James Baldwin on the perpetuity of it.

On "new atheism" and atheist representation.

There's an article over on Salon about 8 atheist leaders actually worth listening to, I thought I'd link to it here, since this is something I'm happy to read.

I wrote an undergraduate thesis while in University about atheism and the Canadian identity:

The Illegal Atheist: The Charter, Marginalization and Canadian Identity 

This thesis deals with the preamble to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the way in which it creates an assumed god-worshipping Canadian identity. The production and reproduction of this assumption marginalizes atheists and non-believers and further prolongs a Christianity-based hegemony. I work through this by identifying the preamble of the Charter and the way it affects the reading of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I then move into how this preamble is part of a Christian hegemony that is well rooted in Canada, and how this history has created a “Canadian identity” with which we live today, and which privileges the god worshipping. Lastly I discuss the way in which this “Canadian identity” frames the atheist and non-believer as “other,” and how the “othering” of the atheist marginalizes her by excluding her from discourse and political representation.

So, atheism and atheist readings aren't new to me. At the time (2008) I completed a literary review that included a lot of work by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Sure, they had some great points here and there regarding atheism, but overall they were dicks. They were sexist, racist, and elitist. 

I'm not familiar with the term "new atheist" but according to the wikipedia entry it's a club that features four white guys. So no, I'm not a "new atheist" - I'm just an atheist.

So, this article over and Salon (by AlterNet's Greta Christina), lists students, writers and activists of different backgrounds, genders and cultures as resources for atheist representation and community. 

Anyway, if you're interested, check it out.

Tumblr: Black Girl + Mental Health.

While following the Twitter reports and conversations following the Charleston shooting last night, I followed a link that lead me to a blog called Black Girl + Mental Health.

I thought I'd share the link here. I'm not a black woman. I am however, not a racist white woman. I want to share this as a resource for POC who might find their way here. I also think that though race and racism play a particular role in the struggles of people of colour, those living with depression and anxiety have a similar internal struggle, words of encouragement to those living with mental illness are always appreciated, and should be circulated.

Race has been on my mind a lot lately. This whole Rachel Dolezal fiasco is a god-damn shit show. This article's title synthesizes what I've been feeling: Black Women Can Barely Make the News, But Rachel Dolezal Gets National Media. It makes no fucking sense that this is getting so much attention, and that the most coverage the Americas have had regarding race and racism is on a fucking white woman, when black man after black man has been murdered by cops on fucking video. It's just another example of re-centring whiteness. What the media is really saying is how much they can't believe someone would want to live the black experience in America. No doubt this story won't go away, and in the meantime we'll continue to be dealing with the media's disinterest in ongoing hate crimes and police-committed murders.

I wrote something on white supremacy and depression, and I'm trying to educate myself as much as I can, while also trying to be supportive and being mindful of the space I occupy. There aren't a lot of great resources out there for people living with mental illness, and when you compound that be adding the divisiveness of intersectionality, whether through race, culture, economics or gender and sexuality it becomes an exhausting quest to just get the smallest amount of help, or even just a kind word.

Mental health is the revolutionary political space for black people.
— The Real bell hooks (@bellhooks) May 7, 2015

I'm going to try and actively seek out resources and link to them here. There are a lot of supportive, powerful, wise voices out there, and we can all gain from hearing them.

Baltimore.

What's happening in Baltimore, the protesting and rioting, is necessary. The absolute devastation of black experience is unarguably historically rooted and needs to be actively addressed and corrected.

I don't feel discussing racism is my place, since there are fantastic writers out there covering what's going on. You can go on Twitter and follow, in real time what's going on. You can watch guerilla journalism happening, and see what is and what isn't being represented by the media. 

I post on Pushing Hoops with Sticks' Tumblr just tore at me. 

i don’t think people will ever understand how tolling this shit is on black people. during the bulk of the ferguson/eric garner protests during november i fell into the deepest depression. i couldn’t fall asleep until 6 or 7 in the morning, my jaw was permanently clenched, no appetite. i had ridiculous migraines and i’m someone who rarely has headaches, i would cry out of nowhere, i felt paralyzed/paranoid in public around any white people even my own mother/friends. no one will ever understand how draining this is for us.

This is brutal. I feel so deeply for this. I don't know what it is to be black. But I've known discrimination, and I know pain. Not like this though. 

I might not be super effective at discussing everything that's going on, but I want words of support and kindness to come from me, and to be expressed outwardly towards all those marching, all those protesting, all those doing what they can while they can to fight the systems of oppression and corruption. 

Montreal has a big, thick history of protesting. We're big on unions, we're big on student strikes. There's a lot of racism here as well, the Montreal police department is part of that, as is the long history of the indigenous people of Canada. The Oka Crisis wasn't that long ago. There are ongoing reparation problems. There was a cultural genocide of natives here, and people consistently choose to ignore that. Hérouxville is still fresh. Our hands in Canada are just as dirty as the white majority of the U.S. There's a lot of work to be done. 

MLK said that riots are the voice of the unheard. We're seeing that now in Baltimore, and all across the United States. We're also seeing that locally here in Montreal, and globally as a show of support. 

I've read a few articles on how to show support and solidarity for people of colour, as a white person who lives with a certain type of privilege, and it seems the consensus is using your whiteness to confront the racism in white spaces. 

11 things white people can do to be real anti-racist allies

Dear white Facebook friends: I need you to respect what Black America is feeling right now

There's just a lot out there. I'm trying to stay abreast of the situation. It's just such a brutal time. It seems every-time I log into Twitter, there's a new name, another black man immortalized by a hash-tag. 

#Freddie Gray
#Michael Brown
#Trayvon Martin

I cannot imagine the way this demoralizes a community. I listened to Part 1 of This American Life's pod-cast on how Cops See it Differently, this disconnect between how police see what's going on, and how "regular people" see what's going on. 

All I hear in the pod-cast is the pain in the voices of those being interviewed. It's just so personal and raw. 

I just don't want to be silent and complicit in this. 

Baltimore riots: How the Western media would cover the unrest if it happened elsewhere

It's just so fucked.