As willing as I am to defend blacks becoming atheists and freeing themselves from any religion (being both black and having become an atheist a couple decades ago) I'm all for seeing articles that deal with such issues.

I have no idea however why the author feels it necessary to draw parallels where they are not present. Whether or not Dawkins ancestry points to the slave trade (which even if true doesn't demonstrate anything regarding Dawkins' position on the issue) or the nature of passive atheism does not in any way affect the case of Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman.

Yes, the treatment of black people in the US can be traced back to the slave trade and the horrors it entails, but then to correlate the issues to this paragraph:

While something of a hopeful outlook is a useful approach to ethical conduct, it should be guided and monitored by a sense of realism – recognition of persistent human misconduct and the resulting moral and ethical challenges. Theists can always haul such problems to the altar, pray about them, ritualize them, or chalk them up to mystery. For the atheists, the resolution isn’t so easily achieved. The difficulty for atheists isn’t mystical. It stems from a lack of acute attention to the cultural worlds in which we live, worlds that are not so easily unpacked and addressed through appeal to science and logic. Cultural signs and symbols, cultural framings of life and life meaning are not necessarily guided by scientific method and do not necessary respond to reason. Instead they function by means of both logic and illogic. Mindful of this, a few questions should be asked: what is a proper atheistic response to moral failure? What is the proper ethical posture toward human problems that seem to defy reason and logic? And, in light of recent developments, do atheists understand and care about black bodies?

Atheism's position on ethical conduct stems from a lack of acute attention to the cultural worlds we live? Do atheist understand and care about black bodies?

What evidence is there to support that there is basis for either question? The factors described in the article are HUMAN issues, not theistic or atheistic, and for that matter not any one color or creed. I refuse to engage the rest of the article because of the blatant bias of the position and its utter lack of coherence.