Coming from historically religious African American communities, Black atheists are routinely marginalized and stigmatized. Although the number of Black religious nones is growing, self-identified Black atheists are approximately 3% of the atheist population. This reality exemplifies the steep cultural and social hurdles many Black folks in general, and Black women in particular, experience transitioning from religious faith.

As the founder and president of Black Nonbelievers, Inc. (BN), the only national advocacy organization for Black atheists, Mandisa Thomas is a trailblazer in the secular movement. In 2020, Mandisa, Ijeoma Oluo and I received the Harvard Humanist of the Year award. Over the past decade, Mandisa has been one of the leading voices in atheist, humanist, and freethought organizing, pushing back against sexist, heteronormative religious dogma and discrimination in communities of color. Under Mandisa’s leadership, Black Nonbelievers has actively challenged racist exclusion in predominantly white, Eurocentric secular circles, spearheading unapologetically Black secular initiatives in affiliates across the nation. This year, Mandisa and BN are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the organization with a virtual and in-person conference in New Orleans, featuring an array of Black secular speakers and allies. …

In 1967, Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael commented, “When you see an individual white boy, you are not afraid of that individual white boy. What you are afraid of is the power that he represents because behind him stands the local police force, the state militia, the Army and the Navy.” Yesterday’s bloodlust at the Capitol bore out Carmichael’s statement, as well as the power of state violence manifested in the protected bodies of individual white people across gender (white women played a key role in the terrorist attack. According to the DC police, eight of the current arrestees are female and the sole individual who was killed during the attack was a white woman). Black Power exposed the fundamental lie of American “democracy” and its basis in white supremacy, white terrorism, and white imperialism. Black Power, like the Black Lives Matter movement that draws from its legacy, identified the heart of terror in a police state that normalizes white violence via the courts, the jails, law enforcement, public policy, public education, and private capital. …

After the four-year barrage of homophobic and transphobic policy rollbacks by the Trump administration, the Biden-Harris administration’s pledge to push queer-affirming civil rights policies is encouraging. Before the pandemic, queer BIPOC communities were already besieged by rampant unemployment, homelessness, and educational disparities. Since the pandemic was declared in March, 38% of LGBTQI+ workers have had their hours reduced (while 34% of the overall population have) and 22% have become unemployed. Biden has prioritized “corrective action” such as reversing Trump’s ban on transgender military personnel and aggressively advocating for the passage of the stalled Equality Act, which would amend the federal Civil Rights act to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQI+ individuals in employment, housing, public education, and public accommodations. Currently, 29 states do not have LGBTQI+ civil rights protections. …

#Standing4BlackGirls: Rape Culture, The Election and The Pandemic

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Last week’s GOP Senate confirmation of dangerous theocrat Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court capped an epoch-defining year of unrelenting assaults on the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights of women of color. Barrett, whose fierce opposition to abortion rights and contraception is medieval, was Trump’s 220th federal judicial appointee. With Trump’s fascist judicial legacy firmly in place, Black women’s self-determination is even more imperiled. Nonetheless, in the runup to the November 3rd election, there has been little public engagement with how this historical moment of political turbulence resounds for Black girls and the #MeToo movement against sexual violence. …

By Sikivu Hutchinson

As a Black feminist, secular, humanist, voter, I cheered the selection of California Senator Kamala Harris as the Democratic vice presidential nominee with great ambivalence. Harris’ prosecutorial record as California’s Attorney General has been justifiably criticized as conservative and harmful to Black communities under siege from police violence. During her tenure, she consistently failed to prosecute killer cops, pursued thousands of marijuana convictions and penalized parents of truant students. …

A parent repeated the right wing slur that greater media representation of LGBTQ lifestyles is “turning youth out” and encouraging them to become gay. A South L.A. school employee said she had a problem with the use of the Black Power fist by a Black and Latinx GSA Network campus group during last November’s global Transgender Day of Remembrance. A Black father told his eleven year-old daughter not to display her Pride flag because it will cause conflict within the family. And, at a March LGBTQIA+ Youth of Color Institute with South L.A. …

Black, Atheist, Proud #FreeMubarakBala

By Sikivu Hutchinson

In his essay, “My Journey from Islamist to Freethinker”, Mubarak Bala, head of the Nigerian Humanist Association, mused that, “From a life of a pseudo-Islamist, I weaned myself to be liberal, secular, humanist, agnostic and, finally, an atheist, all without ever knowing the books or ideologies of atheism. All I knew was science and Islam.” In Nigeria, African nonbelievers and humanists are more likely to be ostracized by their communities for rejecting organized religion and dogma. Globally, African descent secularists face harsh cultural stigmas for bucking colonialist religious traditions that we view as authoritarian, sexist, and homophobic. …