For the last few years, there’s been a call for more diversity within atheism. Our SJW friends have complained about atheism being too white and too male. But as most of their complaints, is this actually true?

I searched the Internet in an attempt to find the latest statistics concerning demographics of atheism in the U.S. Of course, this only took me about 2 minutes to find what I was looking for and it made me wonder why the SJW segment of atheism could not do the same.

The statistics I found were published last March by the Barna Group. I don’t know that much about them but after a little more research discovered that they were indeed a reputable data gathering organization. I believe this to be a decent snapshot of the state of atheism in the United States.

Of course, the SJW’s constantly complain about there being not enough women or people of color (PoC) within atheism and that we, as atheists should be encouraging those to “come out” and participate. They often cite the lack of diversity at atheist and skeptic conferences in that there are more white men represented as speakers and attendees than women or PoC.

Does the lack of women or PoC’s at events actually represent the numbers? Well, according to Barna, that answer is no.

Two data points stand out: 43% of women identify as atheist or agnostic. More than 20% are non-white (asian, hispanic,black).

These are people that self identify. Note that there are many that will not identify as atheist or agnostic due to the level of discrimination (culturally and politically) within the U.S. toward atheism.

As for diversity at events, organizers have always attempted to bring in the best and brightest without consideration of gender or race. They cannot force people to attend though and, of course, event dates may conflict with their schedule.

So, is atheism a whites only, racist and sexist? It doesn’t appear that way. Should atheists do more to attract PoC and women? Sure. Just as they should strive to attract people of differing political views (atheism has been accused of being a liberal, or progressives only club). as American Atheists did this year by attending and speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). That drove some SJW’s crazy, but if atheists want to be all inclusive, then they need to consider people from every walk of life and not just those with acceptable views.