“You Don’t Believe in God? You ain’t Black”: Identifying as Atheist Elicits Identity Denial From Black Ingroup Members

Abstract

Objective: Anecdotal narratives and recent qualitative research with Black atheists document experiences of racial identity denial from the target’s perspective. However, no research to date has examined whether Black perceivers perceive Black atheists as being weakly identified with their race. Because belief in God is often inextricably linkedwith Black racial identity in the Black community, we hypothesized that Black atheistswould be perceived as less Black than nonatheists. Method: Black/African American adults (n = 343) were randomly assigned to view one of three Black individual’s social networking profiles (i.e., a Christian, an atheist, and religion not explicitly mentioned). After, they reported their perceptions of the targets’ perceived racial identity and trustworthiness. Results: Black participants, regardless of how strongly they identified racially, perceived a Black Atheist as less racially identified than a Black Christian or someone whose religious affiliation was unknown. Additionally, a Black atheist was perceived as less trustworthy than a Black Christian. Conclusions: Black atheists experience general anti-atheist bias (e.g., perceived as untrustworthy), as well as unique antiatheist bias in the form of racial identity denial. These findings extend previous research on identity denial and intragroup dynamics and advance our understanding of the relationship between religious identification and racial identity denial within the Black community