I’ve been hearing, ad infinitum, that atheism is about JUST a lack of belief in God or gods. So if I’m stuck in a place marked “atheist,” I need to stick to that.

But there are atheists, like the YouTuber Thunderfoot, who can rail against the honest concerns of women who are atheists all day, and these same people will listen to and applaud them and be outraged at anyone who even dares to answer back and defend these women, because suddenly atheism is just about a lack of belief in God or gods when it has to do with something they don’t like.

Others, like the YouTuber The Amazing Atheist, can get up and rail against black individuals, calling them whiners and members of victim cults and making jacking-off motions in response to tragedies like that in Flint, Michigan, and the moment someone says that’s not OK, or even begins to hint it, the lackeys come squawking that this is not part of atheism.

There is more complaining among many atheists about the honest concerns of the most struggling people in society than I have ever seen anywhere else in society, including in church. These people aren’t just ignored. They’re actively maligned, cussed out, argued over in threads hundreds of comments long. And the repeated criticism is that these sidelined people, with their honest concerns, do not deserve to have their concerns expressed in atheist circles. No, the only people who are allowed to speak about these issues are those who will drag their name and reputations through the mud.

For even mentioning that I might have a problem with the labeling of people who fight passionately for racial justice in this country as a “victim cult,” for daring to call out racism where I see it it among atheists who proudly shrug off the concerns I have as a black atheist who wants some safety in this country, I’m somehow wandering out of the bounds of atheism. As a small-time blogger who writes a minuscule fraction of Patheos’s views, I’m somehow ruining the entire website of Patheos with my strident regard for human life — which, apparently, belongs in the category labeled “humanism” and has no business being on a website channel vastly larger than I am called “Patheos Atheist.”

I’m sorry/not sorry that I don’t throw my black male self out the door every time I write on an atheist site.

Like it or not, I am a black atheist. Both of those things are part of who I am and part of what I talk about. I don’t take a knife and cut my mind up in boxes because it’s going to please a few random people on the Internet. This is me, mind, heart, experiences and all, take it or leave it. Atheism may be an ideology, but an atheist is a PERSON. And when you come here, an atheist — the whole shebang — is what you’re going to get. And– this may blow your mind — I’m actually going to vocally care about other people, too.

You don’t get to pick and choose what part of this atheist gets to be expressed on this site and which part is extinguished.

I’m tired of people attempting to cut off honest conversation before it starts by telling me that I don’t have a right to talk about the issues that I am most passionate about — that most affect me, personally, as a black atheist. I’ve just about had it with the people who think they can own this blog.

It’s nauseating to witness this attitude I’m seeing increasingly in atheists who seem to think that railing against Black Lives Matter for hours on end has everything to do with atheism, apparently (because I rarely hear a peep when atheists do that) but protecting it or defending it in any way is speech that has to be silenced as not part of atheism. Let’s be honest.

Let’s be honest. You have a double standard.

And I’m sick of it.

We are three-dimensional people with experiences and lives, and they aren’t relegated to a lack of belief in God or gods any more for us than they are for you. If you can rail about how much you hate feminism, then you are out of bounds to say that women speaking about their experiences as female atheists are perpetually out of bounds. If you can pontificate in profanity-strewn rants and insults about how much you despise Black Lives Matter and people who protest about unarmed black men getting shot and that is OK to talk about in atheist groups and reddits and YouTube channels, you are beyond the pale when you say that people like me who see such protests as important for their own self-preservation are out of place when they express their concerns in the same exact places.

Like it or not, you don’t get to have the monopoly over what is and isn’t OK to talk about with such an obvious double standard. And this is something that I have come to terms with — like most people who remotely care about people being treated fairly who happen to be atheists — over my time as an atheist. I don’t tell people — ever, no matter how much I disagree with them — that they do not have a right to express their concerns simply because they are in a place on the Internet marked “atheist.”

It seems so often that atheists who proudly say they are against SJWs (a ridiculous assignation, in my view, that drastically oversimplifies individual and often deeply personal concerns of a great many people) miss the fact that when you get different types of people together, you’re creating a community of people. And if you proudly decide not to care about people in that community or their concerns, and pontificate ad infinitum about how they are ridiculous, you’ve lost your right to throw a little temper tantrum when they speak back.

Yes, I know atheists can be assholes. People who say, “Why are you suprised at x doing y” are missing the point. It’s not that I’m suprised. It’s that I’m fed up, and I’m going to call nonsense out when I see fit. I have that right, because like it or not, I’m a black atheist who is passionate about not being a second-class citizen and will say so. And if you can call me — or anyone else with valid concerns — a member of a victim cult for these statements, you’re a hypocrite who would make a megachurch pastor blush if you’re outraged when I turn around and call you racist.

If you’re going to accuse people of not atheisting right, be fair. And if you’re not, you’ve lost your right to censure atheists who are sharing their lives, perspectives, and experiences in a community.

Really. Got it?

Thank you for reading.

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