When I was in 5th grade the big thing to do to prove how popular you were was to invite as many kids over to have a sleepover at your house on Saturday night and then all go to church together on Sunday. I was a rather unpopular kid, I was ugly and spent most of my time with my nose in a book, but I was a warm body of the appropriate age so I eventually got asked. Not knowing that it could possibly bother anyone, I politely declined. When they asked why I told them that I was an atheist and wasn’t really interested in going to church, but thanks for asking me anyway.
Now none of the kids around me knew what an atheist was, but some of them remembered that word and asked others. Like their parents, who warned them to stay away from me. And one little girl asked her Southern Baptist minister, who told her that “Atheists aren’t even human, don’t treat them with the kindness you would show a dog.” Coming from a person in a trusted position, this bit of ‘wisdom’ spread quickly.
At first it was just shunning. No one would talk to me, which was fine by me because I didn’t talk to others very often. Then it was threatening letters left in my locker, which didn’t bother me because kids are just being stupid and they’ll find someone else to pick on if I just don’t react, right?
Then the beatings began. It started with tripping me in the hallway so they could push my face into the wall. Then it escalates into groups holding my arms while they take turns punching me. They start talking to me again so they can sing songs about how stupid evolution is and how I’m going to burn in hell for ever. I think about going to get help from a teacher, but one day on the playground I’m struggling to get to one and she looks me dead in the eye then turns away. There’s no help to be had.
One day a huge group of them surround me. I’m restrained again as a boy wearing cleats kicks me in the face and they all laugh as I bleed. I lose my mind. Until that point I had been a pacifist, then I started to fight back. When I finally got away I ran into the school and hid in the janitor’s closet, crying and screaming, terrified and angry. A little girl trys to help me but I’m so lost I can’t respond to her, I tell her to go away.
Finally the teacher comes and drags me back to class. She tells the class it’s mean to yell at Angie, ignoring the bruises and the cuts. I huddle first at my desk, then under it, begging people to just go back to shunning me, to pretend I don’t exist. After class I’ve calmed down some, so I go to the school councilor and beg her for help. She asks why I’m being bullied, and when I tell her I can quote to you her exact words because they hurt so much. I’ll never, ever forget them. She said “One day you’ll change your mind and you’ll thank them for helping you”.
I couldn’t react. I had finally worked up the guts to ask for help and the help I get is telling me I deserve all that pain and that’ll make me a better person. It’s a familiar refrain from my childhood, but I digress. I stop crying. I stare at her, for the first time feeling complete and total hate with every fiber of my fucking being. And I decided that hate was the only way I was going to make it.
I spent several more years that way. Hating everyone because they hated me. Being beat up when people got the chance. Being literally hit over the head with a Bible, having kids raise their cross necklaces when I walked by thinking I’d burst into flame if I touched them. Being cornered in the locker room for some punches to the gut, or slammed into the wall. I got back what I could, fighting without any regard as to what could happen to me, but I was outnumbered by 2000 by the time I got to high school. By then I got to have sexual harassment with my daily beatings. And the adults always turned away. No one wanted to help the atheist, because atheists are lesser humans and not worthy of the respect you’d show a dog.
I dropped out because I was seriously afraid that I was going to kill someone. And I spent several years just hiding from the world, trying to heal. I’m on the verge of tears right now just remembering it. That’s what I get for being unlucky enough to be an atheist in Texas.
Do you still wonder why I would perfer a non-religious leader? Do you still wonder why I am not the biggest fan of vocal Christianity? Do you still wonder why I sometimes, just sometimes, still feel like a victim?
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