q & a wednesday: kia

i was excited to get kia's story out because, frankly, it reminds me of my own in many ways. she's a Black mom in her mid-30's (like me), from the northeast (same here), raised "on the outskirts of the Black pentecostal experience" (close enough), and now resides in suburban atlanta with her husband and young children (ok, so i'm single and live here). anyway, in one of her first emails to me, she joked that she was "basically waiting until my maternal grandparents die to come out to my parents and extended family." for me, it's my paternal grandfather, a beautiful christian jamaican man in his late 80s who has survived cancer, diabetes, and jim crow - but i'm certain if he knew that his precious "gran'daawta" was an atheist, it would be the death of him. kia's fundamentalist parents may not have that reaction, and her "don't ask, don't tell" system seems to be working for them all as of now. read on:

when did you become aware of your skepticism? 
I don't ever really remember believing. On the rare occasion that I went to church (Pentecostal) as a young child it seemed like a very powerful thing that maybe I would "get" one day. I'm still waiting for that day : )

do you consider yourself an atheist?

Yes, but I can count on one hand the number of times or episodes that have necessitated a discussion of that fact.

your husband was raised as a christian fundamentalist, what does he consider himself now? 

He's an atheist and much more strident than I am about it.

what do you think would happen if you outed yourself to your family now?

Not much. I believe that my parents desire to be involved in the lives of my children circumvents them from pressing me on certain issues. We live in another part of the country from most of my family, visit with them several times a year, and I'm basically operating under a "don't ask, don't tell policy" and that seems to work for all of us for now.

i noticed on your blog that your children attended presbyterian schools – what’s that been like?

Only for a pre K program, so it's without incident. I can't imagine going through an entire elementary school curriculum that was centered around Christianity. For kindergarten and up we've been very happy at a Friends School which is very welcoming to people of all faiths as well as the faithless.

you mentioned having “flirted” with buddhism, UU, and even quakerism – what were those experiences like?

They went very well for the most part. But it was a classic case of "it's not you, it's me". I continue to meditate but am now not stressed that it doesn't take me to a higher plane. It relaxes me and better enables me to cope with the plane I'm currently operating on.

what role does your lack of belief play in your parenting? e.g., do you allow your children to believe in santa and other such childhood myths?

I can't really say that not being a theist has impacted my parenting in any substantial way. The core morals and values that we are teaching our kids are the ones that I was taught. I grew up nominally Christian and as a result had relatively secular holidays filled with lots of joy and family traditions that I hold dear. I thoroughly enjoy the pomp and circumstance of Santa, the tooth fairy etc. Am I doing my children a grave disservice by propagating these fictions? Only time will tell but I look back on my own childhood with mostly warm regard and hope they do the same.

anything you want to share that i haven’t covered? 

After I answered the first questions we had a family pet die. A cat that I had owned for over 13 years. It gave my two children at 4 and 6 one of their first personal experiences with death. It was one of the rare occasions that I understood the pull of religion, it would have been much easier to tell them that there was a pet heaven where our cat was living out better days. I settled for explaining that the pain and suffering of her last days were over and that she would live in our hearts forever. I can be reached at my journal like blog, theseagreenhouse.blogspot.com where I complain about all of my first world problems.

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i've personally grown weary of atheist blogs that give no real insight into their authors beyond their non-theism, and hers is one that offers a peek through a lens which, like most of ours, sees more than the absence of a supreme deity. i love her writing, and i think you will, too. as always, email your stories to blacfemme at gmail dot com.

9 9 09

greydon square had this posted on his facebook today, and i had to repost it here. some speculated that it was too dumb to be real, but the girls seem the same as many that i grew up with still know. you decide.

How Not To Convert Someone To Christianity | Viral/Other | SPIKE.com

q & a wednesday: eddie goldman

i got an email from today's subject and asked him if i could publish part of it for q&a wednesday. eddie goldman is a journalist who currently covers combat sports (mixed martial arts, boxing, grappling, jiu jitsu, "real" wrestling, and even roller derby). he's been an atheist for longer than i've been alive, and maybe in the future i'll get to ask him some specific questions, because i know the guy has great stories. i'm sure you'll want to check out his blog - http://eddiegoldman.com - and follow him around twitter.  in the meantime, learn a little about eddie from the story he shared below.

I read on your blog that some people who were close to you have cut ties with you after they learned that you are an atheist. So much for the ‘love’ advertised as a positive of religion. But, as I think you know, there is a growing community of atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, non-believers, etc., and even in New York.

It was different for me, as I broke with religion in high school, and finally became an atheist at about age 19, in 1968. That was also a year of revolution around the world, and my freshman year at Columbia, where I became politically active in various struggles and movements. I also met the late Bill Epton, who lived near City College, and was influenced by him for some time.

Now, everyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I have been an atheist for over 40 years. But I still have lost friends and people with whom I wanted to work professionally over this issue.

A few years ago, I was discussing doing a TV project with a colleague and friend who had covered boxing on ESPN and other places. She had also been an anchor on CNN. We had a good preliminary series of meetings, and had gone to some fights together. One time we were meeting in a bar in Manhattan and continuing our talks, when somehow religion came up. I said I was an atheist and had been one for some time, and she suddenly would no longer even look me in the eye. She said she was a Christian, and then stopped talking about our project and proceeded to invite some stranger over into our conversation. It turns out that he was an interesting guy, a former track and field Olympian, a shot putter as I recall, but now all of a sudden all she wanted to do was flirt with him, and she generally wasn’t a big flirt. I heard back a few times from her by e-mail, but don’t think I ever saw her again... 

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wow, right? she'd rather make an ass of herself with a stranger than even look a respected colleague in the eye?  i can't help but wonder how much "religious" discrimination happens to atheists that we never hear about. how many people are passed over for jobs because their facebook page listed them as a richard dawkins fan? how many projects, like eddie's, are dead-ended once a colleague learns the truth of who we are? 

also, i know that most atheists are hardcore vaccination supporters, but why are theists the only ones legally able to claim an exemption if they were against a particular one? (not all of us who question the necessity of the shitload of shots children are required to get are afraid of autism, by the way. it's embarrassing that every rant against antivaxers only cites jenny mccarthy and autism as the reason they aren't blindly shooting their children up. as skeptics, aren't we supposed to research, assess, understand, and then respond?) *descends soapbox*

anyway, many thanks to eddie goldman for contacting me and sharing his story. remember to check out his blog, and follow him on twitter. (btw, like his pic? it was done by this guy)

1 sep 2009

there's a strange thing happening, now that i'm out as an atheist.

i lost some friends, a set of parents, and probably the respect of some of those who've stuck around.

but some of them have lost me, too.

on facebook, were it not for that lovely little 'hide' button, my friends list would be very, very short. not just because i'd otherwise be inundated with status message prayers or jesus shout-outs, though that's a major part of it.

my tolerance for ignorant people is really low now that i no longer have to grin and pretend that i'm agreeing with their varying expressions of theism. for a while, especially after dealing with the pain of being disowned, i felt and behaved like anyone willing to keep me after learning of my atheism was doing me some kind of favor.

i'm over that now.

if 90% of your conversations or ideas leave me cringing and repulsed, i probably shouldn't give a fuck if you think that, upon my death, my soul (or body, which?) is going to burn for all eternity.

if you flood my email with stupid assed stories that promise instant wealth if you forward them to 20 of your friends, i'm not gonna lose sleep over whether you think i'm smart.

oh, and if you repost that avi bella whatever the fuck prayer request simply because some friend's status message told you to, and you don't even google to see if the shit is legit? i'm just sayin'...

but this doesn't even just go for theists. atheists can be idiotic and unquestioning followers, too, as i knew but experienced firsthand quite recently. some act like having the scarlet 'a' on their avatar admits them to a cool kids club for life, where anything they say or do is automatically deemed as, uh - what's the term i'm looking for? - oh, that's right: rational behavior.

idiots come in all forms. a mentally unhealthy person who doesn't believe in a god is still mentally unhealthy. a person who takes another person's opinion as fact is engaging in the same type of behavior as the so-called "sheeple" who need to be led. i don't want anyone assuming they know what i think on an issue just because every other atheist on twitter or facebook has agreed to what a freethinker's view should be. you motherfuckers can't speak for me, nor i for you. if, upon discovering that i actually have my own mind, you decide i'm too "militant", "nihilistic", or any other word you choose to pigeonhole me or dismiss my right to be who i am, know that the only thing i claimed to share in common with you is atheism. you don't get to set my intellectual agenda.

and if you're worried that i'm sullying your reputations as clear-thinking, rational beings - don't sweat it.

you're much better at it than i could ever want to be.

flashback friday: mommie the muslim

i lived with my great-grandparents because my mother was a junkie. 

of her three children, i lived with her the longest, being removed from her care 3 months before my 3rd birthday. my older brother went straight from the hospital to my great-grandparents, and my younger one was rescued from an apartment - alone, wet, but not crying - at 6 months. 


having my own toddler makes me realize the devastation i suffered early on. he has a fit when i leave for work in the morning. my mother was gone for real. 


sort of.


drugs led her to a life of criminal activity. whenever she'd get locked up, grandma's was the one place she could call and get her collect calls accepted. when she was released, she gave our address as her permanent one, because you apparently can't leave prison without a verifiable address. for a few days after her release, she'd be there with us. surly and chain-smoking, but being doted on by everyone around her. grandma and granddad (i called my actual grandparents by their nicknames), were happy to have their first grandbaby back, and my brothers and i were just happy to have a mommie (that's how she spelled it on her letters to us from prison). 


without fail, on about the third or fourth day, she'd say she was going to the store "real quick", and would get some money from grandma. i'd beg to go with her, but she'd say she was coming right back, and to just wait.


so i did. on the couch. looking out at the gate, waiting for her to open it. 


sometimes it would be years before she did again. 


one time, though, she'd hooked up with this guy in a narcotics anonymous group i believe, and they got an apartment together. his name was karriem, and he was, as grandma called him, "a moosla". 


visiting mommie for the first time at her new place, i learned that he - they - were muslims. karriem taught me various arabic phrases, but also one english one: there is no god but allah. 


this was long before my exorcism, and now that i think about it, likely one of the reasons she felt it necessary.


i came back to her house saying the things karriem taught me, proud to show grandma that contrary to what she told me daily, my mommie did want me, and we even had a secret language.


her relationship with karriem, time as a leaseholder, and days as a moosla were all very short. i didn't know this, though, and spent a few years believing that to understand my mother, i should understand islam...