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Category: presentation

8 Don’t Go In There! Talking about Race, Racism, and Race Issues in the time of the Zombie Apocalypse

  • September 11, 2013
  • by Crommunist
  • · anti-racism · blog · crommunism · freethought community · Media · presentation · race · racism · skepticism · Video

Horror films are a wonderful source of escapism, where we can feel the thrill of terror in the relative safety of our living rooms or a crowded movie theatre. One of the all-time classics within the horror genre is the zombie movie: hordes of shuffling, shambling atrocities hell-bent on devouring the flesh of the still-living. One of the iconic images of any good zombie movie is the panic-stricken victim of a zombie bite who is slowly turning from human into monster, as all morality and reason drains from their body while their comrades feverishly debate whether or not to put their erstwhile friend out of hir ‘misery’ courtesy of a well-timed shotgun blast to the face.

Cinema. … Continue Reading

4 Special Feature: Crommunist does alternative medicine

  • August 21, 2012
  • by Crommunist
  • · blog · critical thinking · crommunism · forces of stupid · freethought community · health · medicine · movie · presentation · science · skepticism · skeptivism

Many of you will remember that I attended the Imagine No Religion 2 conference in Kamloops, BC in May of this year. It was my first ever atheist meeting/convention, and I had a really positive experience there. I was asked to me a somewhat last-minute addition to a panel on alternative medicine, based (I imagine) on my background in health sciences, my experience public speaking, and the fact that at least a handful of people would recognize my name.

And so it was that I found myself sitting next to Skeptically Speaking host Desiree Schell, and Dr. Ian Mitchell (a local physician), talking about the wild and wooly world of alt-med. Long-time readers will know how irritated I am by the term “alternative medicine”:

These “alternative medicines” are not alternative in any way – if they work, then they aren’t alternative, they’re just medicine. The other side of the problem is the ones that are truly “alternative” aren’t medicine! They don’t work any better than voodoo or augury or invoking ancestor’s spirits.

I’m also irritated (clearly, as you will see from the video) by the doggerel: “cancer cure” and the associated conspiracy theory that pharmaceutical companies are hiding cancer cures from the public. I tried my level best to apply my own personal brand of smackdown to this odious and ludicrously nonsensical claim, with all the humour and aplomb that I could muster at 9 am after a night of drinking. I also made reference to a couple of things that the local chapter of CFI had done – debunking Deepak Chopra and staging a homeopathy workshop. Both were examples of skeptical activism, or as we coined it, ‘skeptivism’.

The full video from the event is available below the fold. … Continue Reading

2 Special Feature: I speak to the BC Humanist Association

  • February 13, 2012
  • by Crommunist
  • · black history · blog · Canada · history · movie · presentation

Last week I gave a 20-minute presentation to the BC Humanist Association on the importance of understanding Black History. It is a longer version of last Monday’s post, given to about 30 Humanists at one of the Association’s regular meetings. The point I was trying to get across is that it’s important to study our history honestly, as it can help us adapt to challenges we face today, and those we will face tomorrow.

The video is below the fold: … Continue Reading

2 Special feature: The Hate Speech Debate

  • April 18, 2011
  • by Crommunist
  • · blog · Canada · free speech · hate · law · Media · presentation · secularism · Video

Many of you know that I am a volunteer with the Vancouver branch of the Centre for Inquiry. One of the regular events that CFI Vancouver hosts is called Cafe Inquiry, which is a moderated group discussion on a variety of topics. This past weekend, I was honoured to be asked to moderate a discussion on a topic of my choosing. Given that I’ve previously given a presentation on the subject of racism and skepticism, I thought I would try and tackle one of the other tent-poles of this blog: free speech.

The issue I chose to present for discussion was Canada’s hate speech laws, and whether or not they are a good thing. This is a topic for which there are strong arguments to be made on both sides, and I thought it was particularly well-suited to a group discussion rather than a didactic presentation. I brought this question to the group, as well as a number of other questions that were of particular interest to secularists and atheists.

My purpose at this event was to moderate a discussion rather than to present my own personal opinion. While I do have a position on this issue, it was not my place to defend that position to the group, although I was prepared to be the only one in the room to advocate it. Luckily, there were an abundance of opinions on both sides of the issue, allowing me to fulfill my role as facilitator rather than partisan. I gave a brief presentation outlining the parameters of the debate, and then tried to step back and let the discussion take its course.

I’ve posted the video of the discussion, which took place over 2 hours. The battery on our camera died before the end, but I will summarize the group consensus. You can see the slides here. (Please note: Having problems with Youtube, and have to re-up all my videos. Process is taking longer than I would have liked – hopefully it will be resolved by the end of the day, but my apologies for the fact that this isn’t ready on time).

Overall, I was very happy with how the discussion turned out. I was disappointed that the group didn’t spend more time talking about the effect that hateful speech can have in terms of discrimination, but other than that I think we hit all of the high points. We took an informal poll at the beginning, asking people whether they supported laws against hate speech. As I suspected, the number explicitly supporting them dropped from 6 to 4 (out of about 20 people) – many people maintained that they were “fence sitters”, which is really the only logical position to have in a discussion that has such depth and difference of opinion. The argument that seemed to hold the most sway was the open question of whether or not hate speech laws actually reduce hate speech, or if they are redundant with the social pressures that do a pretty good job of accomplishing that already.

While I am a proponent of unrestricted free speech, even hateful speech, I am cognizant of the fact that there are a number of reasons why it is desirable to reduce the amount of hate speech in society. Primarily, we have to be concerned with the safety of others, and hateful speech can and does lead to hateful actions against people. Secondarily, hate speech leads to systemic discrimination, which violates the idea of the rule of law. Finally, hate speech is morally wrong, and those who violate moral precepts should be punished.

My problem with outlawing unpopular speech is that it often doesn’t work – by setting up “dog whistle” phrases for certain prejudiced attitudes that don’t qualify as “hate speech” but communicate the same ideas, we drive attitudes underground where they can fester. Putting bigotry out in the open allows us to deal with it, and gives us opportunities to learn from it. Secondarily, I am concerned by the arbitrary way in which we select which groups are protected by these laws. I can see the same arguments about “hateful speech” used to censor legitimate criticism of religion, or criticism of any majority group just as easily as a minority group. The ‘victim card’ that majority groups like to play to cast themselves as on the receiving end, rather than behind the wheel, of discrimination will surely see them deputize hate speech laws in this way. I am not comfortable with legitimate criticism being cast as hate in any circumstance, and I am concerned that these laws will be used to accomplish this.

Anyway, all that being said, I think it was a great event and I really enjoyed being part of the conversation. Enjoy the video.

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3 Special Feature: I speak at New Bright Lights

  • October 23, 2010
  • by Crommunist
  • · blog · Media · presentation · race · racism · skepticism · Video

Welcome Pharyngulites and redditors! Please make sure to check out the preamble to this post before watching the videos.

Many of you are probably aware that I was invited to speak about race, racism and its relevance to the skeptical movement at the beginning of the month. The event was part of a lecture series under the name New Bright Lights (I’d provide a link, but there’s no homepage), in which speakers on a variety of topics are invited to discuss their subject of expertise.

I was a bit nervous to participate in this event, for a few reasons. I am not now, nor have I ever been, afraid to speak in public. However, I am not an expert with a strong academic background in issues of race. I am a relative newcomer, despite the fact that the issues have been of particular relevance to me my whole life. In addition, there is a lot of information that an audience needs to be equipped with before most of this content can be understood. Part of my reason for starting this blog was in response to repeated requests from friends for more clarification on issues they hadn’t discussed before for fear of being labeled as bigots.

I am glad that I decided to participate, however. It forced me to re-tool my blog content for a different method of delivery, and helped me clarify a few issues in my own mind about how my life as a skeptic is not divorced from my life as an anti-racist. Jason Harmer at New Bright Lights was gracious enough to fast-track the video production for me so that I could put it up for you. A few caevats before you watch though:

  1. I am reading from a script in order to avoid the usual “um” and “err” problem, and to keep the presentation timely, so that’s why I spend so much time looking down.
  2. I do have Powerpoint slides, which I am making available here. It’s probably easier to play the video in the background and watch the slide show, since I don’t do anything particularly entertaining besides stand there and talk. The audio should suffice.
  3. You’ll notice that the audio cuts out at various places during parts 1 and 2. This is not an issue of video quality – I have removed the names of people whose stories I told. None of the stories are offensive or make people look bad, but they are my friends and I respect their right to privacy – especially since I didn’t ask permission first.
  4. As I said in my post a couple weeks ago, I think I concentrated too much on issues of black and white people, largely missing the rich context of non-black/white conflict. Please do not interpret this as a trivialization of these issues, merely the fact that I am not nearly as familiar with them.

So without any further delay, here are the videos:

Feedback is, as always, appreciated.

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