We have an interesting guest on Atheists Talk radio this morning: Jay Bakker, a Christian, pastor, theologian, and the son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. I’m the host for this show, which means I’m not doing the active interviewing part (that’s all Travis Peterson, president of Minnesota Skeptics – Go Travis!), and as a result I’m typing this in the studio as Jay and Travis are speaking.
Travis and Jay spent the first two segments of the show talking about Jay’s experiences growing up as the son of the Bakkers and in the shadow of the PTL (Praise the Lord) Club TV show. Right now, Travis is asking Jay why, after all of his experiences and struggles, he’s still a Christian. Good question.
[Oops – I got distracted with listening to the interview – I’m a shitty live blogger, lol. You’ll have to catch the podcast to hear Jay’s answer]
So, show’s over – and just when it started to get extra interesting, darn it!
Jay and I started to debate about the definition of Humanism in the last two minutes of the show. We continued speaking off air for a while, but we didn’t reach a resolution.
Even with a temperature swing of 30°C to -19°C…even having to go from sleeveless dresses and copious amounts of sunscreen to layered clothing and chapstick…even going back to work instead of hiking through the rainforest…
It’s good to be home. It’s good to be in my own kitchen and near grocery stores with which I am familiar (and stocked with brands that I recognize). I am ecstatic to be reunited with fast and reliable internet. It’s good to be remembered and greeted by the pets that I had to leave for a month and a half. I was gone long enough that I have to relearn which side of the car’s steering wheel the windshield wiper and the turn signal sticks are on, and driving on the right feels a bit odd. Also, the science and logic part of my brain is very reluctant to depart from the metric system of distance and temperature.
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
Just keep that in mind.
As a humanist I tend to believe that being human unites us, that we should all live together and try to do so peacefully. That we should cooperate, because by cooperating we can achieve great things.
My question for today’s 6 O’Clock BS is this: When the sentient, peaceful, galaxy-exploring aliens* arrive and humanity is united and defined by a new “us and them”, what will we humanists call ourselves? I assume we humanists will expand our viewpoint to include this new being, to minimize the “us and them” and find a way to work together to thrive and grow. I hear “Universalists” is already taken.
*********************
*Basically extra-terrestrial humans who don’t want to destroy us and just want to explore and network with other universal beings. Just play along.
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
Just keep that in mind.
As a humanist I tend to believe that being human unites us, that we should all live together and try to do so peacefully. That we should cooperate, because by cooperating we can achieve great things.
My question for today’s 6 O’Clock BS is this: When the sentient, peaceful, galaxy-exploring aliens* arrive and humanity is united and defined by a new “us and them”, what will we humanists call ourselves? I assume we humanists will expand our viewpoint to include this new being, to minimize the “us and them” and find a way to work together to thrive and grow. I hear “Universalists” is already taken.
*********************
*Basically extra-terrestrial humans who don’t want to destroy us and just want to explore and network with other universal beings. Just play along.
A couple of days ago I read a post on Almost Diamonds about a girl who was reprimanded by two teachers and then suspended from a basketball game for the vile, shocking, breathtakingly offensive act of speaking a few words of the Native American Menominee language to a friend during class. Stephanie Zvan, the author of Almost Diamonds, opines about the actions taken by the school teachers, and tells us a little of the history of efforts to wipe out Native American culture and language in Catholic schools on the Menominee reservation.
This is not a subject with which I’m familiar, but it struck a chord with me; it’s another sad example of humans being bad to humans, and of religion playing a nausea-inducing role in our culture. I found it interesting and passed on the link to the article on twitter:
Image says: “When is the last time you considered Native American cultural heritage?” and contains a link to the blog post.
Someone responded with this:
Never im not Native American. Therefore its none of my business. They prolly dont spend much time thinking about Irish American or German American or African American cultures eiether. Why would they?
I’ve known the gentleman who posted this for many years; it’s fair to say that our worldviews are very dissimilar, but I consider him a friend. He reads my socially liberal, left-leaning, progressive writings, and every once in a while he’ll respond to something I’ve posted. His responses usually send me into an initial fit of exasperation, but sometimes he’ll present an alternate view that I hadn’t considered. So when he shares his views, I take that as an open invitation to elaborate on my thoughts and my thought process. Also, I’m a big damn optimist – I can’t help but hope that maybe some of my views will rub off of him.
So I took a few minutes to come up with a respectful response. Here’s what I pulled together:
Sharing stories helps us recognize and celebrate our similarities, and understand and accept our differences. Just because a story isn’t instantly familiar doesn’t mean that we can’t learn something from it. In the case of the story to which I linked, one group of people is being discrimated against and punished by another group for being who they are. It doesn’t matter if the groups in question are Native American, Irish American, German American, African American, South American, African, European or Asian. You can find the common humanity, recognize the injustice and empathize with their situation, act to right the wrong, and best of all, perhaps move to make it not happen in the future to other groups (perhaps even one that you belong to).
*dusts off hands* I think that captures it.
Pssst…he wasn’t as impressed with my response as I was. We’ve gone back and forth a few more times. I think we’re currently in a cease fire.
What story or stories have you learned about that had seemingly little to do with your personal experiences, but still made a big impact on you?
One of my friends posted a YouTube video on his Facebook wall, and I thought it was interesting enough to listen to the entire 11:34 piece (woah, attention span…where did you come from? You usually take off once I sit down at the interwebs).
The author of the video is speaking in response to the rallying cry “Gay is the new black”, and specifically to this article published in the Huffington Post at the end of December.
Monique Ruffin’s Huffpo article is an interesting piece on how the “Black Church” is supporting oppression of gays. She calls out black Christians who would deny civil rights to gay people. She is also wondering how some black people in general would bemoan the phrase “Gay is the new black”, and asks them to see the similarities between the black struggle and the gay struggle, not just the differences between the two.
For me, the sufferings of a person or a group of people at the hands of other humans are frightening and heartbreaking. Instinctually, I feel that if any group can be oppressed, then I can be oppressed. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made this very point when he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This is why I’m always flabbergasted when I see some black Christians fighting against the civil rights of gays. We know firsthand the impact and dehumanization of discrimination.
Melvin too calls for blacks and gays to see the similarities of their struggles, but he lists 5 reasons why gay is not the new black.
1.You can’t compare oppressions. If I understand Melvin’s point, he’s calling out those who oversimplify the fight for civil rights undertaken by blacks and by gays and lumping them together in the phrase “Gay is the new black.” Like Ruffin, he asks us to avoid trying to say that one is more of a struggle than the other, but urges us to recognize that each had and has its unique challenges and battles; they are not the same. I liked this section:
Who the hell cares? Who the hell cares? Inequality and oppression are evil, regardless of the form they take. By comparing your oppression to someone else’s, you’re trivializing that person’s struggle and creating a hierarchy, which prevents you from seeing how the two struggles are related and building alliances.
2. Black is still black. “We can’t just hone in on homophobia and ignore other systems of inequality.” Here he describes how the struggle for black equality is not over, and those who lobby for gay rights under the banner of “black rights were then, gay rights are now” are blind to the the ongoing battles still being waged for black rights.
3. _____ is the new black. I found this argument to be very similar to number two. Again, Melvin is pointing out that discrimination comes from all corners, and chastises people who are so proud to support gay or black rights and forget the Latina, the person with a disability, the woman, the muslim. The take away from this is we can’t just focus on homophobia and forget the other injustices being fought.
When I hear someone say that gay is the new black, and that gay rights are the new civil rights issue of our time, it makes me think they’re pretty ignorant. It makes me think, you know, that person just doesn’t really give a damn about people of color, women, people with disabilities, transgender people, or any other group facing discrimination these days.
4. Gay is not the new anything. Here Melvin gives props to the gay community. Gay is not new, gay oppression is not new, the gay struggle is not new. Gay people have been fighting their fight for over a century. He’s saying gays don’t need to tie onto the black struggle to get their message across because the gay community has been holding its own.
5. So, transgender is the new gay – not. This is a different presentation of 2 and 3: There are other marginalized groups out there, not just the gay community. He is specifically speaking about the transgender community here. Melvin makes an argument that the GLB community has for the most part largely ignored issues facing transgendered people.
In closing, Melvin tells us that we can’t compare gay oppression and the black oppression, but we can learn from the movements of both groups and the ways they have each organized.
So, is gay the new black?
In Ruffin’s Huffpo article she is using the phrase “Gay is the new black” to hit black Christians who discriminate against gays over the head. She is not breaking down the phrase to ask if it is a perfect metaphor, she is using it to remind black Christians that gays are being discriminated against, as they were once were (not in the same way, but nevertheless, they both have been are being oppressed). Melvin is more concerned with the actual metaphor and is asking us to stop using it.
Every activist group needs a battle cry, but is this the right one for the GLBT community? Does it simplify and trivialize other types of discrimination?
It is a frustrating situation; when it comes to civil rights, why is there any other distinction that “human”?
One of my friends posted a YouTube video on his Facebook wall, and I thought it was interesting enough to listen to the entire 11:34 piece (woah, attention span…where did you come from? You usually take off once I sit down at the interwebs).
The author of the video is speaking in response to the rallying cry “Gay is the new black”, and specifically to this article published in the Huffington Post at the end of December.
Monique Ruffin’s Huffpo article is an interesting piece on how the “Black Church” is supporting oppression of gays. She calls out black Christians who would deny civil rights to gay people. She is also wondering how some black people in general would bemoan the phrase “Gay is the new black”, and asks them to see the similarities between the black struggle and the gay struggle, not just the differences between the two.
For me, the sufferings of a person or a group of people at the hands of other humans are frightening and heartbreaking. Instinctually, I feel that if any group can be oppressed, then I can be oppressed. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made this very point when he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This is why I’m always flabbergasted when I see some black Christians fighting against the civil rights of gays. We know firsthand the impact and dehumanization of discrimination.
Melvin too calls for blacks and gays to see the similarities of their struggles, but he lists 5 reasons why gay is not the new black.
1.You can’t compare oppressions. If I understand Melvin’s point, he’s calling out those who oversimplify the fight for civil rights undertaken by blacks and by gays and lumping them together in the phrase “Gay is the new black.” Like Ruffin, he asks us to avoid trying to say that one is more of a struggle than the other, but urges us to recognize that each had and has its unique challenges and battles; they are not the same. I liked this section:
Who the hell cares? Who the hell cares? Inequality and oppression are evil, regardless of the form they take. By comparing your oppression to someone else’s, you’re trivializing that person’s struggle and creating a hierarchy, which prevents you from seeing how the two struggles are related and building alliances.
2. Black is still black. “We can’t just hone in on homophobia and ignore other systems of inequality.” Here he describes how the struggle for black equality is not over, and those who lobby for gay rights under the banner of “black rights were then, gay rights are now” are blind to the the ongoing battles still being waged for black rights.
3. _____ is the new black. I found this argument to be very similar to number two. Again, Melvin is pointing out that discrimination comes from all corners, and chastises people who are so proud to support gay or black rights and forget the Latina, the person with a disability, the woman, the muslim. The take away from this is we can’t just focus on homophobia and forget the other injustices being fought.
When I hear someone say that gay is the new black, and that gay rights are the new civil rights issue of our time, it makes me think they’re pretty ignorant. It makes me think, you know, that person just doesn’t really give a damn about people of color, women, people with disabilities, transgender people, or any other group facing discrimination these days.
4. Gay is not the new anything. Here Melvin gives props to the gay community. Gay is not new, gay oppression is not new, the gay struggle is not new. Gay people have been fighting their fight for over a century. He’s saying gays don’t need to tie onto the black struggle to get their message across because the gay community has been holding its own.
5. So, transgender is the new gay – not. This is a different presentation of 2 and 3: There are other marginalized groups out there, not just the gay community. He is specifically speaking about the transgender community here. Melvin makes an argument that the GLB community has for the most part largely ignored issues facing transgendered people.
In closing, Melvin tells us that we can’t compare gay oppression and the black oppression, but we can learn from the movements of both groups and the ways they have each organized.
So, is gay the new black?
In Ruffin’s Huffpo article she is using the phrase “Gay is the new black” to hit black Christians who discriminate against gays over the head. She is not breaking down the phrase to ask if it is a perfect metaphor, she is using it to remind black Christians that gays are being discriminated against, as they were once were (not in the same way, but nevertheless, they both have been are being oppressed). Melvin is more concerned with the actual metaphor and is asking us to stop using it.
Every activist group needs a battle cry, but is this the right one for the GLBT community? Does it simplify and trivialize other types of discrimination?
It is a frustrating situation; when it comes to civil rights, why is there any other distinction that “human”?
It’s a fun counter to “Let’s put Christ back in Christmas”. Jeremy at Le Cafe also mentions “Put Saturn back in Saturday”, and on Facebook I saw a “Put Woden back in Wednesday”.
I’m all about celebrating a humanist Christmas – love your fellow man, give to charities, celebrate the season with friends and family. But let’s remember the Solstice roots and history of this time we call Christmas, and maybe not get too uppity because some of us chose to not include little baby Jesus in our festivities.
Oh damn. Little Baby Jesus. Now I have to play this.
These videos have made me feel all sentimental, inspired, and humanist-y.
Resistance to allowing gay service members to serve openly is one of those things that I just cannot wrap my head around. Jeff Shang’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell exhibit contains photographs of closeted men and women who are serving in the military under DADT. The photos and the subjects are beautiful, heartbreaking and haunting.
I followed that up with Science Saved My Soul by philhellenes, which I found over at Attempts at Rational Behavior. The beginning of this video will take your breath away; the images of the night sky and the universe, the well-delivered script describing the beauty, the horror and the immense magnitude of the universe, and the music are all beautiful.
After giving the viewer a few seconds to catch his/her breath, the next ten minutes are devoted to a eloquent argument against organized religion, to being open to finding God without religion. As philhellenes writes in the description for the video “I’m not against the Creator(s), if they exist, if they ever existed. I’m not against the search for the Creator(s). What blows MY mind is that people think religion has anything to do with it at all.”
