Black Skeptics & POCBF Nat’l HIV Testing Day Outreach

“According to the CDC, the rate of new HIV infections last year among young black women aged 13 to 29 was 11 times higher than the rate among young white women and four times higher than the rate among young Hispanic women”

Black Skeptics L.A. and Chicago outreach sites for National HIV Testing Day:

Black Skeptics L.A.
Gardena Healthy Start Clinic
1301 W. 182nd Street
Gardena, CA
Time: 9:00-12:00
info: [email protected]

Black Skeptics Chicago
100 W. Randolph St.
Chicago, IL
Time: 8:30 a.m.
info: [email protected]

Black Skeptics & POCBF Nat’l HIV Testing Day Outreach
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Support for Acid Attack Victim: Skepchick Advocacy

Surly Amy over at Skepchick has put out a call for support for a young Ugandan acid attack victim who will be receiving treatment at the Grossman Burn Foundation in Southern California.  The young woman needs a host family and financial aid while she’s receiving treatment over the course of a year.

From Skepchick:

A friend of mine, named Claire Knowlton, does that on a regular basis. Claire is the Board President of The Life You Can Save which is a 501(c)(3) that focuses on effective giving.

life you can save
You can find out more about her fantastic organization and the valuable work they do by clicking here.

Claire recently came to me with a project that her associate, Angie brought to her attention, that she thought Skepchick and Skepchick readers may be able to help with.

A young woman named Christine was attacked with acid in Africa and is coming to America (specifically the Calabasas area of California) to receive restorative surgery. Some back story:

When I worked in Uganda, I met a young Tanzanian woman named Christine
who was the victim of an acid attack in 2012. When I got back to the
US, I started asking around about the possibility of a probono surgery
for her and through the help of a friend of mine, contacted Grossman
Burn Foundation in LA, who agreed to take her case (awesome news!)
Grossman Burn Foundation will take care of all of the medical parts of
her care, but it is up to me and my friend to find a host family for
her while she is here in the US. She will need multiple surgeries
with rehabilitation time in between so they are estimating she will be
here for about one year. (I’m attaching a picture of her so you can
have a sense of the extent of the damage.) In addition to a host
family, we are looking for people who can volunteer to help in
supplementary ways– for example, driving her to appointments, taking
her shopping, invite her out for entertainment, etc.

My question for you is whether you know of anyone in LA who might
consider being a host family or people who can help in the additional
ways I listed above. I don’t know personally know anyone in the area
so am just trying to reach out in whatever ways I can. If it’s
helpful, I’m also happy to provide more information about Christine’s
background.

For more information on how to help check out Skepchick or contact [email protected]

Support for Acid Attack Victim: Skepchick Advocacy

Wash Post Article: Atheism’s Race Problem & Our Fans

From my article “Atheism Has A Big Race Problem”:

Just as cliché holds that there are no atheists in foxholes, it’s commonly believed that there are no atheists in overwhelmingly Christian black America. African Americans are the most religious ethnic group in the nation; nonbelievers make up just 1 percent of the population.

That’s a problem, and not just because atheists face discrimination in their own communities.

African Americans still live in disproportionately segregated neighborhoods, with few living-wage jobs, parks, accessible public transportation and healthy grocery stores. We make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but nearly 40 percent of its prison and homeless populations. This disparity has only deepened in the Obama age.

Faith-based institutions provide resources to these poor and working-class families. They also fight racial discrimination, offer a foundation for community organizing and create access to social welfare, professional networks and educational resources. These are essential issues, and atheists of color often find themselves allied in these missions.

White atheists have a markedly different agenda. They are, on average,more affluent than the general population. Their children don’t attend overcrowded “dropout mills” where they are criminalized, subjected to “drill and kill” curricula and shunted off to prison, subminimum-wage jobs or chronic unemployment. White organizations go to battle over church/state separation and creationism in schools…More @http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/16/blacks-are-even-discriminated-against-by-atheists/

Top Comments from fans:
Hermann W.
6/17/2014 12:45 PM PDT
It’s a good thing Ms. Hutchinson isn’t the founder of Elderly Black Female Lesbian Skeptics with Disabilities, because then she would be even *more* disappointed in the issues the majority of Atheists are trying to address.
MitchBBBBBB
6/17/2014 2:07 PM PDT
This is just ridiculous on so many levels. All the points related to “racist atheists,” such as white affluence and black dropout rates, are not related to a belief system AT ALL. these are just points related to the two races. The fact that white people are more affluent has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they believe in a god. Secondly, the idea that black atheists must make separatist groups because they are unequal makes NO sense because their inequality doesn’t begin in the community of atheism. In that community, they are treated exactly the same as white people. This article is 100% bogus.
JohnD16
6/17/2014 12:19 PM PDT
Atheism does not have a race problem. I just happen to be white and I happen to be an atheist. If I choose to support atheist organizations it is because they are pursuing things that are related to theism or atheism.

If I wish to support organizations that fight racism I will do this independent of atheism. While many “isms” may be worthy, they should be supported independent of any kind of atheist organizations…. this includes “feminism, racism, environmentalism, vegetarianism” etc, etc, etc…..

Typical atheist political topics might include, separation of church and state, religious tests for political office, teaching religion as science in school. Please notice…. all of these things are related to theism!

Wash Post Article: Atheism’s Race Problem & Our Fans

Bridging the STEM Divide Youth Conference & White Atheist STEM Hypocrites

STEM_conference

Do atheists care about STEM literacy and education as anything other than a gotcha debate point for religionists? In numerous articles about racism in STEM I’ve made the following point: “While Neil D.G. Tyson is widely revered as an icon of science literacy in humanist and atheist circles, there has been little to no humanist or atheist critique of the legacy of segregation that informs STEM inequities” nor are there any major atheist organizations that seek to address these issues through STEM programming or youth leadership development.  In fact, last year Black Skeptics approached one of the leading “science n’ reason” spewing atheist organizations about sponsoring a STEM immersion program and scholarship opportunities for youth of color interested in STEM but it was no dice.

Interestingly, now we have (yet another)  virtually lily white secular science organization, the humbly titled “Global Secular Council”, comprised of the “the world’s great minds” who place “precedence on science and reason”, who will lead us third world-in-the-first-world barbarians to the frontiers of enlightenment.

On September 13, the Level Playing Field Institute, the Women’s Leadership Project (sponsored by BS) and several other organizations will hold a youth conference on STEM fields, careers and academic disciplines at the University of Southern California. The conference is specifically designed to introduce youth of color to STEM careers, professionals and academics as well as address some of the following egregious stats:

  • According to the Washington D.C.-based Stem Connector group, overall interest in STEM has declined among African American high school students and female students of all ethnicities. This decline is especially pronounced in engineering and technology majors and careers
  • According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “The percentage of African-Americans earning STEM degrees has fallen during the last decade. In 2009, they received just 7 percent of all STEM bachelor’s degrees, 4 percent of master’s degrees, and 2 percent of PhDs”
  • In a typical year, only 13 African-Americans and 20 Latinos of (of all genders) receive Ph.D.’s in physics
  • High poverty schools in predominantly African American and Latino communities have fewer “elite” Advanced Placement science courses than do schools in affluent communities
  • African Americans are less than 1% of the faculty at Cal Tech and 4% of the faculty at MIT
  • Silicon Valley giant Google’s 46,000 plus workforce is 70% men, 30% women, 61% white, 30% Asian, 3% Latino and 2% black — reflecting the overall lack of diversity in SV

As Level Playing Field founder Freada Kapor Klein notes in a recent L.A. Times article on diversity in SV, “Silicon Valley’s obsession with meritocracy is delusional and aspirational and not a statement of how it really operates,” she said. “Unless someone wants to posit that intelligence is not evenly distributed across genders and race, there has to be some systematic explanation for what these numbers look like.”

Insert the Global Secular Institute, rinse, upchuck, repeat.

Bridging the STEM Divide Youth Conference & White Atheist STEM Hypocrites