A few points of conflict with Jackie L's (Eilonnwy) article.

[fr0d0]

It's a woman thing cego

@ Shiny: did you fall out of the stupid tree this morning shiny?

[tavarish]

1. You replied my question of "why don't we judge regardless of race?" with "because we don't".

No she didn't.

Yes, she did. Verbatim:

Why can't we just take the words and actions of all people on equal ground regardless of race...?

Because we don't take the words and actions of all people on equal ground regardless of race and gender.

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It's exactly relevant as an example of the problem.

So explain to me how some bigoted assholes doing something represents me, my actions, or ideals. It does not illustrate a problem with a general population, it illustrates a problem is a few choice individuals - exactly those who she should condemn rather than throwing the lot of us under the bus simply because we were born with a penis.

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5. You not being able to go into a store isn't my issue. That's an issue for law enforcement, lawyer, or a human resources department. I don't condone such behavior, and it does not speak for me.

Yeah you're fine Jack fuck everyone else?

No, what she's saying is "I was discriminated against by a black person. Therefore it is a problem in the black community." A more logical approach would be "I was discriminated against by a store clerk. I went to his supervisors, told them of the situation, and got him reprimanded/fired." This is a problem between her and her adversary, not a problem between her and the entire community. Do you understand?

Is it your problem that a guy in another country is beating his wife?

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6. You assume I don't deal with harrassment and even say I participate in ogling women by yelling obscenities. I have never done that, nor do I wish to. Double standard.

Harassment isn't the subject, sexual harassment is. You'd think any harassment would sensitise you to the plight of others. Apparently not?

Did you miss the point? I said I don't condone or engage in any acts like that, therefore these actions do not represent me.

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Yes it's safe and well justified to assume culture has a male bias. You're really clutching at straws suggesting otherwise. To insult you... that seems like the norm for you.

What culture has a male bias? You do know that there is more than one facet to culture, don't you? I'm suggesting that what Eilonnwy is saying doesn't represent men, and only applies to her skewed view of the community - which is in essence sexist.

Is taking a person's word for its merit regardless of race a bad thing?


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The accusation lands squarely at your door tav, having displayed bigoted attitudes on this forum.

Please show me where I have ever displayed a serious bigoted attitude. Go ahead, I'll wait.

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@ Shiny: did you fall out of the stupid tree this morning shiny?

You're either the most sarcastic person I've ever encountered, or developmentally retarded.

[Jaysyn]

How pathetic Dotard. That article really is scraping the barrel of reverse guilt. LOL @ explaining Ely's "psychosis". More like justifying unacceptable behaviour.

Weaker & weaker Frodo.

[thesummerqueen]

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@ Shiny: did you fall out of the stupid tree this morning shiny?

You're either the most sarcastic person I've ever encountered

I'm curious to know if Fr0d0 does this because he's either A) completely serious or B) just fucking with everyone on an overly annoying scale.

For the record, Tav, and any other male listening, definitely don't apologize for having a penis. Me personally, I happen to think they're a pretty awesome thing for a guy to have. And nothing is a worse turn off than some guy, no matter what his racial or socioeconomic status, who lives as if he has to defer just to make sure a woman feels good about herself.

I understand Eil is trying to make the point that there are assholes in the world who should be taught a lesson, but one asshole man out of 10 or 50 or 100 does not a generalization of assholes make. Neither does one idiot woman make the rest of us idiots.

[fr0d0]

The whole point is... that we live in a patriarchal society, and as such the purposes of the male gender are served where the female gender takes a back seat to that. It's a fact of our lives. What you're doing here, if you support Tav's argument, is saying that the privilege afforded to males isn't privilege at all, but is the perfect balance.

@ Tav:

1. You truncated eli's word to ridicule them. What she said wasn't what you quoted. I hope that's dumbed down enough for you.

2. Bigoted assholes represent us as a society. If society condones an inequality then the society gets to shoulder the blame. You are of course trying to cite extremes to avoid the label. Unfortunately the cap still fits.

5. If the guy in another country by the standards of that country being the same as my own beats his wife... sure it's my problem. Nice diversion tactic - nothing to do with the subject.

6. see above

7. What Eli is saying certainly applies to this forum. As members of this civilised society we're all culpable for it's shortcomings.

8. Go take a look at the objectification thread. And what was the point of you linking us to pictures of your GF?

[Shinylight]

It's a woman thing cego

@ Shiny: did you fall out of the stupid tree this morning shiny?

Why do you say that fr0d0? And don't say 'because you're being stupid'.

P.s. I don't live in a tree, I'm not a squirrel.

[theVOID]

Face it fr0d0, Eilonnwy is up fallacy lane with this article.

1. She asserts the 'privilege' of white men is responsible for Atheists being disproportionately white men, yet never even attempts to substantiate her claim other than some testimonials, something that she would laugh at if testimonials were the only thing raised as evidence for phenomenon x, this makes her a hypocrite.

2. She massively generalises, again displaying behaviour that she would condemn was it from a point of view she disagreed with. My favourite example being "I have viewed many statements by atheists on the topic of race and been taken aback at the obvious white privilege dripping from their words" in conclusion that this is why most atheists are white men. It's like saying "I've seen many Polynesian criminals therefore Polynesians are responsible for crime"

3. She never demonstrates a connection between this 'privilege' and the disproportionate white male atheism, she makes no attempt to account for other factors, such as the obvious being 1) White people generally have higher levels of education due to historical racism and it's ongoing effects on poverty 2)Black men are more likely to be atheists than black women, likely because of the fact that women in general are more emotional, which when combined with 1 coincides better with the statistics than "white male privilege" causing it.

4. She conflates atheism and civil rights and then whines when Atheist movements aren't blanket civil rights movements. Well what the fuck did you expect?

5. She holds the comedian Bill Maher responsible for part of this divide, regardless of the fact that he's done far more to bridge the gap than extend it, despite the fact that he can be an asshole sometimes.

[fr0d0]

VOID - for "white men" I read males of our civilised society. To me the bickering over her exact words is missing the very clear point she's making. Like pulling her up on the definition of atheism... I'd have thought people here would have noticed Eilonnwy reiterating the distinction but here you need to pull apart her words and drop in the accusation. It's more feeding time at the zoo than trying to honestly see a persons point of view.

[tavarish]

The whole point is... that we live in a patriarchal society, and as such the purposes of the male gender are served where the female gender takes a back seat to that. It's a fact of our lives. What you're doing here, if you support Tav's argument, is saying that the privilege afforded to males isn't privilege at all, but is the perfect balance.

Where did I say anything was balanced?

Are you enjoying constructing straw men? I know your hands must be awfully tired. Did I not say "Life isn't fair"? Does that imply a perfect balance that we should do nothing about? Does that mean I favor any aspect of the premise?

@ Tav:

1. You truncated eli's word to ridicule them. What she said wasn't what you quoted. I hope that's dumbed down enough for you.

*buzz* WRONG!

I quoted her directly in a response that she made to a question I posed. Her answer was bullshit. Even following the context of the entire response, it's bullshit. I asked her why we can't disregard race, and she replies with "because we can't" and "I've had bad experiences." It's a non fucking sequitur.

2. Bigoted assholes represent us as a society. If society condones an inequality then the society gets to shoulder the blame. You are of course trying to cite extremes to avoid the label. Unfortunately the cap still fits.

Who are these bigoted assholes that represent us?

5. If the guy in another country by the standards of that country being the same as my own beats his wife... sure it's my problem. Nice diversion tactic - nothing to do with the subject.

It's exactly your point. You're making me guilty of something I have no interest in doing, and something I actually abhor. I don't beat my spouse, therefore it's not my burden to bear if someone else does it. If someone asks for help, or I can do something in preventing such abuse, I will do it. But to insinuate that I'm guilty a priori of something another person did for the simple reason that I was born a man, then that's fucking nuts.

6. see above

read and comprehend above.

7. What Eli is saying certainly applies to this forum. As members of this civilised society we're all culpable for it's shortcomings.

*buzz* WRONG AGAIN.

It applies to this forum that on average we're sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, and racist? Are you even trying to make that argument? Let's get this clear: I'm no more accountable for your words than you are of mine. What a person says defines them alone - it does not reflect on a community that has no internal doctrine. I accept responsibility for what comes out of my mouth, and what I type. I don't bear the brunt of some racist slurs that I don't agree with simply because we have the same type of genitals, our skin tone is the same, we live on the same block, or have similar answers to ideological questions.

8. Go take a look at the objectification thread. And what was the point of you linking us to pictures of your GF?

What exactly was bigoted about the thread? The fact that I said some women should be careful when going out at night and practice risk assessment?

As far as the girlfriend pics, what exactly is bigoted about it? I displayed mine just as others did theirs. It's interesting to see the members of the forum you're a part of and the people they're with. Is it also bigoted of me to befriend people on this forum on facebook, where they can *gasp* see my pictures and my girlfriend's? I guess that would be the ultimate bigotry.


http://www.facebook.com/tavarish8712#!/p...0284021965

[thesummerqueen]

While I do not have time right now (damn work and school!) to go back over the article as I'd like, particularly with Tav's and Void's responses, this is one example where I have problems with the construction and language of her article: when she's discussing how she has had conversations where atheist males display "rape blame".

This is a legitimate problem, but it is not an atheist problem, nor a white problem, nor a straight/cisgender problem. It's not even a totally male problem.

Eil has way more connection into the atheist community than I have, granted. But I have a LOT of guy friends. I've hung out "as one of the boys" in a lot of circumstances. Rarely do these types of attitudes ever come up. When they do, it has invariably been by Christians (sorry dears). Not just by guys either - this has come up in girl circumstances and WOMEN have placed blame on other women. Again...the blamers were Christian. It's across the racial board.

I understand Eil is using this example to show why a woman, specifically, might not want to be atheist - if she's going to deal with abuse, why would she want to be part of that "community"? There's a whole problem in itself right there. However, throwing this under "white males" and "privilege" is unacceptable to me - not when I hear women themselves blaming other women for what happened to them. In fact, appealing to this particular instance as a reason other women might not want to be atheist smacks of doubt in her fellow woman...as if she thinks many other women are really as irrational as that. And one other thing that isn't addressed is the fact that the blame she is hearing might be this sort of logic:

Before I proceed: Is rape okay, understandable, forgivable, etc under any circumstance? Absolutely, positively NO! Let's just make that clear.

However, do some women chose to associate with criminals who don't care if such actions are acceptable or legal? Do they drink/get high such that they run the risk of not having the physical or mental capacity to avoid or escape said situations? Yes to both. If I sat and thought a while, I could probably come up with more reasons.

Were these some of the reasons she heard? I don't know. but if you weren't thinking rationally, and predisposed to thinking that someone was unfairly blaming you and others of your gender, would you take offense? Probably.

Again, I am picking one portion out of the article here, but it's full of holes that I'd love to have filled. There are other sections I could cite the same way. What were specific conversation examples? Were they really all white atheist males? Throwing things like this under the title that she did smacks of sensationalism to me. I think this is what people are reacting to, Fr0d0.