Book Review/Heather Seggel

Is There Enough God for Everybody?

The social distancing and need to shelter in place in response to the coronavirus has upended our media landscape, sometimes in lovely and surprising ways. A friend tipped me off that the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater was making a full performance of “Revelations” available free online, and I tuned in knowing little about the piece. It’s stunning, and revolves around the church music Ailey was raised with, telling a story that progresses from bondage to freedom and ending with a dance set to “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” that had the audience out of their seats and moving. It’s as near to a perfect piece of art as I’ve encountered, and I left it feeling emptied out and refilled, and musing on the power of the church to act as a tether for so many, and especially for Black Americans.

Coincidentally or not, that same evening I started reading “Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical” (Pitchstone Publishing and the Institute for Humanist Studies), a 180-degree turn that flipped my thinking right on its head. Author Sikivu Hutchinson argues that organized religion has harmed black people, and especially black women and gender-nonconforming folks, in ways we are still unpacking. Reading this book felt a bit like opening the silverware drawer just as someone switched on a super magnet behind me; the ideas shot past, and for each one I caught I felt another graze me as it flew by. It’s a book I already plan to read again.

Hutchinson reminds readers of things many of us know about organized religion: The history of sexual abuse and cover-ups by clergy, their rigid enforcement of traditional gender roles and rejection of LGBTQ parishioners, and the willingness to grow fat on tax-free tithes from people who can ill afford to spare the money are certainly enough to make one question their faith. Should you venture into skepticism, atheism, or humanism seeking sympathy, you will sadly find similar power structures in place. The movement’s “faces” are generally white men, and their priorities tend toward things like fulminating over public displays of the Ten Commandments. Humanism seeks to place people at the center of the moral universe, meaning it’s on us to take care of one another here today and not wait for what comedian and atheist Patton Oswalt once described as “sky cake.” Trying to bring social justice to the fore among humanists has proven to be challenging.

It’s hard to argue with someone whose work demands inclusivity and fairness for all, but one of the things I enjoyed most about “Humanists” was how it forced me to wrestle with the big ideas Hutchinson serves up. The humanist movement has members with hearts in their eyes for freethinker Thomas Jefferson, who don’t want their valentines to Monticello interrupted by reminders that Jefferson was a slave owner and rapist. Again, if moral authority is ours to wield, it requires equality among all races and expressions of gender, and the end of rape culture, but those values are not taking root in this crowd as they still reap the benefits of white supremacy.

While most of the shots taken here hit their marks effectively, there’s an oddly outsize attack on the Women’s March that swings and misses. Calling out the large numbers of white women in attendance and criticizing them for being insufficiently somber, Hutchinson slams the whole event as “epitomiz(ing) everything … wrong with contemporary feminism.” She never mentions that the movement that march set in motion had a lot to do with 2018’s midterm results, or that the discussions that followed around race and inclusivity led to changes in subsequent events. When the writing is specific Hutchinson is an assassin, but this section felt more like a temper tantrum, lacking in intellectual honesty.

Each chapter ends with suggested actions for readers to take, a clear call to immediate action that makes this revolution feel not just irresistible but inevitable. “Humanists in the Hood” is short but by no means a quick read. It’s provocative and intellectually deep but has the direct urgency of a kitchen table manifesto. And it is persuasive; especially as we shelter in place, alone together, a vision of resources centered in the communities that created them is extremely hopeful. It would mean not just an end to gentrification but returning wealth with interest, so those who ground the flour and baked it can eat their cake here and now.

Heather Seggel is a writer living in Northern California. Email heatherlseggel@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2020

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