Sikivu Hutchinson interviewed by The Secular Buddhist

Episode 66 :: Sikivu Hutchinson :: Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars, The Secular Buddhist. 34 minutes.

"Author and educator Sikivu Hutchinson speaks with us about her book, Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars." Hutchinson reviews her work and her background, including her secular upbringing. Her family was nonreligious and politically radical, but in a community saturated in religion, compounded by a Catholic school education.

Hutchinson strives for balance in the evaluation of black religious institutions from slavery to the present. The adoption of Christianity was a means of claiming personhood in Western civilization under extreme conditions. But the various hierarchies inhering in the Bible are deemed "corrosive and insidious", not to mention the rise of the prosperity gospel. There is also a link between the black religious right and the white religious right, for example, in opposition to abortion. Black Americans are the most religious and most disenfranchised group in the USA.

Hutchinson is concerned with the revisioning of public morality, especially in public education, with a view to the elimination of the various orders of hierarchy, which have their origins in and are reinforced by religion.

The question of racial imbalance in atheist groups is addressed. How can this be remedied? In addition to greater representation of black intellectuals and leaders in prominent positions, Hutchinson sees a need to revise priorities, away from the fixation on evolution and science literacy, to a broader range of concerns that can be found among black atheists. Why is organized religion such a compelling force? If one cannot answer this question in connection with the various forms of social discrimination, then atheism and humanism will have limited appeal to people of color. Hutchinson focuses specifically on the situation of black American women. White atheists have to become educated about these issues. Secular humanism has to be made more palatable to people of color. Consider the social welfare dimension of religious institutions.

Near-term objectives include becoming more organized. Small organizations exist. The first African Americans for Humanism Conference was held last year. Hutchinson has received considerable feedback on her book. Hutchinson was especially compelled by the anti-gay agitation of black churches in California. Black nonbelievers need a safe place to show their faces. Hutchinson's group is Black Skeptics.

Sikivu Hutchinson in Moral Combat (1)

I've been meaning for some time to acknowledge publication of Sikivu Hutchinson's landmark book Moral Combat: Black Atheist, Gender Politics and the Value Wars. I am sure there is nothing like it in the atheist literature in the English language and that in many respects it is a welcome change from the usual narrow preoccupations of the atheist/humanist literature.

Here is a recent interview:

Moral Combat: Interview with Dr Sikivu Hutchinson
(Interviewed by Nathalie Woods, editor of the blog "Echoes of Commonsense")

There is much to applaud here. The contradictions embedded in the origin of Black American Christianity, for example, need to be better understood that simply chalking it up to the "Stockholm Syndrome" or the slave mentality (strong as the latter is). There is one assertion, though, that I find quite questionable:

‎"Ideologically, black atheists are distinct from white atheists in that they emphasize social justice and human rights rather than just fixating on science and the separation of church and state. "

I do think that the overall culture of American atheism & humanism, as represented by the preoccupations of its publications, speakers, leaders, and media stars, is indeed fixated on the natural sciences and has little of value to say about anything else. The rank and file, however, is more varied. Furthermore, there is no lack of reactionaries among black atheists, or of those enamored with the same science-spokesmen that white atheists adore. One thing to keep in mind about American "progressives" and leftists of any color is that they have no constituency, and anyone who pretends to speak for blacks is indulging in self-deception.


America's racial divide indeed as a rule engenders very different reference points for blacks and whites, and this sometimes correlates with different philosophical or political perspectives. However, that correlation can no longer be counted on, and to draw a hard and fast line between white and black atheists is symptomatic of something amiss in allegedly progressive politics.

Howard University symposium 2: Science & Faith in the Black Community (2)

Here is the video of the entire panel discussion.

Howard University symposium 2: Science & Faith in the Black Community

I have already blogged about the first symposium at Howard University on 28 September 2010, a dialogue on "The Poetry of Science" featuring Richard Dawkins and Neil de Grasse Tyson. In the evening there was a second event, a panel discussion on the topic "Science and Faith in the Black Community", with Howard University student Mark Hatcher again serving as moderator, and panelists Richard Dawkins, Anthony Pinn, Sikivu Hutchinson, and Todd Stiefel. I have not yet got around to writing up my notes, but you can find my report on this panel as well as on the Dawkins-Tyson dialogue on the latest installment of my Internet radio show "Studies in a Dying Culture", recorded and posted on 18 October, courtesy of Think Twice Radio:

10/18/10 Manny Fried's memoir published / Science, Religion & the Black community: symposia at Howard University

Following my preliminary remarks and my tribute to labor organizer & playwright Manny Fried, my segment on the black freethought movement begins at 18 minutes into the broadcast. My account of the evening panel discussion begins at the 43-minute mark. My apologies for the misremembering of names and other details. Finally, remarking on my forthcoming review of a new scholarly book on the "New Atheism", I have time only to comment (beginning at the 57-minute mark) on a regrettable historical amnesia that disables an honest accounting.

Out of the Closet — Black Atheists

An important new article is making the rounds:
"‘Out of the Closet’ — Black Atheists" by Sikivu Hutchinson

in the L.A. Watts Times, 28 May 2009
at Afro-Netizen
at blackfemlens, 13 May 2009
at RichardDawkins.net

Hopefully this will lead to a publicity breakthrough. Wrath James White's blog, whose correct title is Godless and Black, is referenced in this article. There is also a passing reference to an article mentioning black atheists in The New York Times, but I've not seen it.

See also Hutchinson's article "The Moral Choice: Blacks, Homophobia and Proposition 8," 29 Oct 2008.