delgardo, a health care professional who described herself as a “former holy roller,” became disillusioned after repeatedly seeing innocent babies die despite prayer. Jeffery “Atheist Walking” Mitchell found Christian explanations for the creation of the universe absurd. Discussing the real life stigma black non-believers face, We Are All Africans author Kwadwo Obeng expressed his contempt for comedian Steve Harvey, who smeared atheists as having no moral compass in a now infamous 2009 interview. Obeng also condemned racist characterizations of the 2010 Haitian earthquake as an example of God’s wrath (due to Haitians’ blasphemous worship of Voudoun). Delgardo argued forcefully against the benefits of prayer as an antidote to pain and suffering. Predictably, monotheism itself came in for a vigorous beating. Both Obeng and Mitchell unpacked the illogic of thousands of competing religious truth claims; each faith’s loyalists insisting that their particular view of divinity, morality, righteousness, and the god(s) concept be privileged by the masses. Obeng articulated a radical African critical consciousness, arguing that European colonialism and white supremacy wiped out indigenous African belief systems amongst enslaved Africans in the so-called New World. Hence, all Abrahamic religions legitimized a kind of mental slavery, fatally undermining black self-love and self knowledge for both African Americans and Africans.

imageIn response, one audience member complained that it was easy to “poke holes” in scripture and Christian belief. But at the end of the day you had to believe in something. Secular humanists believe that faith in supernatural puppet masters are dangerous because we only have one life to live. Feminist atheists believe that social justice based on the universal moral value of women’s right to self-determination (rather than self-sacrifice, domestication, submission, and sexual degradation) is certainly not found in the Bible or the Koran. It is for this reason that the heterosexist, patriarchal hierarchies of Abrahamic religions are especially insidious for black women and LGBT people of African descent.

A lively exchange on biblical literalism versus liberal Christian theology ensued when I quoted several misogynistic passages from scripture. Pastor Seth took exception with the notion that Christianity prescribed misogyny, citing a passage in the New Testament which he interpreted to suggest equality between men and women.

Pondering the question of evil and free will, a younger parishioner contended that God didn’t micro-manage people’s lives, implicitly rejecting Epicurus’ caveat about God’s impotence if he didn’t intervene against evil. Speaking from the audience, my father, author and political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson, concluded the discussion with a spirited defense of “Christian” precepts of charity and forgiveness, whilst acknowledging the pernicious acts of some true believers. When I was growing up, our household was perhaps the only one in the neighborhood where secular humanism was the rule (my mother Yvonne still considers herself a secular humanist). So my father’s newfound belief in God and self-proclaimed “spiritual” humanism has been interesting to watch.

In the end, odysseys in belief, like family politics and intimate relationships, are complicated. Yet what is not in question is the need for a paradigm shift around social justice in black communities. So the atheists and the Baptists pledged to meet again, in the spirit of shared struggle.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars.

REVIEW: ‘Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars’



imageBy Don R Barbera, blackskeptics.blogspot.com

Sometimes, preaching to the choir is necessary to make it aware they may be singing in the wrong key, from the wrong hymnal and in the wrong church. Black atheist author Siviku Hutchison removes the ifs, ands and buts from that thought by demonstrating that the right religion is often wrong for the black community.

Her new book “Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars,” dissects the complex relationship between religion and reality as it relates to the black community. A PhD who teaches in South Los Angeles where life can be cheap, she understands the mean streets and even more so, she sees a clear dichotomy in race and religion where actual behavior often falls far from the tree of belief.

This book is filled with relevant information regarding Christianity and its magnetic relationship with the African American community, as well as explanations of the segmentation of nonwhites, including Latinos, Asians and Native Americans. Although written in a scholarly fashion, the book is accessible, relevant and straightforward. If understanding the nature of genderphilia, racisms role in morality and the coded world political pandering, this book is for you.

The author presents a view few African Americans ever think about and if they did, it would be dismissed out of hand because it comes from an atheist, a black female nonbeliever unafraid to speak openly of her humanistic views and the problems she sees in Christianity’s role in disabling the black community. The feminist author wastes no time in getting to the issues facing the black community when it comes to Christian religion and its affect on nearly every resident.

Some might wish to argue the point, but starting with the black community, the author presents an accurate portrayal of African America’s overwhelming attachment to Christianity. The author demonstrates how the patriarchal structure Christianity blocks the advancement and growth of women by using “holy” scripture to lock women into perennial second-class citizenship. Although the book acknowledges the historical beneficial aspects of the Christian church, it does not back away from tying today’s black church affiliation with the Evangelical Right and its obsession with homosexuality and abortion. Even though women are the backbone of most churches and the black church in particular, the author makes it clear that women of the church play a secondary role behind men by biblical decree, a position reinforced by the nearly all male hierarchy of most black churches. The book suggests that female independence is not possible under the sexist regime of the nearly all male clergy; implying that many of the female church supporters are unaware of the demotion.

From there the author presents a fair view of African American masculinity, how it is a product of the syncretism of male dominance and hierarchical religion inspired sexism all based on white supremacy and encouraged by the Bible. Ms. Hutchison also delves into the economics of Christian development by citing the construction of multi-million dollar religious complexes in the heart of urban squalor, citing the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” as an example of the materialism that is the modern church. The author connects the many ways the black church discourages many because of the constant conflict of reality, pastoral behavior and traditional morals, which seem negated by faith-based sexism.

Christianity and traditional morality fell by the wayside long ago according to current research, while nonbelief continues to grow. The author grabs this trend, introduces the reader to atheism and the black community, pointing out that atheists are considered outside the realm of blackness and is a white construct. However, the writer informs the reader of the long history of African American freethinkers and humanists who laid the groundwork for today’s growing ranks of nonbelievers in the black community. An old joke has it that there are 20 million black Baptist in the US and three atheists. It is no joking matter according to the writer as she points out not only the growing number of nonbelievers in the black community, but also the number of African American females contributing to this expansion.

A portion of the introduction to black female atheists contains the writers own story of how she came to atheism at an early age.

A significant chapter talking about prayer is revealing of the author’s thoughts on the value of what stirs legal battles in schools and government procedures. The writer sees prayer as little more than a convenient refuge from problems that remain after the prayer ends. The author ties prayer to doing nothing, while giving an individual the feeling they have done something. Ms. Hutchison debunks the idea by indicating that the number of unanswered prayers is often forgotten when coincidence provides a single example. The reader will find this chapter interesting as the author is relentless in showing that nothing fails like prayer.

Closing out the last three chapters, the writer explains the connection of race to traditional morals, indicating a connection with white supremacy, Christianity and the concept of morality. Once again, the writer goes to great lengths to be fair, and then points out the racist elements involved in the Euro-American concept of morality and its links with slavery and the slaughter of Native Americans. Taking the reader of a historical tour of the injustice sanctioned by Christianity, the author reveals the greasy gears of racism, religion and the dissolute excuses used to justify inhumanity to other human beings.

Humanity braces Ms. Hutchison’s resoluteness in dispelling myths about atheists and humanist, while offering humanism as a better way for the black community to move forward. The author also points out the need for atheist and humanist groups to work together in achieving people-based solutions and escaping the world of superstition for real progress.

OPINION: Defending ‘Our Mother’s Gardens’



Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a senior fellow with the Institute for Humanist Studies. Become a fan of Blackfemlens on Facebook.

imageIn her landmark work In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Alice Walker wrote: “What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmother’s time? Our great-grandmothers’ day? Did you have a genius of a great-great-grandmother who died under some ignorant and depraved white overseer’s lash? Or was her body broken and forced to bear children (who were more often than not sold away from her)—eight, ten, fifteen, twenty children—when her one joy was the thought of modeling heroic figures of rebellion?”

Many of my students do not know who Walker is. But as they listen to me read her words during a discussion of Women’s History Month they are quiet as death, contemplative, and, perhaps, newly enflamed. As students of female sacrifice, many of them know the savage politics behind her canvas. They are intimately aware of the blood price women of color must pay to be free in this so-called post-feminist society in which white male lawmakers trivialize sexual assault with dangerous tautologies like “forcible rape.”

Recently the mainstream media buzzed with news reports that a Libyan woman had reported being gang-raped to a group of foreign correspondents. A MSNBC reporter described the victim as middle aged, well-spoken and respectable (the victim was actually estimated to be in her 20s or 30s), implying that her credibility was beyond reproach.

As a “respectable,” upstanding woman, her rape would surely be an affront to her community. Preemptive reference to rape victims’ social station is a now familiar device in the rape reporting game.
Over the past few weeks, the gang rape of an 11 year old Latina girl also made headlines, eliciting controversy over the girl’s portrayal in both mainstream media and in the community where the assault occurred.

Whenever a rape case becomes high profile, the inevitable questions about the victim’s reputation, race, whereabouts, and alleged complicity in the assault are trotted out. Yet seldom is there any analysis of the sociopolitical conditions that legitimize rape and the connect- the-dots rape reporting game. And seldom is there any analysis of what gives men license to violently occupy women’s bodies. There is never any connection made between this kind of sexual terrorism and state power. Hence, these connections are especially urgent now given the unrelenting wave of anti-choice anti-abortion legislation that has swept the nation since the midterm elections.

South Dakota recently passed a law requiring pregnant women to wait three days before they made a decision about terminating their pregnancies. Under the new mandate, championed by the state’s governor, women must receive counseling from a doctor before they have an abortion. It is the only state in the nation to impose such a requirement. Other pending legislation includes requiring that women receive ultrasounds before they make a decision to terminate. Health care reform foes have also spearheaded legislation that restricts private insurers who participate in new government mandated health exchanges from providing abortion coverage.

One of the most pernicious civil liberties’ rollbacks is HR.3, the House-sponsored legislation that would give the I.R.S. the right to question women who had abortions about whether they became pregnant by rape or incest. The bill has been dubbed “Stupak on Steroids,” after Democratic Congressman Bark Stupak, who crusaded against abortion coverage under health care reform.

According to Mother Jones magazine, the bill “extends the reach of the Hyde Amendment—which bans federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake—into many parts of the federal tax code. In some cases, the law would forbid using tax benefits—like credits or deductions—to pay for abortions or health insurance that covers abortion.” Women who are audited could be forced to reveal why and how they had an abortion, further ensuring Big Brother’s reign over their bodies and destinies.

There is a connection between this kind of state-sponsored terrorism and the brutal occupation of women’s bodies through rape. Yet in the U.S., the term terrorism is only used when dark-skinned racial others are the perpetrators of “strategic” geopolitical violence. Violence against women can be isolated to aberrant male predators, not the predatory terroristic human rights violations of the state.

Recently a student in my Women’s Leadership Project group expressed her vehement opposition to abortion. She argued that a woman who has sex should be prepared to accept the potential consequence of an unplanned pregnancy. Like most young women she was taught that going through with an unplanned unwanted pregnancy is a supremely moral decision.

After all, self-sacrifice under inhumane conditions is what is expected and required of women. Validation through a baby that one cannot take care of is ok, while validation through sex is not. In this regime, the consequence of pregnancy for women is a biologically determined life sentence, one that males cannot and will not be forced to serve. Women who don’t agree to this life sentence are immoral, rather than the society that does not provide for every child regardless of class or race.

Some of the most vitriolic responses I’ve ever gotten to my writing were from anti-abortion foes, primarily men, who see a white supremacist plot behind black women’s support for abortion. But it is not white supremacy that dictates black women’s allegiance to the legacy of female ancestors who could not control their own destinies.

And this is perhaps the profound power of Walker’s work, who, in search of her mother’s garden “found (her) own.” Honoring the great grandmothers whose artistry and personhood were denied symbolizes the revolutionary right of women to control their own destinies, tend their own gardens, to ensure that terrorism cannot continue to disguise itself as legitimacy and law.

Read more stories from Sikivu Hutchinson:
OPINION: Planned Parenthood and the Rape of American Women
OPINION: Heretics, Humanism, and ‘the Hood’
OPINION: American terror and the dehumanization of gay youth

Photo courtesy of Nerves Strengthened by Tea