Speaking about bad ideas...atheism and race!

[alias_sqbr]

Note: I am posting links to two posts in anti-racist communities. Keep in mind that the assumption is that readers are familiar and agree with anti-racist ideas so they're not explained or excused, and I'd rather you reply here unless you genuinely mean to join them (in which case, as always, read the userinfo first!) Also, as I say in the first

Comments

[loic]

Well, I try to draw the line between race and religion. They're both social constructs, but they tend to get confused a bit. When we throw in language groups people who aren't thinking about the issues really get confused - especially when we talk about the middle east (eg: what's an "Arab").

I tend to lump all religions together as far as belief in irrational things goes (who cares if it's Allah, virgin birth, thetans, chosen people or manifest destiny). People like to believe crazy shit that was made up in a long-ago time. That's fine. I guess. Some people are into Star Trek too

[loic]

Uh, most Muslims aren't arabs- they are Indonesian. Heck, most Christians are Latin Americans.

Racism is simply factually wrong.

As for culturally intolerant... uh, yeah, I am. It comes out of believing that morality is universal. As such there are a ton of cultural practices I have to simply say are wrong.

[loic]

Well, most Muslims aren't Indonesian, but most Muslims aren't Arabs and Indonesia has the largest Muslim population.

[kadeton]

Where are you drawing the line? Religion and culture strongly influence each other - when different cultural groups practice the 'same' religion, they tend to do it differently. Cultural grouping and genetic similarity have an even stronger relation. Doesn't the 'line' get extremely blurry along the way?

[alias_sqbr]

Well, now you have! The internet is full of unexpected surprises :)

(Have you ever spent much time around organised groups of atheists? I found it really gave me new respect for religious people :/)

[vegetus]

There was a woman at Femmeconne who insisted on seeing middle eastern women as helpless victims of their society who need to be saved by Brave Enlightened Feminists Who Know What's Best (supporting the local women's groups (who do exist!) in doing their own thing is just not as rewarding or something)

Can I use this as an example the next time someone asks me why I am anti-feminist? I know non-white, non-christian women and men who are turned away from feminism because of this attitude and my gut reaction was "Why the hell didn't anyone take her out the back and give her a fucking slapping?!?!?!"

The fact that colonialism has always painted itself as "helping the poor victims of uncivilised societies who don't know what's good for them" (and that pretty much every time a society uses this justification, it ends up oppressively and selfishly colonialist, see the "liberation" of Iraq) is something I think a lot of people don't like to admit. Which continues today through international aid programs... I was talking to an old lecturer

[alias_sqbr]

Can I use this as an example the next time someone asks me why I am anti-feminist? I know non-white, non-christian women and men who are turned away from feminism because of this attitude and my gut reaction was "Why the hell didn't anyone take her out the back and give her a fucking slapping?!?!?!

ngggg...I'd rather you didn't, just because femconne is supposed to be a welcoming pace blah-de-blah and I would hate for people to feel like things they say are going to be used as foder against them etc. Unless you removed identifying details more (as I should have done I guess). I feel kind of bad for mentioning it here but it was such a good example...And people definitely didn't stand for it, I'm not saying everyone was super enlightened about race but on the whole people wouldn't let anything really egregious pass without comment (thus a step up from the unisfa room :/)

I'm going to use veganism as a belief system here, as like atheism it is based on rationality and can actually be backed up with science because my person theistic

[vegetus]

because femconne is supposed to be a welcoming pace blah-de-blah and I would hate for people to feel like things they say are going to be used as foder against them etc

A welcoming place, unless you have the biological misfortune of being male... (sorry I've hashed that one out with others in the past)

I was going to only mention it in broad terms ie the attitude that some "western" feminists have that all islamic women are oppressed and not acknowleging the views of those particular women on the issue not a "gee WA feminists suck because of this".

on the whole people wouldn't let anything really egregious pass without comment (thus a step up from the unisfa room :/)

Good grief, has the UniSFA room gotten *that* bad now? Back in my day...

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, general terms is fine.

And yes, last time I was in the unisfa room people were imo far too apathetic about letting racist/sexist/homophobic etc stuff slide. I mean, people would comment sometimes, but in general there was an "Eh, they know we don't like it, causing a fuss is too much trouble" attitude, afaict.

[i_palimpsest]

I have never considered a link between atheism and racism. I also don't see Islam as a race. As mentioned above most muslims are not Arabic so obviously Islam tranceds race. I don't see anything wrong with saying that a particular cultural group does things I disagree with regardless of how large or small that group may be. Since this is based in behavioural patterns not racial aspects. For example; if you come from a culture where animal cruelty is ok- I am intolerant of that aspect of your culture; and I make no apologies for that.

For me the key is - does this behaviour cause harm.

I think part of the problem is we often use the same words for country, race and culture. For example French. A person may be racially French but brought up in another culture and not 'behave' in a French way.

[alias_sqbr]

See my post about cultural intolerance, I was REALLY ambiguous in my language in this post and comments like your made me think more about what I really meant.

So I agree ambiguous language does cause a lot of problems :)

I think..there are ways of criticising cultures which are ok, and ways which are intolerant. It depends a lot on the context.

[i_palimpsest]

I think there is also a factor of there are things we should not tolerate. These being things that cause harm. Obliviously these are culturally informed. And yes I believe that my values are superior - but then if I didn't - I wouldn't hold them.

For example - I don't tolerate cruelty to animals, slavery, murder. If tolerating another culture means I have to go hey; It's ok for YOU to do those things cause that's your value system. Then I don't tolerate that. however that doesnt' mean I automatically hate everyone or everything about that culture. Just that part of it.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yes, while criticising other cultures has a lot of baggage and stuff that doesn't mean it's always wrong.

[kadeton]

Anyway, for those of you who are atheist: do you agree there's a racist subtext to a lot of atheist discussion? Sam Harris (a moderately well known author) is certainly quite annoyingly bigoted against muslims.Can I ask what the first sentence has to do with the second

[kadeton]

Fair enough, but that perception still has to be tied to race (biological differences), otherwise it wouldn't be racism. An Australian Christian of middle-Eastern descent, for example, seems more likely to encounter racial prejudice in Australia than a white Muslim (correct me if I'm wrong!)... while the prejudice is based on cultural differences, those differences don't necessarily exist. They're just part of a package which associates "middle-Eastern" with "Muslim" (and "Arab"). The assumption that everyone of a particular race is of a particular culture is what links a sense of cultural superiority to racism.

Just to clarify, that isn't to say that prejudice against people of other cultures is okay. The assumption that everyone of a given culture has the same views and opinions is prejudice: assuming you know something about a person given no evidence. Once you have evidence that an individual supports ideas or actions that you consider ethically (or, I guess, morally) wrong, it's no longer prejudice; it's just a judgement.