A More Diverse Humanism Is a Stronger Humanism

[rug]

May 25, 2016
by Adam Lee

If you, like me, are tired of that obnoxious slogan “I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist”, there’s good news: now you don’t have to choose!

To strengthen the humanist presence in social justice movements, today the American Humanist Association launched the Black Humanist Alliance, an adjunct organization that will promote racial justice and solidarity between the Black and humanist communities. In conjunction with the launch, the American Humanist Association is also relaunching its women’s rights adjunct, the Feminist Humanist Alliance, and its LGBTQ adjunct, the LGBTQ Humanist Alliance.

Since this is a drum I’ve often banged, I want to praise the AHA for doing this. The atheist movement in America has too often resembled a country club for straight white men. We’re represented all out of proportion to our numbers in broader society, while other kinds of people are underrepresented. Whatever the reasons for that, it’s a recipe for irrelevance and dwindling numbers as the country becomes more diverse, if we’re complacent and don’t do anything to change it. (I also approve of the hiring of my Patheos colleague Sincere Kirabo as the AHA’s social justice coordinator.)

But more important than that, humanism is supposed to be a philosophy that appeals to and benefits all human beings. If that turns out not to be true in practice – if there are broad groups of people who are consistently underrepresented or excluded – then it’s worth inquiring into why that is, and letting those people tell us about what matters to them and what we can do to promote their interests. That critical self-examination may be difficult; it may unearth uncomfortable truths that we’d prefer not to face. But if there’s any group of people in the world who don’t flinch from turning a skeptical eye on themselves, who’ll welcome the truth whatever it is, it ought to be secular humanists.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2016/05/a-more-diverse-humanism-is-a-stronger-humanism/