The 20
foot hurdle that ALL atheists have to overcome
By Jeff Wismer
I’m
feeling magnanimous today, and I feel like this is going to be a special piece
of the written/spoken word. So special
that I’m writing all this down free-hand on several pieces of paper in draft
form which I haven’t done since I was in the seminary March 2002.
More on
that magnanimous thing (sounds like I should go see the doctor about that
doesn’t it…LOL). Although I’m not
allowed to be a partisan now that we are Incorporated as a 501 c (3), which is
a good thing by the way, I do allow myself to be inspired by political
figures. The speech Barack Obama gave @
Philadelphia a couple months ago was inspirational to me if simply based on the
fact he was being magnanimous about the challenges that ALL Americans face in
today’s society. Specifically Obama was
speaking to race and how someone’s race touches all of our inherently human
xenophobic tendencies, and how we as humans have to work hard to overcome those
inherent tendencies.
Xenophobia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia)
Thanks to
Reverend Wright, a pastor @ Barack Obama’s former-church in case you’ve been
hiding under a rock for the past 4 months, the 600 pound black hairy gorilla
and the 5,000 pound ebony white elephant both entered the room with a
thunderous clap at the same time. Rather
than run away & hide from them, or simply ignore them both, Obama embraced
them both and thus resulted in one (1) of the best speeches about race in
American History.
Ok,
moving past the preface to the mind of this story. It’s time for me to acknowledge & embrace
the 20 foot hurdle that has come crashing into our room that all atheists have
to overcome. Or we can choose to try to
run over it (bad idea, trust me on this one folks I was a track hurdler in high
school), or stay put thus not advancing at all.
Here it
comes, are you sitting down? Ok It’s not
that earth shattering, but it will shake up some of you. The 20
foot hurdle in the room is the age differences and the resulting disparity of
age groups amongst atheists.
Specifically
I was to address three (3) different age groups. The first group I’ll lovingly call
O’Hair-boomers or in other words those most directly affected by Madalyn Murray
O’Hair. The second group I’ll call the
atheist-stockers or in other words those most affected by the peace movement of
the 60’s & early 70’s. The third and
final group I’ll call athei-nets or in other words those most affected by the
influence of social networking sites like myspace, facebook, & youtube.
Now that
I’ve defined the three (3) age groups I now wish to talk about the atheist
group I co-founded and then I’ll talk about my qualifications to talk my subjective
truth to power. After that I will
address why all of a sudden I decided to tackle this sensitive subject. Lastly I will give you my two (2) cents as to
how I think we should proceed together (albeit not totally united b/c that’s
ideological nonsense) and I’ll give you a practical solution based on this
person’s opinions.
Speaking
of practical solutions, Rick Wingrove & I looked at the landscape of the DC
Metro area’s atheist groups back in the summer & fall of 2005 and we
decided that in our opinions the best way to bring the most atheists together
while also bringing in younger professionals was to start a socially centric
group. I think that idea turned out
pretty good, don’t you. Of course I’m
talking about Beltway Atheists (http://www.beltwayatheists.org/).
It took until April of 2006 to have our first event, a happy hour @ the Galaxy
hut in
Specifically
I wish we had more representation of the O’Hair-boomers in our group. I’ll tell you very quickly why I think that we
don’t. Quite simply they didn’t feel and
still don’t feel the need to leave their groups and felt comfortable in the
status quo. That’s completely
understandable. I can only speak to the
O’Hair-boomers that I have gotten to know better. [Aside: I was raised full time by my
grandmother on my mother’s side of the family.
My grandmother is a polish woman from
As far as
the atheist-stockers we have a very strong contingent including the co-founder
Rick Wingrove. Similarly we’ve had great
success bringing in athei-nets thanks in large part to the social networking
sites such as myspace, facebook, & meetup.
Which
brings this story back to me. I came
upon the leading edge of this wave of athei-nets. So one might immediately ask a valid
question, “How a young punk is qualified to speak on this sensitive
subject?” So far you have not heard me
speak publicly at local major events such as the Pope Protest near the White
House & the Faith based initiatives demonstration in front of the Supreme
Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
However I did give a quick presentation against the head of a religious
organization (http://www.faithandaction.org/)
& his lawyer from the Alliance Defense Fund (http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/main/default.aspx)
in front of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in
I will
also quickly brush over my public speaking career in the past. My public speaking career began when I ran
for Class Chaplain in the 8th grade.
High school was too much to handle as I was mainly into playing sports,
working a part time job, and I was transitioning from being in a private
catholic school for nine (9) years into the public school system for the first
time…YIKES!!! LOL. The next time I
attained a public speaking role was as philanthropy chair at my fraternity in
college, then later on as a resident advisor on campus. After college I was nominated as spokesman
for my seminary class, which meant I gave presentations to the rest of the
order on behalf of all nine (9) of us seminarians. Note: this got me into a lot of trouble later
on, and ultimately led to my immediate expulsion from the seminary.
IF you’re
still reading or listening to me then perhaps you think I’m qualified or maybe
you’re just giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Either way, thank you.
Now on to
why I’ve decided to tack this sensitive subject at this point in time. A young professional who runs a highly
successful website (which I will not divulge not only our of respect for this
person, but also out of admiration for the courage to speak the subjective
truth to power which as in turn inspired me, just like Obama) recently wrote a
charged piece about this sensitive subject. After reading this piece (which I
will not reference here for the same reasons stated above) I instantly wrote
this young professional and wrote that I also was aware of this sensitive
subject, and that I had experienced the challenges first hand. I also wrote that I take at least some of the
blame for this highly-charged atmosphere b/c of what I have sent out recently
for public consumption. Specifically the
heads up email I sent out about Atheist Days.
For this I accept the responsibility, and I remain accountable for my
actions. Look this is a sensitive
subject and it’s a big challenge…hence the 20 foot hurdle.
So where
do we go from here? Do we individually
try to jump over the 20 foot hurdle? No,
b/c that’s physically impossible, unless you’re superman or wonder woman. For my two (2) cents I choose to invest in
the continued dialogue and attending atheist events that you may think is not
for you anymore, or events that seem like they are going to be boring. Both assumptions are wrong. Young professionals can learn a lot from
listening to a talk given by an experienced atheist leader. Conversely, our experienced atheist leaders
can learn a lot from our young professionals by just striking up a conversation
@ one of our happy hours. Together we
can cross over that 20 foot hurdle and thus make ourselves more
attractive.
Which
brings me to another important issue.
How do we attract more women, and more black people of any age
group? Well I think I just threw out one
way we can be more attractive to women and to black people. I may not be a Jon Stewart, Neil deGrasse
Tyson, or Oprah Winfrey, but I’m a wise enough man to realize that you catch
more Bees with beautiful flowers & honey then you do with throwing fire
& dropping bombs. LOL.
Bottom
line is that public perception of atheists is a difficult aspect of our reality
to control b/c those in control of public perception (Mainstream Media,
Hollywood, and Most Internet News Sites) don’t go our of their way to include
atheists in the public dialogue of current issues. As a result we have a small percentage to
work with. For those who do look to join
us, my question is what will they find?
That’s where we can have a positive effect on our future. Please keep that in mind the next time you
choose to RSVP YES or NO for an atheist event.