Sikivu Hutchinson
OW Contributing Columnist

 Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (Infidel Books, February 2011).

Jan 27 2011

The colorizing of crime

An hour before last Tuesday’s accidental shooting at Gardena High School, the campus radiated calm and placidity. I had just finished doing a workshop on homophobia and gender stereotypes with a peer health class headed by the fabulous teacher Debbie Wallace. The campus is a big geographic hybrid. It abuts a train corridor to the west and a phalanx of freeways to the east. The grounds are labyrinthine and rose bushes bloom fiercely in the courtyard. Four parking lots book-end each of the school’s exits.

Nov 24 2010

Going Godless in the Black community roundtable

As a radical humanist critic of America’s Christian slavocracy, Frederick Douglass once wrote, “I prayed for 20 years and received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” 
 
What would Douglass, a trailblazing feminist, have made of the brutal ironies of 21st century Black America? 
 

Oct 14 2010

“God hates fags,” says…

“God hates fags,” says the face of terror.

It is the now repugnantly familiar slogan of the Westboro Church, a clan of White Christian fundamentalists recently in the public spotlight for a Supreme Court free speech case on anti-gay protests at military funerals. This particular brand of free speech is pure stars and stripes terror, easily repudiated by the enlightened, easily placed in that special category of sweaty troglodyte extremism.

Sep 2 2010

Revivalism

During the 19th century the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States was one of “God-ordained” expansionism. African slaves, indigenous peoples, Mexican nationals and other “non-Europeans” were deemed aliens and enemy combatants, anathema to the democratizing force of America.

May 27 2010

Black babies are expendable

When a little White girl goes missing, online news, supermarket tabloids and cable network stations bombard us with up-to-the-minute dispatches on the crime, the victim, her shattered family and anguished community.

May 6 2010

Black civil rights leaders from Jesse Jackson to California Assembly member Karen Bass roundly condemned it.

As soon as Arizona’s fascist, anti-immigrant SB1070 legislation passed, Black civil rights leaders from Jesse Jackson to California Assembly member Karen Bass roundly condemned it. But the toxic national climate couldn’t be more primed for this law. In recent months, the high octane atmosphere of jingoistic racism, xenophobia and Manifest Destiny posturing amongst White zealots and the legislators who shill for them has become standard order.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.