MEETING MINUTES May 4, 2020

Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

May 4, 2020

The meeting convened at 6 pm on Zoom. Present were Amoret Heise, David Curley, Mary Alden, Cat McIntyre, Lauralee Carbone and Paul Beckel (for a while).

Agenda:

1. Eracism minutes
2. May 11 programs
3. 8th Principle and SEJC
4. New member
5. Beloved Conversations 2

1. Eracism minutes.

• May 10 Mary Alden
• May 17 Amoret Heise
• May 24 David Curley
• May 31 Cat McIntyre

The services are now broadcast via Zoom. If you will be giving the Eracism minute, be sure to contact Rev. Paul by Wednesday, because there will likely be a rehearsal that you will have to attend.

2. May 11 program. Mary Alden will tell about her recent six-week experiene in South Africa. She may include these subjects:

• How an all white church integrated;
• How it feels to be white in a majority black country;
• How the Black Sash women's movement affected apartheid
• What black Africans told her about cultural appropriation; and/or
• How COVID19 is affecting South Africans.

Cat will send a blurb to MWU and BUF News; Lauralee will post on BLM blog and Facebook.

3. Eighth Principle Update. The working group, composed of representatives from Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team, Immigrant Rights, Native American Connections, Community to Community Partnership and Healthy Relations Team, have completed a draft resolution and are working on a background document.. Karen Nuckles-Flinn , Mary Alden and Kara Black will have a meeting soon about how to structure the consensus building meetings with the congregation.

4. New participant. Lauralee was approached by Michael Knapp who had questions about Eracism minutes, and Black Lives Matter. Cat will add him to the mailing list.

5. Beloved Conversations. Cat presented the cost of Beloved Conversations 1: $3,073. inclusing $2,200 for Fahs Collaborative. A Beloved Conversations 2 would have a budget of about $3,000. David warned that BUF closure due to the pandemic has strained the budget and the board is unlikely to consider funding BC until Fall 2021. We will create a firm budget during this summer, and approach SEJC for a contribution to the budget if it seems appropriate. Some attendees at the meeting felt Beloved Conversations pales in comparison to the urgent needs of individuals from oppressed communities due to COVID 19. Cat mentioned that the State of Washington now has statistics on the number of people of color who have been diagnosed or died from the virus. She will send this information to Amoret.

Next meeting: June 1, 2020.

Respectfully submitted

Cat McIntyre, co-facilitator

BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

ERACISM MINUTE May 10, 2020, Mary Alden

Eracism Mother’s Day 2020

I am a mother who gestated and birthed out five beautiful babies. I never knew I had white privilege.

I am a mother who had good prenatal care and carried all those babies to full term. I don’t recall ever worrying about their future access to what they needed to lead a long and healthy life.

I am a mother whose babies were raised in a house that their father and I owned, partly because my parents who owned the home I was brought up in helped us.

I am a mother who sent her children to schools that were not failing, partly because the banks gave us mortgages in those good neighborhoods.

I am a mother whose children could dream dreams of becoming teachers, writers, engineers, nurses, and doctors, because those who came before them had.

I am a mother who sent my children out to play, out to school, out to life, not even dreaming that before I could do that we needed to have “the talk” about what not to say or do or where not to put their hands so that they could be safe.

I am a mother who never knew I had white privilege, who never knew that I passed on white privilege to those five beautiful babies.

I am a grandmother who is just beginning to grasp the enormity of my white privilege but has no idea really, REALLY, what my life or motherhood would have been like without it.

I am a mother and grandmother who shares this awful and vulnerable truth about my unknowing, hoping to be a part of the change.

Because I am a mother who mourns for the Black mothers and their children who were gestated and birthed and grew, just as mine did, with the very same hopes and dreams and cells and DNA and beautiful little bodies, and who were denied because of pigment, what I never even knew I had.