Weekly Humanist Reader

Yolanda and Melissa at the Kitchen Table remember the life and socio-political impact of Malcolm X on his would-be 84^th birthday. An unconventional leader who emerged from the least likely of places, the memory of Malcolm X re-awakens the possibility of ‘workable interracial coalitions’ and how sadly mistaken we are to believe that our finest visionaries can only arrive via an Ivy-League education and without a ripple on the glassy waters of their lives.

Six Degrees of (Rotary) Separation? A new reading of the release of U.S. journalist, Roxana Saberi, former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to England.

Not only are the femicides in the Mexican state of Chihuahua underreported and overshadowed by the War on Drugs, but also takes attention off the horrific examples and sheer numbers of women disappearing in the Baja Peninsula.

In Liberia, the spoils of war linger long after soldiers return home. This is my rifle, this is my gun. One is for killing, the other is for fun.

The practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): should indigenous rites of passage ever trump human rights?

The latest issue of Mother Jones highlights an incredibly stirring photo essay, by Jonathan Torgovnik, entitled Intended Consequences, about Rwandan children born of rape in the Congo.

Calling all watchers of films! Particularly in the tri-state area!  The 20^th annual International Human Rights Film Festival will be in New York from June 11-25^th.

On Tuesday morning at 12pm (CST), the California Supreme Court will issue their decision regarding Proposition 8.

And finally…Because local wisdom should be preserved and to remind us that there are other ways of being (and because I cannot get enough of TED): Wade Davis’ talk on endangered cultures.

Losing ‘The Language of Faith’

In the USA, the religious frontier has certainly changed in the last twenty years. Not only have social issues including abortion, homosexuality and stem cell research caused great doctrinal rifts between and within organized religions, but also the public unraveling and shaming of church leaders implicit in sexual misconduct scandals in both Catholic and Protestant churches nationwide has provoked historically religious-identified people to re-examine and re-define the terms of their faith. One of the first in a series of national religious studies, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) was released last week and the results should have come as no great surprise. Religion is losing ground. People have begun to turn inward in a, as my mother would describe, new age, Shirley MacLaine-like fashion, searching for the godhood within. Among the key findings in the 2008 survey in which 54,000 people were interviewed:

• Many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), and this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists
• Baptists, 15.8% of those surveyed, are down from 19.3% in 1990. Mainline Protestant denominations, once socially dominant, have seen sharp declines: The percentage of Methodists, for example, dropped from 8% to 5%
• The percentage of those who choose a generic label, calling themselves simply Christian, Protestant, non-denominational, evangelical or “born again,” was 14.2%, about the same as in 1990.
• Jewish numbers showed a steady decline, from 1.8% in 1990 to 1.2% today. The percentage of Muslims, while still slim, has doubled, from 0.3% to 0.6%.

For many of those who identified as “no religion at all”, it is not the oft-thought ‘inspect-then-reject’ phenomenon that is happening here—in reality, religion is off the radar entirely for many in the US. And this deviation trend is only expected to grow in future generations. Even as I examine my own religious journey—baptism and confirmation in the Catholic church, Wednesday night Bible studies, sleep-away church camps (as many as two or three in one summer), Young Life in high school—toward the latter years of high school, I, too, began to recede into the background as my former zealous self suddenly began to power off. My Bible still sits on the top shelf of my closet, in its case, untouched for nearly seven years now.

Even still, I’ve got memorized the ABC Bible Verses (R is for Romans 3:23—All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God) and the canon vocabulary of faith. Regardless of upbringing, you are probably familiar with these kinds of words, those that present concepts responsible for misguiding and reinforcing strict boundaries of heteronormativity, disability, and race. Oh! and immediately re-awaken some of the ugliest thoughts (fear, self-hate and shame) on the most beautiful of designs (our bodies, our humanity and our love). Should you need further proof, just ask me about how to model the Proverbs 31 woman, or Christian apologetics (what is the fate of the man in India who never hears the good news of Jesus Christ?), or how the implanted micro-chip is the mark of the beast and indicative of us living in End Days/the Seven Years of Tribulation. All of these very real, highly sensationalized talking points I’ve still got tucked away. And a large part of me is unsure as to how I let this language go. Or if I just feel nudged to. In a way it fits with the idea of how we often trade up our birth tongue for an alternate one (a more educated, finished, racially neutral one), swapping histories like Magic cards, instead of allowing ourselves to speak bilingually, with our voices speaking together as they inform one another. In these certainly unusual times when culture clashes with faith, perhaps my history of being two parts deeply committed “Catholic” and “mainline Protestant” can jive with my present (and peaceful) awareness of remaining religion-less? On this rollercoaster ride, I’ve yet to get off, and in many ways am still waiting for the fancy effects for wonder and substance to stop spinning in my head so that my seat bar can be released and I can finally walk out of this ‘ruse’-ment park.

‘Ethical Gifting’: Practical or Patronizing?

I am addicted to ‘charity’ giving. Or at least my financial ability to be able to contribute and the immediate feelgood feeling I feel when I do so. You’re hard up for cash to fund that high school volleyball trip to the quarter semi-finals? Let’s hope I drive by. I’ll usually get you $20 closer to where you need to be. Not so harmless, right? Of course not, we’re just helping someone get one step closer to achieving a goal.

But let’s look at this idea within a global context, specifically when the output is given in the name of ‘development’, ‘self-sufficiency’ and ‘debt-relief’?

Not sure what to get your friends for Christmas because, let’s face it, you didn’t plan in advance, but want to appear conscientious and meaningful? The generous souls at  Heifer International and Kiva certainly understand. But what does all this seemingly ethical giving really imply? Bono’s all over Africa, but the pairing of celebrity image and relief work is hardly specific to Africa.

On the heels of Dambisa Moyo’s new book, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa, and in the spirit of this fast-approaching Easter holiday (one in which many [both religious and non] would argue  represents the ultimate gesture of giving in American society), I have some serious questions about what it means to ship dung to subsistence farmers in the name of tolerating poverty, or shipping grass cutters to Ghana instead of actual electrical lawnmowers to maintain the overgrown grass, or micro-credit schemes that seem to only keep people living hand-to-mouth instead of offering them skills to have regular jobs (factories, production). Who determines a population’s needs and how do our perceptions and stereotypes affect our assumptions as to what others could benefit from receiving? Do our gifts further widen the development gap between what has been and what could be one’s quality of life? In other words, do ‘ethical gifts’ unknowingly serve to re-reinforce the divide between the haves and have-nots? Are companies such as Kiva, Heifer, Action Aid and Oxfam cashing in on the West’s anti-consumption vogue? By offering out-dated (largely manual and inexpensive) technology to these communities which ignore their real wants and needs, how can we justify our giving, when our charity does not allow them at the end of the day (and with equitable tooling) to take their lives into their own hands?

I think there is plenty of book material here. I’ve already crafted the title: Ethical Gifting: The Lazy Persons Guide to Distributive Justice.