Blue Boat of Youth and Young Adult MinistriesThe Changing Reality
DAY 12: Same Place, New Times My cousin is a high school junior. My 10 year high school reunion was a few months ago. When I go home for family gatherings, sometimes we chat about teachers we have in common, or a classmate of mine who is now working at the school. We talk about how things have changed in course offerings, the renovations in the building, the new 8-period schedule with shorter lunch periods that I still don’t understand. But what we haven’t talked about, and what I’ve been thinking about in light of today’s post about changing demographics and the Multicultural Sharing Project over at Standing on the Side of Love, is how…
Sharing Stories in Covenant
DAY 11: Living Out Your Story Stories are about life, whether real or imagined, and when we read, hear or learn a story we place ourselves in relation to it. It is our nature to tell stories to transmit the narrative of an experience, real or imagined. Narratives typically include a problem which the narrator or protaganist(s) must overcome. When the story is real, hearing it from the person who lived it is a powerful experience, one that can inspire listeners to reflect upon and tell their story in response. Sharing stories enters us into relationship with others. When the stories are shared in covenant – knowing that we are safe to speak and be…
The Power of Stories
DAY 10: Sharing Stories The truly very important matter So a couple months ago, something happened to me that I imagine you might be able to relate to. I got really upset about something a stranger said on the internet. Now you probably know how this goes. First Random Acquaintance posts a status on facebook about a Very Important Matter about which you have strong feelings. So you post a comment, with your (carefully worded) opinion. Some other acquaintances chime in, mostly in agreement with you, but then, here comes Stranger, posting something that is just plain wrong. Stranger knows Random Acquaintance, but you and Stranger have no connection. Still, you feel compelled to…
Speaking Out
DAY 9: Making the narrative public It can be hard to express the fullness of your identity in public when who you are or what you know to be right is different from others, but when it comes to witnessing inequity and injustice it is necessary to speak out – even when its hard. Speaking out does not mean confrontation – it is not forgetting what you know to be true, sharing with others what you have witnessed, and teaching what you know about the injustice of what you have witnessed are ways of speaking out. History teaches that inspiring closed minds and hard hearts with one’s voice in support what is just and right…
Building On Our Base
DAY 8: Suppress Voter Suppression Many of the freedoms we take for granted required tremendous struggle and sacrifice on the part of committed individuals and communities. One struggle involved gaining full voting rights for all people – women, people of color, workers, and young adults. Today, voter suppression threatens the gains made through numerous justice struggles, and negatively impacts our democracy. Examples include income inequality, disappearing educational and employment opportunity, reproductive justice, access to health care, immigrant justice, the civil rights of LGBTQ persons, and unequal treatment of marginalized people in the judiciary system. After a week of learning more about voting suppression, and the state of democracy in our country, where do we go…
We Move Forward Together
Day 7: Moral Movement for Redemption Resist Oppression Oppression is an unjust exercise of power or authority. It exists in many forms. Sometimes we oppress others without realizing. Other times oppression is intentional. In a free society oppression happens when and because we allow it to. We allow oppression through our silence, inaction or ignorance. It doesn’t take much for oppression to take hold – even a small organized group can exercise influence on social policy and attitudes that belies its size. In 1980 organized political activity by 2 – 4 million voters known as the Moral Majority, arguably led to Ronald Reagan’s election as President(1). Then – by encouraging evangelical ministers to promote the…
Challenge the Challenge to the Right to Vote
DAY 6: Dismantling the “New Poll Tax” End Voter Suppression When Poll Taxes were ruled unconstitutional in 1964 many thought that the 5th Principle of Unitarian Universalism, “The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large” was achieved for all citizens. Sadly, if that was the case, it is no longer. Opponents of universal suffrage have worked hard to restrict the right to vote in this country, and 50-years on voter suppression disenfranchises many of the people who won the right to vote in 1964, and many others when they will come of age to vote. The goal of voter suppression is, of…
Complete Congregation
DAY 5: Building Multicultural Congregations – My generation is the most diverse in American history, yet still we struggle with the legacies of racism, segregation and injustice that we have inherited from our ancestors. Fewer and fewer schools, businesses and neighborhoods are all-white, but racial disparities in wealth, education and jobs are as strong as they’ve ever been in the last 50 years. That means that if we want to change the reality we see it will require a new kind of cross-community coalition building, and religious spaces will be key in launching it. Church can and should be a place where we learn what it feels like to open ourselves up to different…
Bending the Arc
DAY 4: The Race Story Re-Writing Project Rewriting History One of the reasons I have always loved history is because I love stories – and history is all about stories. I find the closer these stories get to the truth, the more compelling they are. In an anti-oppression workshop I heard someone say, “I used to believe most highly in the Golden Rule – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – but now I see I need to change it to say – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you – if you had lived as they do and have had their experiences.” That statement was…
Toward Democracy and Freedom
DAY 3: Envisioning the Racial Justice Work We Need to do Today The Civil Rights victory 50 years ago was a great step forward toward equal rights. It was not the end of the struggle to create a truly equitable society in which all people are in fact treated as equal. With this victory civil rights were extended to many who had not enjoyed them before, and enjoyment of those rights was protected by law, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 could not, on its own, undo the spirit that animates discrimination. 50 years later, we still live in an age where the color of one’s skin, one’s religion, ability, gender or sexual orientation…
Recent Comments