We are Humanity at Work

Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) is thrilled to announce that our founder and former Executive Director Dale McGowan has joined our board, taking the seat previously held by Jerry DeWitt. FBB is grateful to Jerry for his time and work on the board and we thank him for his service. Dale joins current board members Clare Wuellner, Greta Christina, Rajani Gudlavalleti, Trish Hotze Cowan, and Vic Wang.

Dale McGowan is the author and editor of ten books, including Parenting Beyond Belief, In Faith and In Doubt, and Atheism for Dummies.He was founding executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief. He is currently director of engagement for Patheos, where he works with hundreds of writers in a dozen different world views. In 2008 he was named Harvard Humanist of the Year for his work in nonreligious parent education.

Dale holds a Ph.D. in music composition and theory from the University of Minnesota for reasons unclear. He lives with his family in Atlanta.

In the Northern Region of Ghana, Halloween isn’t so much not celebrated as not heard of. The closest I got to celebrating was giving some candy to my Humanist Service Corps teammates and watching a scary movie. As the next US holiday follows quickly, I am reminded that these holidays are intimately tied to violently oppressive chapters in US history–chapters that are not so much closed as retold today.

The legacy of the of the oppressive othering that followed the first Thanksgiving is on display in North Dakota at this very moment. Mostly Halloween is a chance to dress in costume, eat squiggly candy worms, and beg for candy from neighbors. But there are dark sides too. When I was growing up I had two black cats. Every year our vet would call us about a week before Halloween to urge us to keep the cats indoors until a few days into November for their own safety. Every year a number of people dress morbidly in oppressively racist costumes–in blackface, as Indian princesses, as geishas.