Category: Blogmeta

12 We Are African Americans for Humanism

January 31, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

I am very pleased to provide my modest signal boost for a new campaign called ‘We Are African Americans for Humanism’ launched by my colleague and (new) friend, Debbie Goddard:

Today I’m proud to announce the new African Americans for Humanism campaign, just in time for Black History Month!

Billboards and transit shelter ads fearing historic and contemporary black humanists are going up—in black neighborhoods!—in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Washington DC, and Durham NC. The ads highlight historic black humanists Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as eight contemporary activists and organizers representing local AAH-affiliated groups in each city.

I’m very excited to see how this campaign takes off. There is a chance that I will become a contributor to the project’s blog (I’ve already expressed my interest), so I will keep you updated if that happens. For now, go check out the website and say hello.

Incidentally, it has not escaped my notice that this announcement comes right on the heels of Be Scofield’s completely moronic swipe at “New Atheists” for promoting racist ideology. I am deliriously happy that Frederick Sparks over at Black Skeptics is on the case and does a great job blasting a hole right through Scofield’s central straw-man. The timing of these two events is entirely coincidental, but it’s nice that the ground for this discussion came pre-softened.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

6 The religion that cried “wolf”

January 25, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · forces of stupid · race · racism

Those of you new to the blog may be unaware that I also contribute to Canadian Atheist, a group blog made up of a diverse group of atheists from across the country. It’s a good group, and I often get a chance to go full anti-theist and vent there in a way that I don’t like doing here. Today, I wrote this:

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous now. Those of you that know me best from my work decrying racist attitudes and unraveling the code of “politely” racist statements know that I have a fairly well-developed radar for bigotry. I am not one to shrink from making the call, even in those circumstances where the room is against me and I am forced to explain myself in excruciating detail. Racism is a serious problem, and I think we should be devoting more time and attention to it, not less.

If you’ve been involved in discussions of race-based (or really, any other kind of) bigotry, it’s a good chance that you’ve been accused at some point of being “the real racist”. The argument goes something like this: if everyone just acted like race wasn’t important, it would all of a sudden cease to be a factor. I will not bother detailing the number of reasons why this position is stupid – it’s the Wile E. Coyote school of debate…

Go read the rest of the article, and be sure to check out the high quality contributions of my co-authors. Since I don’t have to be impartial, I will take this opportunity to give a particular shoutout to Ian Bushfield, a fellow Vancouver skeptic whose writing I always find insightful and persuasive.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

2 Kiva Project update

January 23, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · Kiva project

I received this e-mail last night:

This is an update on your loan to Gulshan Mammadova in Azerbaijan.

Thanks to you and 95 other Kiva Lenders, the $2,550.00 loan request in Azerbaijan has been 100% funded.

This loan will be used for the purpose of: to purchase cleaning solutions

Over the 20 months of this loan, Kiva’s Field Partner in Azerbaijan, Komak Credit Union, will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Thanks for lending to the world’s working poor on Kiva!

Start dreaming up plans for the next project, Cromrades! I will have information about how much revenue your hits have generated coming in the next couple of weeks.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

8 Welcome a new friend

January 23, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

It brings me great pleasure (and no small amount of personal satisfaction) to welcome Natalie Reed to the FTBorg collective:

My name is Natalie Reed, and I’m newly arrived here to Freethought Blogs. Before this move, I was a writer for the Skepchick network, and managing editor for sister siteQueereka. I’m young and grossly unqualified, but people seem to enjoy what I do. “What I do” generally being posts on trans and queer issues, gender, sexuality and so on from a skeptical, secular perspective.

I’m probably just going to go right on doing more or less the same sort of thing here at FTB, though the fact that I now have my own little niche, and will be posting on a more regular basis, will allow me to quickly start branching out into other areas as well. I’d love to start discussing LGBTQ issues in a more general sense, and also start covering other areas of particular interest to me, such as addiction and mental health issues, Canadian stuff (helping out my lovely colleagues Crommunist and the Lousy Canuck), feminism in general, some of my “hobbies” like linguistics, literature and neuroscience, and also some of my own takes on atheism, skepticism, humanism and related subjects. Maybe even some “traditional” skeptic topics like alt-med, God, conspiracy theories and cryptids, too!

Natalie is a fellow Vancouverite (I can already hear the mid-western USA contingent quaking with fear and anger as the left coast crew makes its presence known), and a personal friend of mine so I’m thrilled to have her as a colleague here. Warning: she is very good at what she does. Second warning: if you desert me for her I will be very sad.

Anyway, it’s a good day for FTB, a good day for Natalie, and a good day for all of you. Go say hello AND THEN COME RIGHT BACK BECAUSE I WILL MISS YOU WHILE YOU’RE GONE *pant, pant*. Wow… went a lil’ nuts there.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

11 Oh, and also…

January 19, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

IT’S THURSDAY!

13 Getting by with a little help from my friends

January 19, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta

One of the coolest thing about being at FTB is getting to know many of my co-bloggers as people. Before moving here, I knew of pretty much everyone here, but through our extremely silly back-channel e-mail threads, I am getting to know what everyone’s like as a person (for example, behind his tough-as-nails exterior, JT is actually much tougher than nails #jtmeme). I don’t usually consult with my fellow FTBorg on issues of content, but I felt like I was leading with my chin a bit with Monday afternoon’s post and I wanted to make sure I hadn’t ignored anything important.

Well, wouldn’t you know, several of them not only liked the post, but posted about it themselves. If you don’t read all of FTBlogs (and you really should, because they’re all quite excellent), you may have missed some of these:

Mano Singham offers another anecdote and his perspective on identifying and dealing with racism
Richard Carrier talks about his own experiences with accommodation for the fear in others
Stephanie Zvan summarizes her reactions (and the reactions of a couple of others) to my piece and explains why diversity is of value
Greg Laden shares a post he had previously written on a similar topic
Daniel Fincke does his usual meticulous job exploring the topic (and, as an aside, I so wish I had thought of the phrase “Schroedinger’s Racist”)
PZ sends his horde (school? do squid travel in schools? is it ‘squid’ or ‘squids’?) my way
Hank Fox bigs me up (and by the way, if you haven’t read his post Thank you Mr. Darwin. Again. you need to. It’s an eye-opener. I have it bookmarked)

This is in addition to a bunch of back-channel encouragement through e-mail from other co-bloggers. Words are insufficient to express how privileged (in the good way) I feel to be part of the FTBorg, especially when I am made to feel welcome with such an overwhelming show of support.

I should also point out that the folks over at The Good Men Project have cross-posted Monday’s piece. The comments are… not encouraging, to say the least. But hey, people are reading it. Sort of. Parts of it.

And my final thanks go out to the legion of commenters, particularly those who have been around for a while, who have been policing the threads. I was not expecting that kind of flood, and was not equipped to deal with it. Y’all stepped up big time to help smooth out the wrinkles for me, which I appreciate. I’ve left a present for you below the fold.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter! … Continue Reading

90 Shuffling feet: a follow-up

January 19, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · crommunism · personal · privilege · race · racism

Okay, first of all: wow. I have written more than 700 posts on this blog, and I have never seen a response like I had on Monday afternoon. At the time of writing, my post about my objection to anti-black racism being used to deflect the “Shroedinger’s Rapist” argument has elicited 330 comments, and received nearly 20,000 hits. I’ve been quickly outed from my quiet little obscure hideaway at the middle-bottom of the FTB frontpage, and have been placed in front of many fresh pairs of eyes.

So, hi.

Second of all: there is apparently a need for some clarification. I was trying to make two separate points in that piece, and there seem to be a number of people who simply did not pick up on them. The first point is that connecting Shroedinger’s Rapist to anti-black racism fails to address the central question of whether or not we want women to feel more comfortable in freethinking circles; if we do, then we need to make some changes. Men being aware of how their (our) seemingly-benign behaviour may be seen as threatening is one specific change we can make.

The second point is that linking the argument to anti-black racism ignores many of the experiences of black folks who are constantly making similar adjustments to make white folks feel more comfortable. Failing to recognize this fact only highlights the ignorance of the speaker, and it is not particularly pleasant to have my story used in the service of an argument I despise by a person who will never experience it.

There were a number of other comments and misconceptions that I will attempt to clear up in this post. … Continue Reading

2 Welcoming a new contributor: Brian Lynchehaun

January 16, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · Brian Lynchehaun

I am extremely excited and proud to welcome a new contributor to the Crommunist Manifesto: my friend, Brian Lynchehaun. Brian has been with the blog almost since its inception. In fact he was instrumental in my very first high-traffic post, a video review of a debate that he did with Hugh Ross. Since then, Brian and I have become good friends and I have come to greatly respect and value his insight, particularly in questions of philosophy. He presented a fairly comprehensive argument for atheistic morality that I still use to this day:

Brian will be contributing his occasional thoughts on a variety of matters, in his own inimitable style. I hope you will give him a warm welcome. I, frankly, can’t believe it took me this long to think to invite him. Please note that his posts will carry his own byline.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

6 Kiva project: Loan update (January 13th, 2012)

January 13, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · Kiva project

Hey Cromrades,

I received this e-mail last night:

This is an update on your loan to Godeffroy Edgar in Benin.

Thanks to you and 36 other Kiva Lenders, the $1,000.00 loan request in Benin has been 100% funded.

This loan will be used for the purpose of: buy 3 batches of oil and other items.

Over the 12 months of this loan, Kiva’s Field Partner in Benin, Finadev Benin, will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Thanks for lending to the world’s working poor on Kiva!

Best Wishes,
Kiva Staff

Good work all around. We have helped, in our small way, to help someone get a hand up on financial independence. Let’s keep the momentum going next month!

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

14 Our first loan(s)

January 6, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · Kiva project

Cromrades,

We have done a great thing today. We have stood in the face of great economic disparity, and unflinchingly taken a tiny step toward reducing it. The cry went up, Cromrades, and we answered it to the tune of 2 Kiva loans.

The first, to Gulshan Mammadova in Azerbaijan:

Gulshan needs 2000 AZN to purchase new merchandise (cleaning solutions) for sale. She sold only food products at her store, but now wants to also sell cleaning solutions because these goods are in demand among customers. Gulshan is married and has three children. She is an IDP (Internally Displaced Person) from the city of Fuzuli and now lives with her husband and children in the Fuzuli region. Gulshan is 32 years old. She has had this food store for six years.

And the second, to Godeffroy Edgar in Benin:

Godeffroy is married and has three children. He specializes in making and selling soap in Cocotomey. To distribute the soap, he takes it to pharmacies, supermarkets and sales outlets. In order to meet client demand, he is asking Finadev for a loan so he can increase his working capital and contribute to household expenses.

Two loans of $25 each were made on behalf of the Crommunist Manifesto. The loans are scheduled to be repaid in 20 and 12 months respectively.

Thanks to everyone who helped pick these loans. I’m looking forward to doing this again next month.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

Page 12 of 14