Category: Uncategorized

Wow.

Just….wow.

Wow.

OK…if I had to accurately express the way I’m feeling right now, I’d say that for about four hundred more lines. I’m just…wow. You probably want me to get right to it. So I will.

I just wrote about Kaepernick. And in the fallout, I’ve heard some pretty damn racist things about Kaepernick.

Usually, you hear a racist story being pushed and you fight it, and the reaction is, “Naw, man, I don’t mean it to be racist. It’s a fact.”

These things aren’t fact. They were made up to attack Kaepernick. They are the typical tabloid bs. And the only reason they are gaining traction is because people want to believe it, because they think it will cause people to disregard Kaepernick’s protest. It’s proof positive that this is a racist, sexist country, people know this is a racist, sexist country, and they will push stories — even spurious ones — based on that assumption when they need to use that racism and sexism against someone they don’t like.

It’s beyond despicable. It’s beyond infuriating.

I thought we were past this. But no. We’re not. The very people who deny these stereotypes exist use them and traffic in them to discredit people they don’t like, and it’s bloody infuriating.

OK, so the first way they thought to discredit him is saying that he’s a Muslim.

Once you trace the claims all the way back, you find the evidence, as Snopes discusses, are these pictures:

No, I’m not about to just say that his being Muslim doesn’t matter. I mean, it wouldn’t. But usually when I make that argument, the response is, “Well, I’m not saying it would matter — I’m just pointing out a fact.” And then the person just keeps sharing the information, damaging the person’s name without saying that’s what they’re doing.

That excuse isn’t available here.

Remember that game of “spot the differences” you played when you were the kid?

Let’s play.

These are the originals. See if you can see anything different.

Look carefully. Ready for the answer?

Someone photoshopped that Islamic symbol on his chest. And another one photoshopped his face onto a well-known photograph of Osama bin Laden.

I’m done.

I…what the fuck do you say to that?

I mean…think about it…someone not only took the time to do it — the right was so eager to have their racist stereotypes confirmed that they spread the rumor like wildfire.

The only reason this story went viral is because people are bigoted as hell against Muslims, and they thought saying he was a Muslim would just invalidate his entire protest.

And they thought people would believe it because Kaepernick is black and his girlfriend is a Muslim. But worse than that — this untrue story got spread like wildfire because they thought it could hurt him.

If you need proof that America is Islamaphobic, it’s right there. That’s some extreme Islamaphobia right now. It’s the definition of a racist ad hominem.

Speaking of his girlfriend, the other rumor is that Kaepernick’s girlfriend is pushing him to protest. That, supposedly, makes Kaepernick a “cuck” and not worth listening to.

If you trace this rumor back, you’ll see it goes back to this guy. It’s all of one paragraph long, written yesterday, and claims that “we’re now hearing that it was actually his girlfriend Nessa’s idea for Colin to protest.”

No sources. But that’s good enough for the Internet.

I mean, seriously. Who the hell cares if she DID persuade him to do it? He still made his own decision. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that this was an attack on his masculinity — a rather baldly sexist one — so that people would stop listening to what he says.  A black man who isn’t a “real man” — hen pecked by his black girlfriend. All the stereotypes there, perfect.

And so, a terrible story spreads like wildfire, even though, even if it were true, it shouldn’t indicate that he was wrong.

I mean, seriously. A tabloid gossip columnist? Get outta here.

But it gets worse, folks. Because just ten hours ago that same gossip guy using the exact same source said this:

Yesterday we posted about Kaepernick’s Girlfriend Nessa may have been the one responsible for his Protest, today it seems Nessa is distancing herself from him, and the rumors. We received this in our tipbox, ” I was able to confirm today that Nessa is NOT kaps girlfriend.  She has been leaking stories for months.  The Muslim connection is her trying to get some fame off this. However, it can get him hurt by some crazy person. She’s trying to push off on him being Muslim and he is NOT. He is indeed a Christian and does not have a formal relationship with Nessa.  He has helped her through charitable donations and that’s it.  From what I hear, he has been dating another women for a while but keeping it lowkey for privacy.”

This story has been out for ten hours. Who has been talking about it?

Virtually nobody. Because it doesn’t make a racist, sexist attack against him.

This is racism and sexism at work.

At its worst.

You know…you talk about this kind of thing and argue about it…then you see bald-faced example of it up close and personal.

It catches you off guard. Shit, I was right.

But the “I told you so” fades into a depressed sigh, because for awhile you hoped that we were better than this.

Unfortunately, we’re not.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me keep doing what I’m doing.

What does it mean to be patriotic?

To many people, apparently it means going through the motions. It’s about duty, not heart.

That’s not what it is to Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers Quarterback who refuses to stand for the anthem. For Kaepernick, patriotism is genuine. It’s not something you get paid to exhibit, it’s not something you do for approval, and it’s not something you do because everyone else is doing it.

Patriotism is respecting the flag as a symbol of an ideal, not as a mere tradition. It’s about caring for everyone in this country.

Do I stand up and put my hand over my heart when the anthem is sung? Yes. Why? Well, at first it was because I teared up at our beautiful anthem and wanted to show my appreciation. But now, honestly, it’s mostly because I don’t want to cause a scene.

I don’t feel all that patriotic, especially given the fact that this country was supposedly built on the claim that all men are created equal by a guy who kept his own children as slaves. That’s messed up, Thomas Jefferson — almost as bad as people defending him. I used to feel patriotic, once upon a time. But history class and books have ruined it for me.

I know the sting of that disappointment. I remember reading about the Trail of Tears, for example, and my patriotism died there. That was one in a long line of dominos. I thought America was beautiful, but it had a lot of problems. So I went from heartfelt allegiance to go-through-the-motions tradition.

I’m not the only one of a disillusioned new generation who feels this way. And yet we still stand and put our hearts over our chests. Who cares, we think. It’s a piece of cloth. The idea of respecting it out of sincerity is foreign to many of us. It’s a flag. A sheet on a flagpole. That’s it.

And when I hear many people talk about it…even though they tend to be more passionate about the flag than I am, they seem to be saying that what Kaepernick genuinely feels is unimportant. He just needs to do as everyone else does it. Out of some sense of “respect.”

You may not agree with Kaepernick. That’s fine. But he cares more than many of us. He cares enough about what the flag represents to not only research to see whether it’s accurately representing that, but to stay seated when he finds out the ideal doesn’t match the reality.

When I hear many people talk about it, their arguments seem to be saying that what Kaepernick genuinely feels is unimportant. He just needs to do as everyone else does it. Out of some sense of “respect.” Which indicates, to me, that we think the flag is more about respecting tradition than about some genuinely felt, truly patriotic ideal — or else they’d be focusing on the ideal, not going through the motions out of respect.

That’s what people don’t get. Kaepernick actually thinks the flag means something. More than almost all of us, he thinks about what it means to be a patriot of the American people when it comes to the anthem in a way many of us do not.

What does it mean to take seriously the motto “land of the free and the home of the brave”? Why is there less freedom for those shot by cops? Where in our culture are we still cowards?

Hardly any of us asks these questions during the anthem, but they are the questions we would be most likely to ask if we were true patriots who cared about every single individual fellow citizen in this country.

That’s what’s really bothering us. Kaepernick is pointing out what it means to take those values seriously. He’s showing what it means to take the large piece of cloth on a metal beam seriously as a symbol of freedom and bravery, of the truth that all men are equal and have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It means protesting when those rights are not fulfilled, not sweeping them under the rug with ceremonies and unthinkingly embraced tradition.

It means realizing that standing up and engaging in a tradition of standing to an anthem is not patriotic. It’s lip service, it’s rote tradition, it’s unthinking conformity.

Patriotism is engaging in love and care about the lives of everyone in your country, and realizing that this is more important than any piece of cloth.

And he’s doing so, by all accounts, at the risk of losing a lot of money from lost endorsements and less playing time.

Now, I’m not saying you have to agree with Kaepernick. I’m not saying here that you have to agree with everything he stands — or sits — for (I’ll likely make that argument separately).

But here it is absolutely important, I think, for us, as a nation, to realize the gravity of what he’s doing. To realize that America is not about allegiance to a flag, it’s about the fair treatment of the people in it, and that that’s more important than any red-white-blue sheet we hang on a flagpole. The flag is a symbol; it does not make America great, and pretending it does is not patriotism. It’s the opposite. It’s putting cloth above people.

Patriotism is realizing — in spite of our many differences — that the people are more important than anything else. People are more important than cloth, than songs, than feeling like the Fourth of July. And until we put people at a top priority — until you put people at a higher priority than cloth — Kaepernick is more patriotic than you are, because he knows that patriotism is about people, not red-white-blue sheets.

And he knows it deeply and profoundly enough for the symbol of the people, the flag and the ideals we so often claim to associate it with, to actually mean something to him. It’s not his disrespect of the flag’s ideals that’s causing him to sit down. It’s his respect for them. It’s not a lack of patriotism that causes him to sit down. It’s his patriotic concern for the people of the country, and his respect for a flag he does not want to insult with heartless tradition, blissful ignorance, or passivity — while so many of us do just that.

Patriotism here is not dedication to the flag, it’s dedication to the people. So when we ignore that by standing out of our wearied sense of tradition or teary-eyed blissful ignorance, we’re being forced to deal with the uncomfortable truth that the sitting Colin Kaepernick is more patriotic than we ever were.

Let’s be honest.

That’s what’s really bothering us.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, in case you want to help me do what I do.

Suppose, just suppose, theoretically, that someone has PTSD because they were raped. Let’s forget, for a moment, the argument as to whether there’s a rape culture, the supposed stats on false rape claims, and how often men are raped vs. women. We’ll discuss that another time. Here is one person, who happens to be a woman, who was brutally raped and has PTSD because of it. Rape jokes send her into a tailspin of depression, a terrible place — especially if she is not warned ahead of time. I know that might be a stretch for some to imagine, but let’s suppose, just for a moment, that’s true.

Would you care? Theoretically, would you care?

If you would not care, do you have any place to be surprised or offended if someone calls you a misogynist?

What if someone DOES get PTSD from death threats? What if they are in fear for their life and their children’s lives? What if the primary reason people want them on social media is because they want a toy to play with, because their tears are hilarious to them? Theoretically, what if that’s true?

Do they not have a right to block people who are a threat to their mental health and the good they can do in the world? Do they have a right to report violations of service because they are afraid of their safety? Or do they have to remain psychologically crippled for the rest of their lives? Do they have to live in constant fear that someone will kill them or someone they love in the dead of night?

Because what I’m hearing, honestly, is that even in the worst cases, they have to stay on social media. There is a moral obligation to put their psychological health at risk (which, you’ll claim, isn’t at risk in spite of any evidence — but if it was, it wouldn’t matter anyway). There is a moral obligation not to protect their families and moral wellbeing. Because they have to be on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube to be your toy.

What if black people ARE being discriminated against? What if they aren’t making it up, and it’s real, and it actually affects them? What if it affects not only me, as a black individual, but family members and close friends I love and care about? What if we’re not making it all up? What if it were real?

Would you care? Because if you wouldn’t, why would you think I shouldn’t call you a racist? Your problem is not lack of knowledge. Your problem is callousness — so why should I care so much about your desire to hide that that I don’t call it by its actual name? Why should I care more about a word than actual people?

This is my growing suspicion. You don’t want to care, but you don’t want anyone to say you don’t care.

We can have debates about facts. But if, underneath your faux concern, you really just don’t care and want to be left alone for not caring, our conversation is a waste of time, and you’ve lost the right to complain  if I ban you, call you out, or say you’re a racist. You’re not a victim, and I’m not violating some overarching principle. This is what happens when you stop caring. It’s your fault.

Take some personal responsibility. You can’t do anything about me, but you can change your behavior and you can change your heart.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.

“We ruined each other by being together. We destroyed each other’s dreams.”
― Kate Chisman

I’ve been hearing, time and again, that discussions on social justice are breaking up the atheist “community.” Most recently, fellow Patheos blogger David Smalley of Dogma Debate wrote a blog post saying that the disagreements we keep having are killing the atheist movement, but he’s hardly the first one to say this. Different people have been protesting this for years.

The people saying that aren’t wrong about the breaking up part. When I railed against the racist comments of “The Amazing Atheist” TJ Kirk, I was helping create a rift. Kirk is a bigger name with a lot more viewers, but I noticed that the people who defended Kirk were REALLY for Kirk. And I also noticed that a lot of bloggers had my back. Same thing when I attacked YouTuber Sargon of Akkad (and, by extension apparently, YouTuber Atheism-Is-Unstoppable). Of course, the irony is not lost on me that I was accused of causing the rift because I was attacking attack videos…but still, that’s kinda behind the point. There’s a rift being created across the Western atheist community.

This rift hasn’t diminished. It’s deepening into a wider and wider chasm.

How did it get this way? After all, isn’t atheism JUST about the lack of belief in God or gods?

Well, yes. But not like the (in)famous blogger Thunderfoot put it, which I suspect is what most anti-SJWs (SJW stands for Social Justice Warrior, a derogatory term for social justice advocates) mean when they make this point.

Thunderfoot’s argument, made in some of the most popular atheist videos on YouTube, is that atheism USED to just be about a lack of belief in God or gods, and then feminism started attaching itself onto atheism like a parasite, poisoning it with political correctness, oversensitivity, and witch hunts for misogyny — all items that had nothing to do with atheism and that, at least to Thunderfoot and those who agree with him, seemed engineered to hijack a vibrant atheistic movement.

This story has created a large category of purists who try to “protect” atheism from feminists, people intent on fighting racism, people trying to protect the disabled — basically anyone who threatens to, in their view, use marginalized people to control individuals in the atheism movement.

On the other side, the side I’m on, this looks like a completely different scenario. For most of us, the Thunderfoot “purist” atheists, aka “anti-SJWs,” aren’t just trying to protect atheism from being hijacked by social justice warriors. They are fighting against people’s identities as women, as members of a minority race, as disabled individuals. And because these identities, and preserving the rights for these identities, is even more important to us than a lack of belief in God or gods, we have to defend ourselves. To us, it’s not as if you are just separating atheism from those concerns — it’s looking increasingly as if you have hijacked atheism to attack those concerns.

So you guys are angry because you think we’re using our fight for social justice to take over the atheist movement, and we are angry because we think you’re trying to use the atheist movement to end our fight for social justice.

We’re really starting to hate each other, which leads to us attacking each other more, which leads to the atheist movement becoming less and less about attacking religion, and more and more about whether you’re a social justice advocate or an anti-SJW in the atheist arena.

We’re not showing any signs of agreeing with each other. Keeping us in the same atheist movement is going to continue this tug of war.

Let’s be clear. Neither side is silencing the other. Anti-SJW atheists are doing just fine on the Internet and in the atheist movement they’ve created on YouTube — a vibrant, very influential community. And SJW atheists are doing just fine on their blogs and conferences. We, for the most part (with some notable exceptions) have our different spaces, our different arenas, and although there are skirmishes, no group has the power to invalidate the other. This isn’t like Atheism+, where there was the illusion that we could somehow “excommunicate” someone from the atheist movement by denying them access to conferences or kicking them off a blogging platform. Both sides have robust support, power, and influence.

But we’re going different directions, due to this long war.

And that’s OK. Really. I mean, anti-SJWs aren’t going to stop attacking social justice advocates any time soon. And social justice advocates are not going to be comfortable in a movement that is constantly attacking their attempts to protect the most valuable part of who they are. We’re not going to be able to fit in the same atheist movement. And if we’re going to be dead honest, unless we get to that Utopia where everyone agrees with where we stand, we don’t want to.

I’m not saying we have to stop fighting, although no one is obligated to fight. Sure, we can have debates in corners between willing parties. But let’s not be like that miserable couple with serious, irreconcilable differences who tries desperately to paint a happy face on for the public although their relationship is tearing at the seams. The time has come to be honest, and I honestly think that we would have a better relationship if we admitted our irreconcilable differences, acknowledged that we have fundamentally different goals and ways of doing things, and carried on in the trajectories of our lives that most fulfilled our goals.

This is a good thing in another way, as well. It shows that the fact that we’re atheists is starting not to make us outcasts as much. Yes, atheists are 3.1% of the population, but let’s put that in perspective. That 2014 percentage (likely higher now) is double the 1.6% it was in 2007 years ago and it means there are now more atheists in the United States than there are Mormons, Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah’s Witnesses — combined. And when you group atheists with agnostics, there are more of us than there are Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Unitarians, New Agers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, those in Native American Religions, and those who follow the Jewish religion — combined. A higher figure of 9% of people say they don’t believe in God, which is equivalent to nearly half of all Catholics living in the United States.

With that increasing size comes diverse opinions. And with the lowering stigma associated with being an atheist in the United States, due largely to many of the world’s foremost experts being atheists, comes a greater concern for other parts of individuals’ identities.

That’s good news. It’s a sign that atheists are winning, because if atheists ever finally “win” — which, for many of us, means that no one believes in God — we’re not going to care we’re atheists, because there will be no belief in God to oppose.

I mean…we know we’ve won the culture war, guys, to the extent that other things become more important than lack of belief in God. The goal of the atheist movement, so far as I see it, is to eventually not exist. It’s not to make the movement MORE important, but to make it LESS important. We’ll win when God and, as a result, atheism becomes less important, and we move on to other things.

And this break will allow us to develop on different trajectories, to seek support where we most have things in common, and to pursue change without being somehow tied down to a too-narrow or too-broad definition of what an atheist movement is supposed to be. I really think it’s best for all concerned. We have come to a point where we can afford this development, and instead of delaying the inevitable, maybe it’s time to just let it happen.

Because I don’t know about you, but I only get one life here on this earth, and I feel like constantly trying to sew together a “movement” that has such a deep chasm in it is a waste of time. I could grow. I could flourish. I could really do some positive things in the world. But instead I have to constantly play defense against attacks on my position as a human being here in the world, and it keeps me from moving forward — and every time I try, it’s not about me moving forward, it’s about me somehow destroying the atheist community to everyone on the other side. And if you’ll allow me to wave a white flag for a moment, I get the sense that you anti-SJWs on the other side are just as exhausted with this as I am. This battle based on anxiety over keeping the atheist “movement” together is trying, it seems, to force us to care less about very real parts of our lives. It seems like a sense of outdated obligation forces so many of us to focus on a bridge that we can never build that our infights for a nonexistent unity are not forwarding atheism, so much as they’re killing our dreams.

And so…I think the best thing to do is to go our separate ways instead of pretending that that’s not inevitable. Embrace it, and live the fullest, most fulfilling life you can with it, because you’re only going to get just the one…

There’s more to say on this, but I just wanted to lay out the nuts and bolts. I’m sure more of this discussion and discussion on social justice advocacy will come out in future blog posts. But that’s the gist of what I feel a need to say now.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.

My articles criticizing the most popular atheist anti-SJW YouTuber have caused a lot of people to think I’m overstepping the bounds of my own blog, and thus ruining Patheos and my blog in the process (although that’s not all I write, obviously — just the stuff that these people come on my page to read).

Let me clarify for you what this blog’s focus has been ever since…well, before I wrote my first blog post on Patheos in February 2015.

Here is my very first sentence, ever, published on the blog — in my “About” page, which states, for those of you with comprehension difficulties, what my blog is “about”:

The goal here is to attack ideas that perpetuate marginalization in the arenas of religion, race, class, and gender.

That was before The Amazing Atheist fiasco. Like, that’s my whole deal. That’s always been pretty much it. So when you tell me I’m not doing what I promised I’d do, you really, really don’t know anything about my blog content. I’ve been doing this since before day one.

Later in that short statement, I say:

As a black man who studies race, I am also very concerned about gender, class, and race — concerns that are intricately intertwined with my anti-theist stance.

I couldn’t possibly be more clear there.

As to the idea that my posts on social issues are somehow hijacking Patheos…you don’t know anything about Patheos. Seriously. You’re ignorant. Here’s a recent screenshot of their front page. Notice the highlighted sections.

All the channels on Patheos do this — for several, social issues make up the majority of their content. It’s what we’ve been doing since forever. It’s nothing new. The only reason anti-SJWs are making a big deal about it on my blog, in particular, at this time, in particular, is that I’ve recently made a couple posts about The Amazing Atheist instead of Ray Comfort or Hillary Clinton. But he’s the biggest atheist YouTuber in the world, and he is virulently against just about everything I stand for — yet, as an atheist, he represents me. Why the hell would I not write about that, given the fact that I said this before I wrote a single post?:

I see my pen as a metaphorical pickaxe for chipping away at walls  of ignorance that keep this marginalization [of religion, race, class, and gender] in place.

And besides that, ALL the atheist anti-SJWs complain about other people ALL THE TIME, more than I do.  None of y’all complain about their obsession with Anita Sarkeesian, for example.

So, yeah…this blog hasn’t changed. You just started reading it just now, and want me to stop giving my readers the material I promised before the start I’d give them because you don’t like it.

Stop trying to manage me, and be honest about why you don’t like what I’m saying with a reason more than, “It’s on your blog.”

Try to show you know what you’re talking about.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, in case you want to help me do what I do.

I got the idea from this video, which I really thought kinda described things anti-SJWs were triggered by than the other way around.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTF8U868uY[/youtube]

1. Write a trigger warning for a trigger warning.

I remember my first time.

I didn’t think of myself as an SJW. I was just being nice. I knew there were people who might be reading my blog — real-life friends I knew — who might be honestly pained by what I wrote. And I figured there were others like them out there. So I put up a “trigger warning” for a post on rape in the Bible.

In hindsight, I gotta laugh my ass off about how “triggered” anti-SJWs became after seeing the trigger warning. They were beside themselves with shock and outrage. Typical comment from that type was, “I was going to read your post, but then I saw the trigger warning and [insert “triggered” language here].” I was pretty entertained by how offended this maddened crowd became. These days, I’m half-tempted these days to make trigger warning for trigger warnings, but I’d hate to hurt their feelings even more. 😉

2. Tell them that the “because the English language!” logic for there being only two genders is illogical.

What is their problem? I mean — I knew conservative Christians were really, really picky about there being only two genders. But these anti0-SJWs — if you mention there might be more than two genders, you’d think it was the apocalypse.

Get this: India is considerably more homophobic than the United States and generally doesn’t allow same-sex marriage, and they see more than two genders. So does Pakistan. So does Japan, New Zealand (the country of Lord of the Rings — goddamn they’re awesome (sorry/not sorry triggered anti-SJWs :))), Germany, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Australia.

I mean, internationally speaking, many people are like, “Yeah, that third-gender thing? That’s been a thing. For years. What are y’all, savages?”

I’m not kidding. Anti-SJWs are treating English language like it’s the holy writ or something. Like it doesn’t ever change.

Hey, wanna go for extra redness in their faces? Try telling them that the singular “they” is 2016’s “Word of the Year.”  This change is happening, folks, like it or not, because the people who actually are making the dictionaries and style guides are falling in love.

But really, it’s SO traumatic for them — they’re like, “How am I going to know what pronoun to use!!!!!” Chill. It’s not Armageddon. You’ll survive; you don’t have to drink the bleach just yet.

3. Tell them that the wage gap is a thing.

If any of them actually make it past the title here, I’ll be in a state of shock.

It’s getting in the way of their narrative. Here is their narrative:

The “wage gap” assertion that states women earn 78 cents compared to every dollar a woman makes ignores the fact that women work less-paying jobs than men, and therefore earn less. If you compare the actual earnings of men to that of women in the same jobs, the wage gap virtually disappears.

And that’s where the conversation is supposed to end. In this play, the chagrined person slinks away in defeat and admits what the anti-SJW wanted screamed from the mountaintops all along: WOMEN AND MEN ARE PAID EQUALLY!!!!

Or, even better, the men are at a disadvantage in the job world, not the women.

That’s the line. If you challenge that, they’ll lose their minds.

Try telling them that, however you adjust things, women still tend to earn less than men, that many women have less experience because they are forced out of the workforce due to needing paid maternity leave (and that we are one of only three countries that don’t provide maternity leave), that having a child makes you more likely to get hired if you’re a man and less likely to get hired if you’re a woman due to the fact that 30% of people still think a woman’s place is in the home, and that when women enter a traditionally male-dominated field the respect for and pay in that field drops (indicating that if we see a field as female-dominated, we are more likely to see it as less valuable), and that men are significantly more likely to get promotions in jobs than women.

And that even if you ignore ALL of that and give the anti-SJWs their best shot…again, women still earn less than men.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI[/youtube]

Man, that notion that we should actually treat women more fairly gives them a temper tantrum! It’s a sight. Even whisper that stuff beyond their incessant yelling that THERE IS NO WAGE GAP and they’re beside themselves with rage.

4. Say we should do something nice for a group that is struggling in America.

Someone once told me that the difference between an SJW and an activist is that an activist gets a ramp built for someone in a wheelchair, while an SJW complains that there are stairs.

That’s not been my experience, at all. An SJW, according to self-proclaimed anti-SJWs, is anyone who gives a shit about the fact that the guy is in a wheelchair and is unable to walk up the stairs — unless, of course, it’s one of their own. The right thing to do, most of the time, is to laugh and make fun of the guy in the wheelchair trying to make his way up the stairs, record it, and then go inside and watch it and crack up about how he’s having such a hard time trying to get up the stairs.

Meanwhile, the guy in the wheelchair is still struggling. And if you DARE say anything is inappropriate, they’ll be “triggered” and shake their heads like you don’t get it. It’s hip to laugh, don’t you see?

It doesn’t even matter if the discrimination is proven by a mountain of data, in many cases. If you say anything about doing something about it, they’re outraged that you’re infiltrating their perfect little glass hut of a world, ruining their fun with a funeral dirge.

It’s a fucked-up party in there.

5. Watch and enjoy any movie, any TV Show, or play any video game that features a member of one of the groups anti-SJWs don’t want to see on the screen.

Seriously.

You like the new Ghostbusters? What an SJW. You can’t wait to see the new “Ocean’s Eight” movie featuring a predominantly female cast? What an SJW. I mean, every time that a theatre includes someone from a minority group to play a part, it seems, that’s WAY too much pandering to the SJW crowd, and they’ll hate you for loving the fact that someone who looks like you or is more true-to-life to you is on the screen.

This is a fun one, though. Next time they gripe about how one of those characters is “changing cinema,” just gush like, “Isn’t it AWESOME!” and watch their brains explode.

6. Make any movie, any TV Show, or play any video game that features a member of one of the groups anti-SJWs don’t want to see on the screen.

If you give your diverse audience a diverse cast, the anti-SJWs will tell you you’re pandering because you’re not pandering to them. Because obviously, if you had your way, you’d choose…well, let’s just say, characters are the type of people who are more…acceptable to the anti-SJW crowd.

Few things make anti-SJWs more #triggered than the fear that blackness and estrogen will take over the movie industry. The horror!!!

7. Call someone a sexist or a racist for doing and saying sexist or racist things.

The truly entertaining thing about this is that anti-SJWs see it as their right to call groups of people “victims.” This whole world is a “victim culture.” If something about who you are makes you struggle through culture unfairly, and you say anything about it on behalf of yourself or people you give a shit about…you’re a “victim.”

You need to grow thicker skin. Toughen up. Man up. Etc. And that would be serious, if the hypocrisy was not so blatant. Honestly, it’s so unabashed sometimes I just have to shake my head and laugh.

Because — guaranteed — the moment you call their behavior sexist or racist, they blow their top. It’s like the end of the world. They’re horrified. It’s like…they’re complaining about you complaining about real, actual, documented victimhood…and the moment you call it out for what it is, they become such professional victims over words that you feel like they deserve a medal for their hypocrisy.

8. Put the words of people they criticize in context.

I know this may not sound hilarious.

Trust me. It is.

Here’s an awesome example.

TJ Kirk likes to talk about how Melissa Harris-Perry said the term “Hard Worker” was racist as a way to show how ridiculously extreme anti-SJWs are.

That’s the joke. That’s it — except, TJ Kirk goes on about the supposed ridiculousness of this 47-second clip for 11 minutes in his discussion. But yeah, he doesn’t go beyond the sound byte.

You want to make an anti-SJW so triggered they have to leave the room? Give them the context.

The context is that Paul Ryan, the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate and leading Republican representative who was infamous for making a distinction between “makers” and “takers,”  was demanding some personal family time due to his role in Congress, and the conservative on Harris-Perry’s show was arguing that he deserved it because of how hard he was working.

Now coming from a Republican — and especially from Paul Ryan — that sounds a bit hypocritical to a lot of us leftists, especially when so many hard-working Americans have been deemed as “Takers” deserving family time by Republicans, and as “sucking off the system” in taking advantage of food stamps and welfare by a lot of conservatives. So by pointing out that poor people (like slaves) are hard workers, too, she was trying to show the double standard:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S73gigyjT8[/youtube]

You may not characterize the Republican Party that way, but to a lot of us that’s a clear double standard. It’s not an argument against the words “hard worker.” It’s an argument against how Republicans tend to have a double standard as to which hard workers deserve “family time” and which ones do not; this argument would not have applied to a liberal. You may disagree with it, but she has a point, right?

And it’s not even about race here. It’s about giving our just due to hard work.

Now, that context would have made Harris-Perry’s words intelligible for anyone willing to listen. But, unfortunately, it would also “trigger” anti-SJWs.

So TJ (after a long-ass 2-minute-plus whine about how horrible the clip is) cuts her off before she gets her full explanation in, at the 47 second mark of the above video:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/fdSdwExjbWQ?t=2m17s[/youtube]

Another thing his above video shows is her saying, “…in the context of the Republican Party” at the beginning. She is actually stating that saying Paul Ryan deserves family time is a hypocritical argument in the context of the Republican Party…and then afterwards criticizes those remarks.

But the reader is left with the misleading impression that she is criticizing just the two words “hard worker.” That wasn’t the point. If she was talking to someone who was in a party that, in her mind, didn’t have a double standard as to what a hard worker deserved, she wouldn’t have made the statement. It wasn’t about race; it was about politics.

Here’s the thing: That video has been viewed 450,000 times. It is upvoted highly and the comments pontificate about how awful Melissa Harris-Perry is for making “hard worker” a racist term. You can’t even say that someone is a “hard worker” anymore, they say.

Hardly anyone cares to see the original context. Why? Because the video is telling them what they want to hear and they don’t want their lullaby interrupted.

9. Think any aspect of your or someone else’s life is more important than an anti-SJW leader’s mortgage or fame.

For some reason, anti-SJWs think that the “report” buttons YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have to be avoided at all costs (unless, at times, it’s content they dislike that is getting flagged).  No matter how much someone is cyberbullying you, you’re supposed to stand up like you have some guts and take it. Even if there are hundreds of thousands of insults and threats instigated towards you…don’t you dare press that “report” button, or you’re a coward.

But once you flag a video for what seems, to you, a legitimate reason — you’re ruining their right to bully you, you’re potentially affecting their paychecks, you’re “silencing” them. Nevermind the studies that say cyberbullying can do serious long-term damage. If you’re being cyberbullied, you and your feelings are the problem. If you have a problem with it, you’re the one who has to get off the Internet and hide.

The irony, of course, is that if a site like YouTube decided not to monetize a bullying video because you flagged it — not even take it off their site, just decide not to support it with their money — the anti-SJW tears put all the rest to shame.

10. Look the world in the face as if you have a right to be treated with respect.

If you decide to actually be confident and start being honest about the way you’re being treated in this country, or the way someone else you care about is being treated badly in this country, and do so in a way that assumes you have a right to equality, you’ll be silenced.

You’re allowed to exist. You just have to be a dormant welcome mat for anti-SJWs, if you want to keep them happy. Tell them nice things.

Because their feelings are so fragile that you have to toughen up for them as if you don’t have any.

No matter what your life experiences or the data shows, anti-SJWs have life SO much worse than you, apparently.

State that maybe they aren’t the most struggling people in society — that maybe, even if they are poor, their skin tone gives them an advantage over other poor people — and they’ll go crazy.

….Man. Was that ten already? I didn’t even get to talk about the other triggers, like saying that racial discrimination is a thing that matters, or saying anything nice about Anita Sarkeesian (really. anything. Try it; it’s fun), or ruining their trolling parties on your FB page with a block, or stating that women have it harder than men, or not laughing at their steady stream of rape jokes (for shits and giggles, try being a rape victim and actually having the nerve to ask them to stop!), or saying you’re a feminist, or arguing that the shooting of any black person was unjust, or saying “Black Lives Matter,” or messing with the gender binary by wearing what you want to wear (there’s this awesome video on being a gender confusion that I nearly feared, based on the responses, would drive the anti-SJWs mad), or refusing to get involved in their feuds and internet drama, or being honest about not liking something because it seemed racist or misogynistic…

I’m sorry. We’ll be here all day.

Are you not an SJW yet? Don’t worry. They’ll get to you. One day you may care about someone who is honestly and clearly having a difficult time in life, they’ll see your sympathy, and they’ll slap the label on you. And every time you make a peep, they’ll be beside themselves with rage, thoroughly triggered.

And then — here’s the kicker — they’ll misinterpret it as thinking you are.

But we’ve dealt with anti-SJWs ever since there was a desire for social justice. It’s just more of the same.

Sometimes, you gotta just sit back and have a laugh at it all, though.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me keep doing what I’m doing.

Atheism is boring.

I don’t want to sit around all day talking about how much I don’t believe in God. Really. I mean, if atheism is just about a lack of belief in God or gods, and that’s it, what is the point? Any way you answer that would be adding something onto atheism that wouldn’t be part of atheism.

These days, people are more interesting to me than God, and caring about them is much more interesting than caring about a lack of belief in God or gods.

Really. I mean, most of what really bothers me about Christianity has to do with the idea of people burning in hell forever, anyway. That’s a very cruel thing to believe about some good people.  God’s not the problem for me there; the way people are treated and thought of is.

Here’s something I think:

If refusing to believe in God makes us treat people worse instead of better, it’s a waste of time. Refusing to believe in God is only interesting if that love and fascination once reserved for God gets dedicated to people.

I just don’t see the point of shaming Christians for not caring about people if we don’t care about people ourselves.

Yeah, I realize that caring about people is a nebulous concept. More specifically, I mean showing compassion, listening, granting dignity, striving for equality, trying to make a better world for everybody.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that we’re infinitesimally small in the scheme of things, and that without God we’re going to live an infinitesimally small life and die one day, and that’ll be it. Humanism might seem to some as if we’re taking life too seriously.

But here’s the other thing: Nothing can change the beauty in the moments that we decide to enrich each other’s lives. When the entire universe is completely cold, unimaginably vast, and silently empty trillions of years from now, nothing will change that in one part of it, however small, people felt the beauty of caring about each other. People mattered to each other because they decided to matter to each other. No God had anything to do with it.

That’s worth getting up in the morning. Refusing to believe in God…isn’t.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be against religion. I just think the reasons why we’re against religion are more important than just being against religion.

It just seems boring to focus so much on the fact that there’s no God when there are so many fascinating people to get to know, love, and support. I don’t want to just sit here in the one life I have and get tunnel vision on being against God.

To each their own, though.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. My blog has a Patreon, in case you want to support it.

For documentation of modern-day racism, and a longer-form satire, see this.
Thanks for reading! BTW, this is my first try doing a comic for the site. Let me know how you liked it 🙂

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do. If you want to just donate once, there’s a Paypal link in the sidebar. Thanks again!

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!” — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves.

— Freidrich Nietzsche

Warning: The following assumes you’ve already seen the movie. If you haven’t seen the move yet, skedaddle for now and come back later.

 OK, so let’s talk about this movie Suicide Squad, 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (really, Rotten Tomatoes? REALLY?!) and all.

First, audience. The audience isn’t kids — which seems to have pissed off a few reviewers looking for a bubblegum-pop superhero movie in the style of Captain America: Civil War. The audience is readers of the comics who saw heroes when they were younger, with all the dreams these heroes represented, and are now grown up and have seen reality hit them in the face.

The girl who grew up with princess romances of Disney before growing up into a woman who found out that ideals of romance are often unrealistic and have problems within them that can twist them into nightmares (Harley Quinn). The man who wanted to be a hero, and grew older just to find that the very passion that made him “successful” also has destroyed relationships he tried so hard to embrace (Diablo). The man who once wanted to be a hero with ideals that he has had to compromise in the face of harsh realities — realities that he wouldn’t have understood when he was younger, that may have resulted in a divorce, time away from kids who forced him to choose between his career and them (Deadshot). The man who grew up the ugly duckling, and was seen as the ugly duckling for most of his life — until he accepted the title; really a good person at heart, but on the outside the very monster everyone always expected him to be, which eventually forced him to embody that status in his actions as well (Killer Croc).

All these people, looking for the “god” of an ideal, grew up never finding it, and are still, like the madman searched for god, searching anxiously for the ideal.

That’s the first thing that’s necessary to realize about this movie. This movie isn’t just about the characters on the screen, so the complaining about the lack of character development (which I didn’t think was really lacking, to be honest) is missing the point. The movie is about the dreams we had that have died, and about how to be a hero when you image of who a hero is is dead.

That’s why the movie starts with a dead Superman, and the realization that the heroes in the dreams of ourselves that we hold in so high regard also threaten to condemn us. The ideal of Superman makes us all look weak, small, and ineffectual in comparison. It’s not that the dreams are bad, completely — yes, the hero ideal has done a lot of good in the world. But it has trampled those of us who aren’t heroes — us onlookers see our own lives dying away and feel perpetually unable to live up to the dream of our lives that is encased in the ideal of the superhero.

This movie is speaking to those of us who saw whoever our personal Superman was as our hero. And in this world full of consequences, what it’s saying is that this image of the ideal, cookie-cutter hero has to go. If we’re going to keep living with any sense of worth and dignity, the superhero has to go.

And in spite of that reality, we still yearn to be the hero, and that yearning gives us hope to carry on, while also imprisoning us in regret. Like Nietzsche’s madman, we are constantly to fulfill an ideal of a home we’ll never see.

Which is why the film opens with characters in prison — the prisoners are encased in their own failed dreams (literally — Deadshot because he couldn’t disappoint his daughter, Diablo because his rage burned his family away, Killer Croq because the stereotype people made based on his looks became his reality, and Harley Quinn because of her failed attempts to fight for her story-book romance) — and yet each of them holds out hope via the very thing that imprisons them, be it reconnection to a daughter, reuiniting with a dead family, breaking out of a stereotype, fulfilling a storybook romance. The yearning is clear in the beginning of the movie and at the end, when the witch shows each of them what their dreams are.

That dream is just around the corner — a hope of a “rising sun” just around the corner literally and figuratively imprisons them all.

That’s why the first song in Suicide Squad is “The House of the Rising Sun” — trapped where they are and where they want to go, with “one foot on the platform, the other foot on the train”:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRXb7K7k7bQ[/youtube]

Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun

Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I’m goin’ back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain

Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I’m one

It’s genius.

The other songs are similarly carefully chosen. Harley Quinn’s “You Don’t Own Me” may seem ironic for her character, because she’s in jail. But she represents the attempt to escape (figuratively and literally) from society’s expectations. That’s why she put guards in the hospital. Her rebellion from the jail is mirrored by her rebellion from the psychiatric ward — two kinds of “prisons” that she escapes for the “Joker” — someone who represents a space outside of all the physical and mental efforts by institutions that tried to confine people’s physical and mental selves in institutional expectations. What makes her, her is that she is trying not to be owned, and is in that constant tension — a psychologist who embraces craziness, a prisoner embraces escape, a person desiring to be the stereotypical housewife (as is clear when the witch appears and reveals her desires) who embraces love in what is clearly a…let’s say “less-than-ideal” relationship.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SeRU_ZPDkE[/youtube]

And then “Fortunate Son” for Killer Croc. Killer Croc looked like a monster, having been born with the skin disease Epidermolytic hyperkeratosis. As Amanda Waller (more on her later) notes when introducing him to what seem to be department heads for the CIA, people saw him as a monster, so he became a monster. “Fortunate Son” is about people who are born able to have and fulfill ideals — but Killer Croc, like those he represents in the movie, was born fundamentally disadvantaged, was seen as nothing but a monster, and had to embrace that identity in order to survive (as people weren’t willing to see him as anything else). The relevance to racism here seems obvious. In addition, the song is known as a Vietnam War anthem — marking the difference between those who sent soldiers to the war, and the soldiers who were often demonized and permanently scarred from it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7qkQewyubs[/youtube]

Now, there’s the archeologist, Dr. June Moon. Her research leads her to, literally, find God. The fact that she shifts from Dr. June Moon to the Enchantress (who states, at one point in the movie, that she used to be worshipped as God), seems to clearly represent the struggle between human knowledge and God.

And in charge of these both, at least in the beginning, is Amanda Waller — the one in charge. This is a representation of order — the one who sets the line. She is in charge of the ideals each individual has — she is able to form them, grant them, and deny them. When asked how she can control people for the operation, she states: “Because getting people to act against their own self-interest is what I do for a living.”

The fact that she is telling the histories of each of the characters in the beginning is no accident. She has a hold of their stories — she is in charge of their stories and can give and deny them as she wishes. The message here is that the power of institutions — the people who can grant and deny your dreams — manipulate you to gain control over your actions constantly. This includes the institution of church, as represented by the witch, who once used to be seen as God, as the heart of the witch is in Amanda Waller’s hands.

Or so it would appear at the beginning. But the movie’s message is that those in charge of what happens to you often don’t have your best interests at heart. It advocates examining them carefully, suspiciously, skeptically — without taking their word for it. Amanda Waller, at one point, shows this clearly when she shoots several men who were on a mission with the Suicide Squad because their security clearances were too low for her to keep them alive and possibly talk. Blind sacrifice for an institution — be it the government or the church — is unhealthy.

Now, back to the witch. The witch eventually gains her independence from Amanda Waller and becomes a supernatural entity on her own. To get people to fight for her, she kisses them — turning them into her minions. And when the Suicide Squad nears her, they see how she does it. As God represented the promise of eternity in paradise that has stolen the lives of billions, she offers them the promise of a fulfilled ideal.  All wrongs righted, and the dream of heaven fulfilled. All the have to do is give up their here-and-now lives to her.

The challenge for them is to accept who they are. And they do embrace it fully. Instead of being lulled into subservience by the dream of reuniting with his family, Diablo embraces the reality of who he is to fight her brother. Harley Quinn fights, and Killer Croc embraces who he is to do his part. And Deadshot has to actually defy his daughter and all distractions — a dream of an ideal that he cannot reach — to kill the witch/God.

The only way they can kill the witch/God and take back their lives is to reject the ideals the witch has to offer, embrace who they have become, and become, as Neitzsche put it, gods themselves.

Who then is Dr. June Moon. Human knowledge — but the movie has lost “god,” and June Moon, as a representation of human knowledge, is no longer looking for it.

But the movie can’t have a happy ending here. That would spoil the entire point. That would make them the very heroes that entire film is trying to deconstruct — making them the redeemed heroes that, in the real world, don’t necessarily exist for people with ruined pasts.

We can’t have a happy ending. The witch is dead, the ideal is dead…God is dead.

It’s just us, living our lives.

So they go back to their cells. They saved the world from domination from the witch/God by embracing who they were (or, as Nietzsche would put it, making the choice to “become gods themselves”), but that didn’t mean their lives suddenly got better. We outcasts of society aren’t the godlike heroes we read about in our story books. In our everyday lives, those are dead, and we have to own our own lives in the face of harsh realities. And that’s just life. The battle between what we’re expected to be and what we become. What we want to be and who we are. And we live for those moments when we can join each other and fight to be heroes, while still being the smaller-in-life heroes we are.

So the movie is fantasy, but it’s real life, too. Thus the beginning lyrics in the trailer: “Is this the real life?” (realistic picture of Deadshot), “Is this just fantasy?” (screenshot of more fantastical figure Harley Quinn), “No escape” (shows Killer Croc, who can’t escape from his skin and the stereotypes it traps him in), “from reality” (shows a brooding Diablo extinguishing the fire he wishes he could have put out so it hadn’t destroyed his family, a reality he can’t escape)… and after God/the witch dies, and the government is shown to be human and destructible, there is no inherent ideal; it’s just us without an authority to wave a finger or a God to give us a heaven; from those standpoints, “nothing really matters”…
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmRih_VtVAs[/youtube]

And yet…we still yearn for hope, grasp for it, try to reach out for that next possibility…because, lest the movie end with the message that we’re all trapped in our cages, the Joker comes in at the end and frees Harley Quinn. We can’t help it. It’s what makes us breath our next breath, even if the chase isn’t something we can’t take seriously and isn’t something we respect. It’s not a moral to feel good about. It’s not the government-controlled order or a God’s ideals, but the embrace of, for lack of a better way of putting it, a joke with a pretty fucked-up “green light” as its punch line, constantly clashing in an unresolving wave against our past hopes and dreams.

As the novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald put it:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

As I told friends…I’m not sure whether I liked the movie. But it definitely wasn’t boring.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.

I’ve been branded a “Social Justice Warrior” for my views lately. I don’t think the title is fair. An SJW is stereotyped as an insincere blowhard, and I’m not insincere. I have gotten this label because I have called a famous YouTuber racist for saying black culture is a victim cult, that black people need to be fine about others not caring about their fight for equality, and that he didn’t particularly care about black people getting thrown out of their homes for Urban Renewal projects. He also indicated that 12,000 predominantly black lead-poisoned children in Flint, Michigan wasn’t really a valid cause of concern.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQdMgtncpoE[/youtube]

I should have kept my mouth shut, apparently. I shouldn’t have said anything. But because I did say something, he got on his bully pulpit in front of about a million subscribers who gave me the “SJW” label, when I hardly think that’s fair. I just spoke up about an issue that is deeply personal to me, that I care about — that personally affects me as a black man who has had and heard too many experiences from people close to me, and has seen way too many statistics backing it up, to think that racism doesn’t exist. And I thought that his labeling people who stand up, like Lavish Reynolds did, against injustice for blacks a “victim cult” was something that really bothered me. What if she expressed her concerns? Atheist anti-SJWs would label her and dismiss her. Another BLM supporter. Another SJW. Don’t pay attention. Nothing to see here. Hold up your nose high in proud callousness.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgxWzPVXSoc[/youtube]

Since then, I’ve learned that I’m not the only one who has been given that label of SJW. Over the past few years, the title “SJW” has become akin to the term “Communist” in the 1950s. If you remember, there was a Senator named Joe McCarthy who tried to weed out anyone who cared about “social justice” — calling them before Congressional hearings and interviewing them to label them Communists. If you defended black people, were a feminist, was part of the lgbt movement, and so on…you were in danger of being marked a “Communist.” And you couldn’t get a job anywhere, and no one would listen to you, and you became an outcast pariah.

I’m seeing this McCarthyism on the Internet. I’ve experienced it myself. I thought we were past this — but it turns out that when you call it out for the heartless nature of what it is, you are marked, branded, and seen by others as anathema so that the accuser can move on to the next victim.

I think, and I continue to think, that my concerns are valid. I am a black individual primarily concerned with issues that negatively affect the black community. And it is staggering how quickly this makes me a pariah. Are we not allowed to speak against those who would label us a victim cult? Are we not allowed to speak against those who say people should not care about racism against blacks? Are we not allowed to speak up against those who seem to have no real problem with black people getting thrown out of their homes? Are we not allowed to be angry at the people who shrug at the thousands of black girls and boys lead-poisoned in Flint?

Not, apparently, if you’re an atheist, according to a disturbing McCarthyite groupthink. Any hint of anger against these sentiments is met by an ocean of people telling you to shut up.

Since then, I’ve found out that it’s not only black atheists who are hastily labeled for expressing honest concerns. Women — including rape victims — are labeled SJWs as well, if they express disagreement with statements by The Amazing Atheist like this:

 

So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called“Rape Survivors.” Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn’t want to be fucked and you’re amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his dick, what’s the big deal?

 

I don’t mean to be horrendously offensive and insensitive here, but everyone survives rape. Some women are killed afterwards, but that’s murder, not rape. To say that you’re a rape survivor is as meaningless as saying you’re a jury duty survivor or a divorce survivor. Lots of things in life suck—that doesn’t mean we survived them.

 

The word survivor applies to people who are alive after being stabbed 73 times with an ice pick or mauled by rabid wolverines, not to a woman who gets dick when she doesn’t want it. Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch!

 

Also, don’t you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space? I’m not making light of it. I know that it is damaging, a reminder of your powerlessness against the world—but it should be a wake up call. We are all powerless against the forces of fate (or chance). We’re all on different paths, but they all lead to the same place.

 

Life leaves no survivors.

 

NOTE ON THE ABOVE:

 

I just showed this writing to a friend of mine, along with the question, “Is this too offensive to release?” I was looking for a yes. I got one. So, I’ve included it here. I’m here to cross lines. This is not The Amazing Atheist from those cute little youtube videos you love so much—this is the real me. And the real me doesn’t give a fuck about your small-minded boundaries.

 

If you’ve been raped, does the above passage add insult to injury? Does it make it hurt worse? How could it? If rape is the paramount psychological trauma in life, then how could my words aggravate it whatsoever? Too often in this culture, we fear words. But even if my words are the height of ignorance, they should elevate you. If you find them funny, then you will laugh and dismiss them as a joke. If you find them honest, you will respect my bravery. If you find them infuriating, I will have given you power. If you find them sad, then I have enriched you.

Words never make less of a person, unless they are bland.If you feel something, then I’ve done my job as a writer.

From page 90-91 here.

Here is his rationale for that piece, stated last year:

This was a piece designed to motivate rape victims to not allow their victimhood to oppress them. To encourage them not to dwell on past events and move on with their lives. Why is it worded so offensively? Because when I wrote it I was a stupid 22-year-old who had at this point only ever socialized with people on online message boards, where this was simply how we talked. Not to mention it’s supposed to be a humorous piece, in the same vein of shock humor as Bill Maher’s party costume. In retrospect, I too find the piece overly callous and I would not write it today. But I did write it and I don’t apologize for it. It was how I felt at the time, and I really don’t think the message of moving on from trauma is really a negative one. I’ve been told by several rape victims that this piece actually motivated them to move on with their lives. I’ve yet to be told by one rape victim that it increased their trauma.

I think this hardly needs saying, but I’ve heard from several individuals who disagree — who think this is out of place. Whether you’re one of them or not, my guess is that you can probably see why. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOr1Tny6VM[/youtube]

But those on the McCarthyite witch hunts will make people like the above person an “SJW” and anyone else who doesn’t follow the advice of a popular anti-SJW a pariah. They would say that these people — anyone who disagrees — is part of a victim cult of whining, professional Social Justice Warrior complainers who need to be ushered out of atheism.  And because these McCarthyites have enormous power on the Internet to get videos downvoted and make people pariah’s without even listening to them, they become as effective as mob bosses in shutting down the very real concerns of the most vulnerable people.

I just think that’s sad.

You may say, “Why can’t you just ignore them?”

Well, it was tried with Atheism +. Now, to be sure, Atheism + exhibited some of the same tactics — labeling people hastily before a thorough conversation, possibly. But that was one attempt. Another, that wasn’t quite part of Atheism +, was simply blocking people who tried to accuse you, or otherwise not letting them into your space. But people didn’t like that either. And dialogue is like going in front of a Congressional hearing for what it can do to your reputation.

Look. I’m not putting you on. I’m really concerned about several issues, and I tend to speak up for them sincerely. It’s not a trick or a farce. But the label is on me now, and it won’t come off.

Atheism is being hijacked into a movement against caring about the most vulnerable in this country. Increasingly, due to the increasing power and influence of people in the community, the trend has been towards arguing that their concerns are not only illegitimate, but dangerous. Internet atheism is fast becoming a game of showing off callousness to vulnerable groups and angrily dogpiling them when they try to fight back. If they are cyberbullied into silence, or try to protect themselves from relentless attacks that threaten to ruin their lives and, in some cases, livelihoods, they are mocked even more. What is being advocated, increasingly, is a heartless atheism, an atheism that actively invalidates the concerns of the most vulnerable in this country, insisting that they are insincere and dangerous, and is proud of it.

Because — let’s face it — very few popular atheists actually discuss actual atheism online anymore, all that often. They’ve gone on to fight what is, apparently, the next frontier — a McCarthyite witch hunt against the most vulnerable people in society, a proud heartlessness and callousness. And increasingly, when people look at atheists, this heartless callousness is what they’re seeing. Like it or not, we’re developing a reputation. It’s a reputation I don’t want to be part of, really. I’m an atheist who gave up a love for a nonexistent God so I could care about people.  I want to embrace and endorse love, not indifference and hate. And increasingly, as an atheist in a community increasingly defined by whitch hunts for SJWs, I’m finding that many atheists are fundamentally opposed to this. And by calling myself an atheist, I’m affiliating myself with that definition.

So…I dunno. It’s been sad and depressing. I don’t know where this is going to end up. But I’m going to keep defending the lives of the vulnerable people I care about, and calling myself an atheist. I don’t want to be labeled an SJW — I really think that’s simplistic and reductionistic. I’m open to facts and data — at least I’d like to indicate I am. But it bothers me that prominent atheists aren’t allowed to even have a problem with callousness towards rape or what seems, clearly, to be racism against black people without being given a label by the world’s most powerful online atheists that silences them.

That’s why I’ve stopped trying to deconvert people from Christianity. Do I really want the most vulnerable people to join a community where they’re going to be constantly unheard, labeled an ugly label by the McCarthyite elites, and effectively become pariahs? I’m against many views in conservative churches…but honestly, if they are part of a liberal church with liberation theology…it hurts to say this, but maybe many of them are better off there. At least they can fight for themselves and others who are vulnerable. At least they can openly love each other without it being constantly seen as fake and insincere. At least they can care about each other in society openly without feeling like pariahs in their own communities.

The anti-Christian stuff sells a lot better. People like anger and rage against Christianity, and for a long time I felt it. But watching McCarthyism infiltrate and demonize so many in atheism is getting me down, honestly. Not just because of me personally, but because I was trying to urge people to leave an abusive God for a group of people who loved people instead of God. But it just seems like false advertising, now.

I’ve had to admit, lately, that many of them — not all of them, but many and perhaps even most of them — are better off in church. At least most people in church actually care about caring about people, in my experience. Yes, there’s a lot of disturbing stuff going on, true. But you don’t get labeled an “SJW” just for caring about vulnerable people. Instead, they say you’re showing the love of Christ. It’s upheld.

I miss that. There’s a lot I didn’t like about church. But that, however misled, care I often saw for the most vulnerable…I miss that. And increasingly, as I’m seeing this McCarthyism sweep over the atheist community…it’s not something I want to take away from Christians who have it. That’s probably not what a lot of people want to hear, but it’s the truth.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.