Aneris wrote:
<snip>
I wasn't aware that she quit for good after the CPAC appearance, but it seems like she did indeed. Was there ever an official note somewhere, or did she just quietly dropped the matter and moved on, as it looks like?
Comhcinc: great to hear, good luck with your new Uranium polishing job. Is this in Iran?
I think she just left without kicking too much of a fuss. The Horde said some incredibly stupid stuff about her, and after writing a post titled
"CPAC was awesome!" (archive link) she left for good.
She wrote stuff like this:
Jamila Bey wrote:I’m a conservative on issues of economics, immigration, and a few others. I’m socially liberal and I often agree with voices who exist on either/both sides of the political spectrum. The problem in this modern era is that folks define themselves based on one label or another, and often refuse to hear anything outside of their own viewpoint. That ain’t me. While I’m also not a senator’s son, I become restless and bored in echo chambers. I am a Freethinker. I am free to think. And I do this a great deal.
Way too much freedom of thought for FreeThoughtBlogs!
It's interesting to note that some of the Horde behaved better than I expected and actually defended Bey:
Tabby Lavalamp wrote:There is likely a lot I’d disagree with you about, I’m pretty much a socialist, and I think Republicans (as they currently stand) controlling the United States isn’t just bad for your country but for my country and the rest of the world. However, I was shocked by some of the reaction you received. You didn’t suddenly turn into Rush Limbaugh or anything like that.
We were told that one of the points of this blog network was to provide a more diverse range of voices. If one of those voices is a little or even somewhat more diverse than the others, that’s a good thing. I’ll likely disagree with you about economics, immigration, or the value of a Republican government, but I know I’ll agree with you about plenty as well (I’ve been a Twitter follower for a while now (please ignore that I just accidentally unfollowed and refollowed, I was just bringing up your feed and clicked the wrong button).
Anyway, my point – diversity in voices on this blog network is a good thing
Give credit where credit's due. Even Tibo tried to stop the cannibal feeding frenzy:
Jason Thibeault wrote:I don’t agree with almost anything about Republicans in their present iteration, or conservatism in general (trying to keep the status quo when the status quo is objectively harmful is, itself, objectively harmful, and pining for the way things never used to be is rather delusional), but I will say that once upon a time the Republicans used to be “the loyal oppositionâ€.
If every Republican was like you, Jamila, we wouldn’t be in the dire straits we’re in now. But they aren’t. I can only hope that you can effect some change from within while we push back against their theocratic goals from the outside.
Of course St. Nick Gotts was the first in line to ask they burn the witch of the week:
Nick Gotts wrote:
I find it odd that people care what is my personal political bent. I find it absolutely bizarre that you find it odd that people care what your politics are. I’m a conservative on issues of economics, immigration, and a few others. Translation: I don’t give a damn about poor people.
People claim to feel some betrayal that I identified myself as a part of a growing Republican family. (I can’t help the family I was born to, and I happen to love my GOP relations!) Utterly disingenuous: we know, and you know we know, that when you talked about the “conservative family†you were not talking about your relatives. Look up, if you might, the legacy of the recently deceased Senator Edward Brooke. Of a piece with the flagrant dishonesty in your speech. You know very well that today’s Republican Party is completely different to that of 1966 – when Brooke was elected – let alone that of 1863. And that CPAC is the hard right of the party, willing to take sponsorship from overt white supremacists while excluding gays.
But make no mistake, if or not AA had a booth at CPAC, there were plenty of atheists at the event already! So? Atheist bigots and corporate shills are my enemies just as much as Christian bigots and corporate shills.
An heretic-sympathizer persevered in their errors:
yazikus wrote:If every Republican was like you, Jamila, we wouldn’t be in the dire straits we’re in now. But they aren’t. I can only hope that you can effect some change from within while we push back against their theocratic goals from the outside.
Yup, to this. Jamila, I applaud your good faith in people and the work you do to promote change.
But the reaction from the Political Commissars was strong. Comrade Thibeault was asked to step back in line:
John Horstman wrote:@Jason #3: Did you read this bit?
I’m a conservative on issues of economics, immigration, and a few others.
Emphasis mine. As bad as all of the various social-identity-category marginalizations that Republicans near-unanimously back are, far and away the worst thing about the Right wing is its “I got mine, screw you†economic policies. Were so many of those social marginalizations not intertwined deeply with poverty – for the specific reason that economic opportunity in a market system is directly proportional to one’s degree of privilege – they would still be bad, but not nearly as harmful as they are. If every Republican was like Jamila, every Republican would also be like the (pro-gay-rights, pro-abortion-access, probably-atheist) Koch brothers – people who delight in exploiting the poor and vulnerable, but who aren’t especially bigoted. Gross. We’d still be in dire straights; the corruption of our democracy and extreme wealth (and thus opportunity) disparities are almost solely a function of Right-wing economic policy, which is utterly indefensible.
St. Nick Gotts proceeded to excommunicate Jamila Bey:
Nick Gotts wrote:CPAC is the extremist wing of a party that considers the President illegitimate because he is black. The party where no serious contender for high office can admit to accepting the science of evolutionary biology, or of anthropogenic climate change. The party that has taken active steps, in the states where it has power to do so, to prevent black people and poor people from voting. The party that that has taken active steps, in the states where it has power to do so, to prevent women exercising their right to bodily autonomy. Whose convention are AA sending you to next, Ms. Bey? The Ku Klux Klan? The League of the South? The Constitution Party? The American Nazi Party?
[TOP KEK]
Tibo grew a bit of a spine and stood up for Jamila Bey (probably because she was the first WOC American Atheist they had on FTB). He said that he was only trying to redeem a sinner who wasn't irredeemable:
Jason Thibeault wrote:Yes, John @6, I read it, and I stand by what I said. If most Republicans were like Jamila, we could discuss the ways that their economic stance hurts society generally and impact privilege specifically, and we would have a reasonable debate on all the things we think they’re getting wrong. As it stands, the Republicans you’re talking about are intractable, self-serving assbags. Jamila is not that. That is what I’m saying.
Nate Hevens quickly corrected Tibo's misguided mercy:
NateHevens wrote:Yes, John @6, I read it, and I stand by what I said. If most Republicans were like Jamila, we could discuss the ways that their economic stance hurts society generally and impact privilege specifically, and we would have a reasonable debate on all the things we think they’re getting wrong. As it stands, the Republicans you’re talking about are intractable, self-serving assbags. Jamila is not that. That is what I’m saying.
emphasis mine
They’re called “Democratsâ€.
Trav Mamone offered one last chance to Jamila, too:
Trav Mamone wrote:I appreciate AA’s efforts to open their doors to conservative and right-of-center atheists. It’s true; atheism does not equal leftist politics. Penn Jellitte is a Libertarian, George Will is an agnostic, Charles Krauthammer is a secular Jew, Nat Henthoff is an anti-abortion Libertarian atheist, etc. And I also thought you gave a great speech.
However, the folks of CPAC tend to be the conservatives that swing so far to the Right that they’re borderline-fascist. And don’t we have enough sexists and transphobes in the atheist community without RWNJs?
But kelly w. sealed the deal. Jamila Bey had to go, and American Atheists with her, too:
kelly w. wrote:Social issues and the economy are completely intertwined. It’s impossible to care about marginalized people and be fiscally conservative. Marginalized people tend to be the most poor….and Republicans absolutely hate poor people (and women, and people of color, and lgbtqi people, and people with disabilities, etc.). They’ve made their bigotry unambiguously clear. They have nothing to offer me–in fact, they’re completely focused on making my life and the lives of millions of others as difficult as possible. I know very little about American Atheists, but I’m quickly getting the impression that it’s an organization full of rich (well, at least not poor), white, straight, cis dudes (with perhaps a sprinkling of women) who like being all “fiscally conservative†and all that THAT entails. Barf.
Jamila Bey never posted anything on FTB anymore.