Moral Combat: Interview with Dr Sikivu Hutchinson

With the fresh release of her thought-inspiring title, erudite author of Moral Combat: Black Atheist, Gender Politics and the Value Wars, Dr Sikivu Hutchinson, among other things, discusses her inspirations for writing this relevant title, and how topical issues in the book can help our modern society. Sit back and enjoy the hot dialogue conducted by Echoes of Commonsense editor Nathalie Woods.

Dr Sikivu Hutchinson

  Q: The title of your latest book is very succinct, and especially relevant to our Modern Age; why this book, and why now?

A: Because religion is still America’s national obsession, perversion, and most insidious global export and atheists are on the move. In the book I examine the implications of black Christian religiosity, skepticism, humanism, and atheism from an African American feminist perspective, taking on Christian fundamentalist fascism and the hijacking of public morality.  The so-called “New Atheist” movement has galvanized a broad cross-section of atheists who’ve been increasingly vocal about this.  However, despite longstanding traditions of secular humanism, skepticism, and Freethought espoused by such thinkers as Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen and Richard Wright, Atheism remains a taboo belief system in black communities.  According to the Pew Forum’s 2009 “Religious Portrait of African-Americans” 87% of African Americans describe themselves as religious.”[i]  A majority of African American women go to church on a weekly basis and a majority of African Americans pray and believe that God absolutely exists.  Hands down African Americans are the most religious group in the U.S.