Sikivu Hutchinson of Black Skeptics tweeted me after I chose the group to receive some of Greta’s book proceeds.
— Sikivu Hutchinson (@sikivuhutch) August 9, 2014
The Moving Social Justice conference will take place in Los Angeles between October 11 and 12. Together with African Americans for Humanism and the Secular Student Alliance, Black Skeptics are sponsoring it – in the spring, they announced on their blog here:
Going beyond the narrow scope of ‘atheist good’ versus ‘religion bad’, the conference will feature panels, presentations and strategy sessions on the following issues:
- What political voice should people of color non-believers have in a national and global context in which the racial wealth gap has become gargantuan, increasing numbers of Black and Latino youth are being imprisoned and fewer have access to a college education?
- What coalition-building needs to be done between activist non-believers of color and progressive faith institutions in our communities?
- How can the under-represented issues of queer and LGBTQ youth of color (who have the highest rates of homelessness in the U.S.) be addressed beyond mainstream single variable paradigms of ‘coming out’ and same sex marriage?
- What does a humanist feminist of color agenda look like given the European American feminist orientation of most freethought scholarship and activism in the U.S.?
- How can atheists of color effectively challenge homophobia and transphobia in the Black Church and other faith institutions?
- What is the connection between economic justice, community development and culturally relevant humanism?
Amen to all of the above.
Since then the programme has been updated to list specific panels on
- Youth leadership & busting prison pipelining
- Feminism(s) of Color & community activism
- Anti-racism and the myth of colorblindness
- Confronting homophobia & transphobia in the Black Church
- Culturally relevant humanism: what is it and why do we need it?
- LGBTQ atheists of color and social justice
Many of us, Hutchinson included, have been pushing atheist orgs to have these conversations for years now – it’s encouraging to see headway being made.