Remembering Butterfly McQueen

Not many people know that Atheists / Secular Humanists played essential roles in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This article in USA Today reviews efforts to recognize the contributions of these Atheist civil rights workers, as well as efforts to focus attention on black Atheists in the USA over the years. Many recent efforts have been in conjunction with Black History Month (February), but efforts are ongoing. For instance, Norm R. Allen Jr. of the Institute for Science and Human Values, a humanist organization based in Tampa, Fla. has promoted recognition for African-American nonbelievers since he founded the group African Americans for Humanism in 1989.

But there's a name I'm not seeing in all these efforts, and it needs to be there. And that name is Butterfly McQueen.

Butterfly McQueen was "Prissy" in Gone With the Wind. That's all most people know about her, and goodness knows we've all imitated her famous line, "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no
babies."

But there's soooo much more you should know about her.

I got an inkling that there was a lot more to this person than I had imagined when a friend of mine back in my home town, obsessed with Gone with the Wind, found addresses for various people who were in the movie and still alive, including for Butterfly McQueen. She wrote all
of them. Butterfly McQueen wrote back a terrific, full-page, hand-written letter that was so full of enthusiasm and charm and a geniune warmth and kindness. My friend had it framed. We gawked over it on more than one occasion.

I cobbled together information about her from various Internet searches a few years back, and I was shocked at what I discovered the more I read about her:

After playing maids in the movies, on TV and the stage over many years, McQueen took a break from acting and worked a succession of jobs, including as a taxi dispatcher, a saleslady at Macy's, and a seamstress at Sak's. She told The Guardian during a visit to Great Britain in 1989: "Any honest job I have taken." She returned to acting occasionally; I remember her from an "ABC Weekend Special", a really charming story called The Seven Wishes of Joanna Peabody that I adored. She also had a tiny role in Mosquito Coast with Harrison Ford.

But she was also a continual student, taking classes at five universities and even reading Gone with the Wind in Spanish. In 1975, at the age of 64, she received a bachelor's degree in political science from New York City College.

And in 1989, she received the first ever "Freethought Heroine" award from the Freedom from Religion Foundation at its national convention in Atlanta, coincidentally held during the 50th anniversary of Gone With the Wind. McQueen had been a member of the Foundation since 1981. After brief remarks and a poetry recitation before that audience at the convention, she sang Paper Moon, accompanied by piano. I now can't hear that song without thinking of her and imaging her child-like voice singing that song. If I had a time machine, it would be one of the moments I would like to go back and witness for myself.

She told Gayle White, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (Oct. 8, 1989): "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."

McQueen was raised a Christian, but questioned the value of organized religion even as a child - something I can most definitely identify with. She related one eye-opening experience with clergy as a youngster, when she was riding a train to New York and offered to share her lunch with two young preachers. Instead of taking "one sandwich and one piece of cake, they took the whole thing."

She also said Christianity and studying the bible has "sapped our minds so we don't know anything else."

She said she tithed not to religion but to friends and neighbors. This included "adopting" a public elementary school in her beloved neighborhood of Harlem, where she patrolled the playground, picked up litter and looked after the children. "They say the streets are going to be beautiful in heaven. I'm trying to make the streets beautiful here. At least, in Georgia and in New York, I live on beautiful streets."

"If we had put the energy on earth and on people that we put on mythology and on Jesus Christ, we wouldn't have any hunger or homelessness."

Sadly, she died of injuries suffered in a kerosene-heater accident at her Augusta, Georgia home on Dec. 22, 1995. And it surprised many people when it was revealed that she remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.

Her life is fascinating, full of dignity, grace, compassion, a love of learning and a passion for critical thinking. If Black Atheists are going to be recognized, then let's make sure Butterfly McQueen is there as well.

Why won’t the U.S. accept its atheists?

In God We Must
Why won’t the U.S. accept its atheists?
A terrific blog by Julian Baggini
Posted Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012

In the history of Congress... there has only been one avowed atheist, Pete Stark, who has represented ultra-liberal Oakland in California since 1973 but only acknowledged he did not believe in a supreme being in 2007. Even he is a member of the non-doctrinal Unitarian Church, prefers to refer to himself as “non-theist” rather than atheist... This compares with at least six openly homosexual representatives.

the arrogance of religion

I spent a week in Kentucky, caring for my 90ish grandmother. She's a lovely lady, wife of a Baptist preacher (my grandfather, now deceased). I helped her organize a couple of Vacation Bible Schools back when I was a teen - more than 30 years ago.

For my grandmother, being a believer is joyous. Religion is a celebration. It isn't something to bring a person down, to humiliate a person, to assert one's superiority over others. Had it not been for my grandmother, I probably would have embraced my Atheism much earlier. Even amid all that joy, that singing, that fun, I wasn't a Christian. But I kept my mouth shut, because I loved being around my grandmother, and I kept hoping I'd eventually feel that thing everyone else at church was saying they felt, that thing that makes you believe.

She doesn't know I'm a non-believer, and as that would break her heart, and she is in her 90s, that's how we're going to keep it. I'm not ashamed of my lack of belief, but I wouldn't hurt that woman for anything - let her last few years be without worrying about my immortal soul.

While I've been in Kentucky, my grandmother's sister-in-law died, and we went to the funeral.

And it was the worst funeral I've been in my life.

If I had been on the fence about Christianity, this would have pushed me right onto the other side of the fence, hitting the ground and running away as quickly as possible.

Three different preachers - including the woman's 17-year-old son - talked about just one thing: if you believe Jesus was the son of god, you go to Heaven, and you absolutely, positively cannot be happy without Jesus. One of the three asserted that all of the times he did something dangerous as a young person but didn't get hurt or die was because god intervened. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. So when all those other people die during a risky activity, is the magical invisible friend sitting on his hands?

The kid even said that all Atheists "know, deep down, there is a heaven." What is up with that, with that Christian assertion that Atheists don't really believe there is no god? I can assure you believers out there: I do NOT believe in any god. None. Zilcho. I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe a heaven nor a hell. Really. Truly. If you want to believe in secret invisible friends and magical places, fine, but could you at least accept the fact that millions of other people do not?

It was an hour-long speech of arrogance, filled with interpretations of the Bible that can never be reconciled with scholarly and history-based studies of the earliest texts on which the scriptures are based - geesh, if you are going to take the Bible literally, at least use a more correct translation in English than the King James Version! And to top it off, they spent probably 15 seconds of the entire time actually talking about my grandmother's sister-in-law - I know NOTHING about her at all. Two of the three didn't even know the correct pronunciation of her name! One preacher told endless anecdotes regarding Christian conversions that he must use in his church regularly - he cried at the appropriate moments, as though he were on TV and would soon be saying, "So send in your donations so we can keep up our work..." The service was all about these two men posturing regarding their religion - not about this woman that had just died.

I have no doubt these men avoid all talk of science and facts and the history of Christianity, or that the 17-year-old will father children someday (as this is Kentucky, that will be soon) and he will pass on his arrogance to them, and work to keep them ignorant of any fact that would contradict his warped view of life and morality. I'm sure all three are delighted that the Governor of Kentucky gave a $43 million tax break to an anti-science, pro-"Creationist" museum while cutting education funds drastically. It disgusted me. And it made me ashamed to be from this state.

After the funeral, as I sat eating Chinese food with my grandmother, I thought about that awful sermon. And I took comfort, once again, as I do so often when I visit this state, that I am not a Christian. I remembered the incredible relief I felt in my 20s when I accepted my long-held doubt instead of being ashamed of it. I had never believed in the magical invisible friend, and in accepting that truth that I had always known, the sky didn't fall, the rivers didn't boil, I wasn't struck down by lightening (although it could still happen - I do go outdoors a lot), and that I still felt joy. A LOT of joy. I still felt inspiration. I still felt like singing and dancing. I still felt a sense of awe at the world. I experienced all the things men like those at that funeral said I could feel only if I were a Christian.

We got home and sang some hymns my grandmother loves. They were very joyful, full of love and comfort. She never referred to the funeral service. Neither did I.

Be careful what you ask for

This commentary from Christine Jenkins of the Yahoo! Contributor Network is awesome. It's called "The Implications of Teaching Evolution as Atheism." Wasn't quite what I thought when I clicked on the link. Excellent!

If there was a God, "Firefly" would still be on TV

I cannot think of a better way to end the year than with this wonderful video clip of Joss Whedon, "Atheist & Absurdist":



(I don't understand how anyone could think that Joss Whedon has something against Christians when he created one of the most loving AND Christian characters ever on TV - Shepherd Book).

Picking & choosing morals?

A Tweet I read today:

GodlessAtheist

Pope says atheists pick & choose their morals. Today I will be frowning on child abuse & not having a problem with homosexuality #atheism

And I laughed and laughed...

Even the Dali Lama says we can be good without God.

Where do my morals come from? From my own thoughts, which are much better expressed by Carl Sagan than me, such as in the text that goes along with this magnificent video.

In case you don't want to, or cannot, listen to the video, here is an except of the text read with the video:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Dalai Lama says you can be good without "God"

I read a lot. A LOT. Including religious texts. I've read the Bible, cover to cover, twice, and look up things in it frequently (usually while arguing scripture with a Christian). I've read the Koran, cover to cover, once, and continue to look up things in it frequently (usually while arguing with a Christian about what they think is in the Koran). I've read a lot of Buddhist philosophy.

I'm not looking for God, because there is no God. I read religious texts because they are written by humans who are trying to make sense of the world and what is happening to them, their families and other humans. Reading religious texts helps me understand how humans reason, and helps me learn about commonly-held wisdom that can be found in a variety of cultures and a variety of eras. It helps me understand how people think and worry and dream and justify.

Sometimes what I read is pretty - poetic expressions of how people think and feel. I like that. Sometimes what I read leaves me in despair: the hatred of men to their fellow men, and to women especially, is overwhelming at times. But sometimes, my hope for humanity gets a boost as I read. I won't say I have faith in humanity, but I do have faith in humans having the capacity for kindness and responsibility to themselves, to others and our world - whether or not they realize or acknowledge that capacity. Religious texts never make me think there are invisible, magical super friends all around us or in the sky, but reading such does sometimes help me regarding what I want to believe regarding humans.

The Dalai Lama is not someone I agree with all the time: his views on abortion (doesn't believe women should ever choose this option) and homosexuality (thinks its unnatural and unhealthy) contribute the justification for the oppression of women and of gays and lesbians - even if he also says, "if two males or two females voluntarily agree to have mutual satisfaction without further implication of harming others, then it is okay". (OUT Magazine February/March 1994, as quoted at Wikipedia).

But he says a lot of things I do agree with.

Here are two quotes I agree with very much, from The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness: An Anthology by and about the Dalai Lama (1990) edited by Sidney Piburn ISBN 8120815122

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion. (p. 47)

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. (p. 52)

I love it when a religious person acknowledges that there is no need for religion or a God in order to be good.