Will Atheists stand for Black American Reparations?
One of my many gripes with the American secular community is the lack of advocacy toward concrete solutions that help marginalized groups, particularly Black folks. In the past, I have made this complaint, and in response a fellow atheist asked what the Black community did for the secular community. Clearly, the secular community has a long way to go.
While secular organizations may occasionally address the wrongs of racial inequalities and white supremacy, many of these injustices are deemed solely as “black issues” and not as secular or American issues. Furthermore, it is necessary for these organizations to have the integrity to take a stand on policy issues that improve the conditions of Black people even if standing for justice may seem unpopular to their audiences.
Overall, secular people are more likely to support Black Lives Matter despite racial differences; however, we need secular organizations to further engage in discussions regarding policies that aid the black community with experts. One particular example of such a policy is reparations.
Currently, the United States Congress has presented H.R. 40 which is called the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. The proposed commission aims to “examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.”
While this is a popular piece of legislation among many black folks, it is more controversial for others even among those who acknowledge racial inequality.
The goal of reparations should be to correct the inequalities that persist in our country due to intentional divestment from Black communities, yet a lot of disinformation still plague the reparations conversation.
For example, the so-called thinktank known as PragerU unsurprisingly spread disinformation about reparations by suggesting that white Americans would be paying Black Americans reparations directly. This is obviously a total misrepresentation of the actual conversation surrounding reparations. Most politicians in favor of reparations have never made this proposition. This is just an example of conservatives attempting to create controversy where none exists.
Reparations is derived from the word “repair.” It is in the name. The goal is quite literally to repair black communities.
When other communities are in need of repair most would not call such repair a free handout. Although many— especially in the secular community — called out churches for getting billions in aid due to the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer spoke out against the government giving trillions of aid to corporations.
The argument for this aid was supposedly to repair the American economy. Although, this would have been best done by giving more aid to individual people, most were able to grasp this concept without assuming that it was their fault that the American economy — and thus American businesses — suffered.
Clearly, many seem to understand the concept of reparations in the form of COVID-19 relief, but when it comes to reparations for black communities due to centuries of American slavery, jim crow laws, divestment, state-sponsored massacres, red-lining, etc, some believe they are being punished for crimes they did not commit. However, proposals for reparations are not about taking money from white communities. They are about repairing black communities whose needs are ignored.
Of course, many have varying opinions regarding how reparations should be approached whether this means direct checks to descendants of enslaved black folks or general investments to predominantly Black communities. The commission proposed in H.R. 40 would discuss such approaches. It would also be important for both the federal government and local communities to work together to develop solutions that make sense for each Black community across the country because each region has its own unique racist history to reckon.
For example, the St. Louis region, which I call home, has to consider the impact of events such as the East St. Louis Massacre and the Veiled Prophet Ball on local Black communities. We must even acknowledge how the construction of Lambert Airport, the Gateway Arch, and many of our region’s highways aided in the erasure of Black communities and Black wealth.
Those who criticize the ills of Black communities (such as high crime) ought to stand for reparations as well. After all, many of these ills today are the result of the lack of repair. Similarly, many white secular folks often criticize (or even disparagingly joke about) the religiosity of the Black community, yet they fail to advocate for the repair that would make it much easier for Black folks to be in secure positions where succumbing to religion would not be central to survival.
According to the Secular Survey hosted by American Atheists, Black secular folks have a high risk of being physically assaulted due to their secular identity and are half as likely to have supportive parents. Plus, Black secular folks also face the same racist policies and conditions as other Black folks.
Reparations has the potential to help those marginalized due to religion within the Black community including LGBTQ+ and secular folks.
Reparations could improve access to public services as opposed to relying on churches to provide such services, and it could mean better access to transportation and housing or increase financial security so that black LGBTQ+ and secular folks won’t have to remain closeted to maintain a semblance of security.
If one does not advocate for solutions — such as reparations — to the ills of the black community, why would they constantly disparage the conditions of the Black community?
After I became atheist, my living conditions did not ultimately change for the better. I was not “free from the shackles of religion” as many white atheists often suggest should be the case. As a matter of fact, my living conditions worsened due to the initial lack of support from family and friends. This is the reality for many other Black people. White atheists should not criticize the hyperreligiosity within Black communities if they are uninterested in advocating for social and economic policies that actually help Black folks and minorities.
As Sikivu Hutchinson noted in her Washington Post article, the larger secular community seems more interested in tokenizing black atheists as opposed to becoming allies to Black issues. Hutchinson states, “if people of color don’t see atheists and humanists stepping up on issues that directly affect their communities, atheists proselytizing about the evils of organized religion will be dismissed as empty paternalism.”
Reparations is one of the top policies that I suggest secular groups begin to address, but it is far from the only one. The Secular Coalition of America has a solid agenda planned for the Biden Administration, but secular organizations still have far to go. After all, we also must fight for policies such as Universal Health Care, or Universal Basic Income, or Tuition-Free College which protect underprivileged people, including those in the secular and black community.
