Speaker 1: Bikari Shavanu, a black atheist, humanist and co founder of
Speaker 1: the Black Humanists and non Believers of Sacramento, pens a
Speaker 1: strong criticism of Robert Blumner's editorial Secular Humanism and the
Speaker 1: color Blind Society in the August September twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: issue of Free Inquiry. Blumner argues that humanists should strive
Speaker 1: for a color blind society, claiming that focusing on rage
Speaker 1: perpetuates dicision and reverse racism. However, Shavannu argues that this
Speaker 1: approach ignores the realities of systemic racism and the historical
Speaker 1: context of black empowerment movement. He contends that Blumber's dismissal
Speaker 1: of race as a crucial factor in addressing inequities undermines
Speaker 1: the ongoing struggles against racial injustice. The Stories from the
Speaker 1: Friendly Atheists by Bikari Shavanu and Hemet Metta, published on
Speaker 1: August thirteenth, twenty twenty four. And I'm coming to you, Phil.
Speaker 1: I have a very serious question for you. What the
Speaker 1: fuck is black supremacy?
Speaker 2: That is, if Cynthia, That's the same question I've been
Speaker 2: asking myself since I've read this article. What do they
Speaker 2: mean like black supremacy. I've heard of black power, where
Speaker 2: you are endport black people to be able to fight
Speaker 2: against and overcome systemic racism. But black supremacy this is
Speaker 2: a new term. Coin because even in searching for the definition,
Speaker 2: if there's such a definition online or in any dictionary,
Speaker 2: I have performed none. So I am kind of puzzled
Speaker 2: what they mean by black supremacy, because supremacy will indicate
Speaker 2: someone having power over another group, and right now, as
Speaker 2: far as we know, black people don't have no power
Speaker 2: over another race group, which so I think it's more
Speaker 2: like a straw a straw man created to, you know,
Speaker 2: a straman created to say, oh, black people have the
Speaker 2: supremacy over white are trying to work for this supremacy
Speaker 2: over white people, But that is not the case. That's
Speaker 2: a straman argument. You know, how systemic racism has marginalized
Speaker 2: people Black people within the American society and in the
Speaker 2: even the European society and other societies where they are minorities.
Speaker 2: So that's a very good question. I will I wish
Speaker 2: the person has stated what they meant by black supremacy.
Speaker 2: Apparently they didn't.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe just maybe it's up there with the black job.
Speaker 1: So rob critiques from Blumner actually has this idea of
Speaker 1: race conscious policies as a form of reverse racism. How
Speaker 1: might such critiques undermine efforts to actually address systemic in.
Speaker 3: Equation, Well, I think I calling it reverse racism, what
Speaker 3: you're doing is you're shifting the goalpost. I might be
Speaker 3: in the extreme minority here, and I think that there
Speaker 3: is some sentiment of reverse racism that I think people
Speaker 3: want to make sense because you are making a choice
Speaker 3: or doing a thing based on someone's race. But if
Speaker 3: you are doing reverse racism, then you're just doing racism.
Speaker 3: I don't know why it's reversed, it's just you're doing
Speaker 3: the thing. But that's my petition, that's my position. So
Speaker 3: when you call things reverse racism, just it just ends up.
Speaker 3: What you're doing is you're creating a false psychotomy because
Speaker 3: it's like, it's not racism, it's reverse racism when we're
Speaker 3: actually trying to talk about the same thing, and you
Speaker 3: can have a much easier discussion when you're both actually
Speaker 3: on the same page. So when you present it is
Speaker 3: reverse racism, what you're doing is you're creating a position
Speaker 3: that is oppositional to the person you're trying to even
Speaker 3: talk to in the first place about the very same topic,
Speaker 3: which is going to get in the way of trying
Speaker 3: to solve anything when you've already put yourself in the
Speaker 3: position of I am against what you're talking about, even
Speaker 3: though I'm talking about the thing you say, because it's
Speaker 3: different somehow it's a bistically problematic.
Speaker 1: Persecution time. Plus you want to go ahead and talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that, phebe well.
Speaker 4: The language being used in the original article, it makes
Speaker 4: me roll my eyes. It makes me roll my eyes,
Speaker 4: It makes me want to scream, It makes me want
Speaker 4: to throttle something because some of the language us is
Speaker 4: like one of the phrases in the original articles. But
Speaker 4: today's followers of the identitarian left now the handmaids of
Speaker 4: neo racism. It's like the guy decided they were going
Speaker 4: to cram in every nonsensical word and phrase and sound
Speaker 4: bite that he could. But every time I hear anybody
Speaker 4: use that combination, I have to I reach for a
Speaker 4: dictionary to go what do you actually mean? Because we
Speaker 4: hear the term handmaidens of dot dot dot or rallied around,
Speaker 4: but it has many different meanings and a lot of people, Butcher,
Speaker 4: what the meaning is. The most common meaning that it's
Speaker 4: actually used is actually an illusion to the Margaret Atward novel,
Speaker 4: and that's in the derogatory sense. But the overarching meaning
Speaker 4: is no longer the female attendant or made, which is
Speaker 4: the archaic meaning. And no, it does not refer to
Speaker 4: the moth. That's you know, something for you know, lepidoctory.
Speaker 1: To go kind of like the math, especially the story
Speaker 1: hour that you actually have to tell within five minutes
Speaker 1: or less, list or with south slides, but please continue.
Speaker 4: What they're actually meaning is that it's something that supports
Speaker 4: something else, or in Britain, something that's useful but subordinate,
Speaker 4: or in America something that's useful but in a subordinate capacity.
Speaker 4: So the British term it's for the subordinate purpose, whereas
Speaker 4: in the American subbortinate capacity. And when you start rambling
Speaker 4: on about the use of InVogue phrasing in your articles,
Speaker 4: you create a sense that you don't actually have any
Speaker 4: idea what you're talking about, that you're just somebody that
Speaker 4: is screaming. I feel persecuted. I feel like I'm a victim.
Speaker 4: I want to be a victim.
Speaker 1: I think that that's the issue that I got specifically
Speaker 1: from Blumbner, and just to give credence to a previous
Speaker 1: episode that we have done earlier this week, she is
Speaker 1: like the head of like the Richard Dawkin Society, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Blah blah skippity bobo. So as my daddy
Speaker 1: used to say, when bigots blocked together. Regardless, Phil, yes
Speaker 1: they big it to together. But you know, Phil, I
Speaker 1: know that like to I want to come back to
Speaker 1: this whole notion of colored barns and how she uses
Speaker 1: this phrase, in my opinion, in a very disingenuous way.
Speaker 1: How did you feel when you were reading her article
Speaker 1: compared to Bakari's reaction to it, especially when she is
Speaker 1: throwing out that particular phrase about we should be color blind.
Speaker 1: But the reason that we're not being color blind is
Speaker 1: because the blacks one let us colorline. I maybe being
Speaker 1: a little bit hyperbolic, but that's how I.
Speaker 2: Took Actually I took it in the same way because
Speaker 2: I think it was also right hearing using trying to
Speaker 2: use color blinding blindness. Yes, some people we realize, okay,
Speaker 2: everyone is a human being, but then you and in
Speaker 2: that case we talk about equal rights for all human
Speaker 2: beings that will come on the color blindness very look
Speaker 2: for human rights for a human beings, but to use
Speaker 2: it to dismiss the actual realities of marginalized groups like
Speaker 2: the black community. Right, it is it is basically a
Speaker 2: slap in the face because we still have problems within
Speaker 2: the society, systemic racism, problems ongoing. What I realized they
Speaker 2: tried to do was to as support for their right
Speaker 2: Heron made claims about certain groups, were certain groups in
Speaker 2: the that were formed to empower black people, like the
Speaker 2: Black Panthers and and the Nation of Islam. And I
Speaker 2: made some faults claims about them and what they were
Speaker 2: really about. And this is where they pushed this thing
Speaker 2: about black supremacy, this thing black supremacy. Yeah, and and
Speaker 2: so so the thing is is that a lot of
Speaker 2: what you saw there was this red heron. And the
Speaker 2: evidence is to the contrary, we have still have the
Speaker 2: problem of red lining occurring. You have the and the
Speaker 2: black community. It's hard difficult for them to get housing
Speaker 2: in certain areas, especially it's an area, let's say, where
Speaker 2: they want what we call the one percent result. Right.
Speaker 2: There are also the parties in education, you and and
Speaker 2: then you look at the wealth of black families in
Speaker 2: comparison to white white te what we call white te families,
Speaker 2: by the income difference is so large.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so large.
Speaker 1: It's over ninety percent in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it had me kind of taking back and
Speaker 2: how they are making these claims, Oh you if you,
Speaker 2: if you, if you are speaking out right, or we
Speaker 2: have gotten this far and so we don't need to
Speaker 2: look at it anymore. So we need to have this
Speaker 2: colored blindness. Yeah, ignorant, it's a bait. It's a whitey
Speaker 2: supremacist talking point. This is the talking point we hear
Speaker 2: from white tea supremacist color blindness, Like the same black
Speaker 2: lives matter the whole day came all lives matter to
Speaker 2: minimize the the things that black people are going to,
Speaker 2: marginalized groups are going to in the United States. So
Speaker 2: I found it very dishonest, and I am very disappointed
Speaker 2: as far as a humanist supposed to a humanist that's
Speaker 2: supposed to champion because of marginalized groups making statements like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I'm rob I see itching, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to let you go ahead and speak. But I
Speaker 1: just have to say this really quick. I'm going to
Speaker 1: start saying instead of white supremacy, white tea supremacy because
Speaker 1: I just like it. But Rob, go ahead, what were
Speaker 1: you going to say.
Speaker 3: Hi, resident white guy here. I've I've never thought of
Speaker 3: that actually as the colorblind society or I don't see
Speaker 3: color in the same line as oh, what did you
Speaker 3: say all lives matter? I've never thought of it that
Speaker 3: and that is compelling. But what I was going to
Speaker 3: say is that Bloomer's original article, the way that it
Speaker 3: read to me as a person who just is very
Speaker 3: frustrated in that race is continuing to be talked about,
Speaker 3: and I legitimately thought of it in the same way
Speaker 3: as like companies try to push the responsibility of recycling
Speaker 3: onto the individual, where it's like, oh, we're not going
Speaker 3: to look at the systems and the things and the
Speaker 3: constructs of power such that are going to actually affect
Speaker 3: how different people of different races interact with each other.
Speaker 3: It's actually your job to not see the color and
Speaker 3: just that's your problem. And on one hand, because philosophically
Speaker 3: this is my second point, I kind of get it,
Speaker 3: at least in the very naive sort of sense, in
Speaker 3: that it shouldn't matter because in the same way that
Speaker 3: I'm not responsible for eighty percent of pollution five companies,
Speaker 3: is like, it's not a thing that registers to me,
Speaker 3: and therefore I think it's not a thing that registers
Speaker 3: to most people. So it's very easy. It's very easy,
Speaker 3: I think, to fall into color blind color blindness, which
Speaker 3: in some ways is fair, but it's not because then
Speaker 3: it's literally delusional, because you're just not recognizing the world
Speaker 3: that you live in. So the thing that I wanted
Speaker 3: to bring up is called the original position or the
Speaker 3: veil of ignorance, where it is the It is the
Speaker 3: idea of imagine, no one lives on earth yet, and
Speaker 3: now you, as an unknown entity, gets to make all
Speaker 3: the rules of society for everyone that could ever possibly exist.
Speaker 3: Isn't it obvious that you should make rules of society
Speaker 3: such that no matter how anyone is born, everyone has
Speaker 3: a fairly equal chance. And that's an idea that came
Speaker 3: up fairly recently. I think the people who said it,
Speaker 3: I could look it up. But the veil of ignorance
Speaker 3: is fantastic, and it's a wonderful idea of just like,
Speaker 3: as a truly literally it's called the original position in
Speaker 3: like an ethical idea.
Speaker 2: Here's the structured itself.
Speaker 4: The progressive tax system based itself on the veil of ignorance.
Speaker 4: It doesn't take into account worth the society or anything.
Speaker 4: It's just if you can pay.
Speaker 2: More, you are graduated tax rate. That's where it.
Speaker 4: Comes from, the rules.
Speaker 3: But the problem, last last point, The problem is that
Speaker 3: that's great for a world that doesn't exist yet. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: we live in a world that does exist in the
Speaker 3: way that it is now, so we should talk about
Speaker 3: the world that it is.
Speaker 1: And and and and to your point on that part
Speaker 1: is my frustration with this. Yeah, because if we're especially
Speaker 1: like if we're talking about America, I mean, like I understand,
Speaker 1: like racism is an issue all over the world, but
Speaker 1: race specifically was invented here. Race. Race wasn't meant to here.
Speaker 1: The ideas that actually came to racism came elsewhere. But
Speaker 1: the actual creating laws on how to govern people based
Speaker 1: on their skin color was invented right here in the
Speaker 1: good old US of A before it was the US
Speaker 1: of A. Yes, it's is as America as apple pie.
Speaker 2: God I love.
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Dalles Jeffrey Dawes was great at doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank thank you, and you know, shout out to
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Bacon. But the issue is America's never been a
Speaker 1: color blind society ever, and I know that like as
Speaker 1: far as like you know, activists, activists have you know, come,
Speaker 1: especially like when you're talking about the abolition movement, abolitionist movement,
Speaker 1: to the civil rights movement, to even the black power
Speaker 1: black empowerment movement, these were all movements that were created
Speaker 1: in order for us to get to a place where
Speaker 1: color does not matter. But the only time that color
Speaker 1: mattering or not mattering should matter, specifically in how we
Speaker 1: govern people. And that is what she's missing, because the
Speaker 1: standards on how government is set up and how it
Speaker 1: treats its constituency is going to differ depending on what
Speaker 1: race that person happens to be.
Speaker 4: Long just look at the costal system the America has created.
Speaker 4: The cost seral system that America has created has disproportionate
Speaker 4: numbers of non white people locked up, So Hispanics, African Americans,
Speaker 4: and people from lower ethnic socioeconomic classes as well. They
Speaker 4: are disproportionally locked up in a country that locked up
Speaker 4: more people than anyone else.
Speaker 1: On Earth, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: America kills more people from ethnic minorities than any other
Speaker 4: country on Earth. It doesn't quite kill as many people
Speaker 4: as other countries, But if you're a methan minority, you
Speaker 4: are more likely to get to death mienal than if
Speaker 4: you are a white man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're two to three times likely to have
Speaker 1: an adverse interaction with police if you happen to be
Speaker 1: black or Hispanic versus being Right now.
Speaker 4: Two point two five million prison places the UK has
Speaker 4: eighty seven thousand. America over polices communities that each views
Speaker 4: as problematic, So lower socio economic communities, which are not
Speaker 4: usually going to be the ethnic minority, so higher socioeconomic
Speaker 4: communities are policed less. Crimes of poverty are prosecuted more so,
Speaker 4: white collar crime is prosecuted far less than blue collar
Speaker 4: crime is. And this is the problem because it results
Speaker 4: in those individuals who generally go towards those jobs, who
Speaker 4: are usually of lower.
Speaker 1: Ethnic minority areas.
Speaker 4: And lower socioeconomic classes, to be locked up more because
Speaker 4: police go and view those individuals as problematic, so they
Speaker 4: go and police it more so. Therefore, look inspired the
Speaker 4: what was the original reasons behind the LA riots? It
Speaker 4: wasn't the Rodney King beating. That was a symptom of
Speaker 4: la being chronically over policed in the black community in
Speaker 4: Los Angeles. And when you went outside of the black
Speaker 4: community as a black person in Los Angeles, you were
Speaker 4: targeted by the police. You were over police sing.
Speaker 1: Fun faust fun fact. That's the reason why there was
Speaker 1: a Black Panther Party specifically started in Los Angeles. It
Speaker 1: was because of the over police scene in black and
Speaker 1: black communities, in black and brown communities and black the
Speaker 1: Black Panthers formed and decided to take up their Second
Speaker 1: Amendment rights in order for them to protect themselves. It
Speaker 1: was never about them going out and you know, like
Speaker 1: offing police officers. No, it was always about them actually
Speaker 1: protecting community against police officers that would incarcerate them and
Speaker 1: kill them at a higher rate. But Rob, I see
Speaker 1: you itching again because you are our resident white guy
Speaker 1: who was talking. So I'm going to go ahead you
Speaker 1: another another.
Speaker 2: Right, that's.
Speaker 1: My name is Rob the resident. Yeah, exactly, go ahead.
Speaker 3: It's just straight up stealing a TikTok joke from somewhere.
Speaker 3: It was just it was so funny. I don't know
Speaker 3: who was what they said that the greatest moment of
Speaker 3: white privilege they ever had was that while they were
Speaker 3: driving around in a neighborhood, they got pulled over and
Speaker 3: they said, oh good, now I can ask for directions.
Speaker 3: All the white people can have that kind of interaction
Speaker 3: with a cab because I mean, I doubt Bloomer would.
Speaker 2: Think that way privilege exists.
Speaker 3: But just like as a side note, if you acknowledge
Speaker 3: that white privileges is that can only exist due to racism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here's the thing to understand when it comes to
Speaker 4: affirmative action, which is in the sights in the article originally,
Speaker 4: So affirmative action is not actually the argument that people
Speaker 4: think it is that the reason that it works, it's
Speaker 4: not a The argument that goes off the rails is
Speaker 4: that it's correcting a history of inequality.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 4: Affirmative action admits have a higher predisposition to contribute positively
Speaker 4: to society. And the way how you get communities which
Speaker 4: have been traditionally underserved to do that is to encourage
Speaker 4: a predisposition to positive contribution to society moving forwards. And
Speaker 4: that's what affirmative action does, and that is why it
Speaker 4: is pushed back against because it allows the ethnic minorities
Speaker 4: that are benefiting from those programs to be in control
Speaker 4: of their own lives and to benefit not just themselves
Speaker 4: but the communities that they come from, and give opportunities
Speaker 4: to others to see people in those positions. I will
Speaker 4: always and forever in a day, hold two women, two
Speaker 4: white women, one Jewish woman to be on my wall
Speaker 4: as people I look up to. One of them is
Speaker 4: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the other one is Sandra Day O'Connor.
Speaker 4: First two women ever to sit on the Supreme Court
Speaker 4: of the United States.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and Phil, I'm going to give you our beijein brother,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and give you the last
Speaker 1: panel word disc go ahead and say what you feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So AAA think that in terms of affirmative action,
Speaker 2: those as you correctly said, the pantry group, those groups
Speaker 2: were set up for that purpose. They know that systemic
Speaker 2: racism is still a fact. It's still happening. It is
Speaker 2: not And even when surveys were done among black group
Speaker 2: right the the black groups, black persons douce this still
Speaker 2: they said that systemic racism is still a problem. So I,
Speaker 2: as I said, it's still have me baffled how this
Speaker 2: person is coming and claiming this is not a problem
Speaker 2: and trying to down play that and the for example,
Speaker 2: the person was saying that the people that were saying
Speaker 2: black people don't want affirmative action or they don't want
Speaker 2: to have race and ethnicity used for admission process process
Speaker 2: for selective colleges. However, a Pew research twenty three phone
Speaker 2: that for seven percent Black Americans supported use of race
Speaker 2: and ethnicity and admission process for selective colleges, twenty nine
Speaker 2: percent opposed, and twenty four percent was not sure. But
Speaker 2: the Bloomers give some statistics which actually did not give
Speaker 2: a breakdown of this and made it look as if
Speaker 2: black people did not support race and ethnicity as being
Speaker 2: should be used in our admissions to selective colleges. The
Speaker 2: thing to notice is that it's not just using race
Speaker 2: and ethnicity. There are other factors that are in place,
Speaker 2: Other factors like in terms of the college scores, the
Speaker 2: API scores scores better or not those persons have this score.
Speaker 2: So it's not just that factor that is used to
Speaker 2: put or to say they're being black people put in
Speaker 2: just because they're black or because they below this ethnic group. No,
Speaker 2: there are other consideration, and we have persons in the
Speaker 2: black community who are just as intelligent or even more
Speaker 2: intelligent than persons in the white the community. And they
Speaker 2: is because of the lack of opportunities that have been
Speaker 2: the lack of opportunities in the past that this statement,
Speaker 2: this clause is put into I think the laws where yes,
Speaker 2: you have to have a certain quarter of of of
Speaker 2: of minorities in your university outset into colleges, but they're
Speaker 2: not just acseting because they're black. They still have to
Speaker 2: meet certain other criteria.
Speaker 1: Exactly there there there's other criteria that has been set
Speaker 1: up in order for you to actually admit a person.
Speaker 1: It's not just because they came in and said that
Speaker 1: I'm black or what have you. But I just I
Speaker 1: just want to tell everybody, and I do apologize guys,
Speaker 1: but I'm about to get on my soapbox. So here
Speaker 1: Govens editorial. I warned you, I warned you. But Lovener's
Speaker 1: editorial Second Humanism and the color wise Society is deeply flawed.
Speaker 1: As a black atheist and humanists, I'm troubled by her
Speaker 1: promotion of a colorblind society because it ignores the persistent
Speaker 1: racial injustices that we face today. The idea of color
Speaker 1: blindness is problematic because it attempts to erase the unique
Speaker 1: experiences and systematics and systemic struggles of black people under
Speaker 1: the guise of equality. This perception dangerously overlooks the historical
Speaker 1: and ongoing racism that continues to impact marginalized communities. Blunder
Speaker 1: criticizes what she calls black supremacy and the iditarian left
Speaker 1: without acknowledging the historical context of movements like the Black
Speaker 1: Panther Party. These groups sought justice and empowerment in response
Speaker 1: to severe racial oppression, not supremacy. Misrepresenting their aims only
Speaker 1: serves to perpetuate a myth of reverse racism and dismisses
Speaker 1: genuine struggles of equity. Her claim that racism is large
Speaker 1: a relic of the past ignores current realities. Racism persists
Speaker 1: in institutions and policies affecting education, housing, and criminal justice.
Speaker 1: Addressing these systemic issues requires more than ignoring race. It
Speaker 1: demands active engagement with disparities that still exist. Blunder's dismissal
Speaker 1: of affirmative action and similar measures fails to recognize their
Speaker 1: role in addressing historical disadvantages. Affirmative action is not reverse racism, honey,
Speaker 1: It only is a necessary step towards balancing the scales
Speaker 1: of justice. True humanism should embrace diversity and tackle systemic
Speaker 1: injustices head on. Instead of promotion cut of BINDNSS, we
Speaker 1: should acknowledge and address the ongoing impacts of racism. Humanism
Speaker 1: must amplify, marginalize voices, and advocate for real systemic changes
Speaker 1: to achieve genuine equality for all. And we can start
Speaker 1: with reparation s