The face of freethought in this country is overwhelmingly white. With very few exceptions, people who represent secularism, atheism, and humanism in the media are white. People are used to seeing the likes of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens expressing their views but one rarely, if ever, gets the chance to witness someone of color do the same. One of the exceptions to this rule was to be witnessed a week ago on
Freethought Radio, a show and podcast from here in Madison by the
Freedom From Religion Foundation. The episode was entitled "African American Freethought and Atheism" and featured Norm Allen, executive director of
African Americans for Humanism.
Allen is the editor of a couple relevant books:
The Black Humanist Experience and
African American Humanism: An Anthology.
Allen discussed the stereotype of African-Americans as being hyper-religious as well the role of religion in slavery, amongst other topics.
Allen was also interviewed back in November for another godless podcast, Point of Inquiry. That show can be found
here. I would also point readers to yet another podcast, Humanist Network News. Their
third podcast features McKinley Jones and Taunya Hannibal-Williams of the
Black American Free Thought Association.
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