Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon
Introduction to the #UUWhiteSupremacyTeachIn “Work-ship” Service
May 7, 2017
This Unitarian Universalist congregation is a sanctuary: a place to comfort the broken, to be a home for the estranged, and to refresh the tired. While we come to this place to renew our spirits, we also recognize that spiritual development requires us to embrace discomfort and challenge. Today is one of those Sundays when we enter brave space – in service of our living tradition and its call to build Beloved Community.((Thank you to Rev. Erika Hewitt, from whom I adapted her words for parts of this Introduction. http://uuminister.com/))
Today’s service is in direct response to a recent call led by a growing network of UUs: UUs of color and white UUs working together. The call is simple, but perhaps challenging: to disrupt “business as usual” and devote today’s service to exploring the system of white supremacy – and our part in dismantling it.
This call for a #UUWhiteSupremacyTeachIn is the result of major shifts in our denomination that have come to a head within the last two months. The organizers of this call publically said they hoped for 150 congregations to participate in the Teach In. Among themselves, they secretly hoped for 250 congregations. The final total: over 700 congregations in the U.S and abroad.
We may seem isolated out here, but look what good company we are in!
This effort to dismantle racism is not new in Unitarian Universalism. As an association of congregations, we (not some bishop or pope) but we have passed resolution after resolution with statements such as this one from 1997:
Racism and its effects..are embedded in all social institutions as well as in ourselves and will not be eradicated without deliberate engagement in analysis and action..We are called…by our commitment to faith in action to pursue [anti-racism] in the spirit of justice, compassion, and community.
Yet UUs of color in particular are calling upon us not to rest on our laurels.
“White supremacy” is becoming the term to describe the interconnected systems of racism, sexism, and more that live so deeply in our culture and our psyches. UUs of color have asked us not to shy away from using this uncomfortable yet accurate language. White supremacy is the water in which all of us swim – and which is yet often invisible to many of us.
And so we join together – tens of thousands of UUs – to look critically *within* our denomination, our churches, ourselves…for the ways in which white supremacy lives: in our habits, in our unwritten and unconscious rules…
Together we commit to dismantling these habits and systems, because we have before us a vision of the Beloved Community where all souls are welcome as blessings, and the human family lives whole and reconciled.
With this vision in our hearts and minds, everything about today’s service is curriculum for this #UUWhiteSupremacyTeachIn.
We’re calling it a “work-ship” – a mix of worship and workshop. After the service we will have a 45-minute discussion in the fellowship hall – with some snacks provided – so we can continue the conversation and plan further action.
This is not a “one and done” endeavor. This church has been doing this work for some time, and I hope we always will until the need is gone (praise that future day!).
I’ve given you the background for WHY we are doing this.
Jane will begin to unpack the WHAT: “What is White Supremacy?” Jane Hellinghausen is a long-time member here, current Board member, and is on the steering committee of CURE, a local group working on education and action related to anti-racism.
(Mary Martinez-Gonzales, of CURE, then led our workshop.)
A UUWorld article reporting on the Teach-In’s: http://www.uuworld.org/articles/two-thirds-participate-teach