ERACISM Minute 7/19/2020 Kara Black

Good morning, my name is Kara Black

As people of Unitarian faith, we espouse and hold dear our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Those of us who are white or middle class or cisgender or from other dominant groups in our society may believe that this statement of principle has been enough for us to have overcome, within the institutions and practices of our faith, the wider society’s systemic oppression and suppression of particular groups of people. But if we listen, we will hear other voices in our UU community giving us a different message—that our faith is NOT fully actualizing this principle, especially when it comes to people of color and those in other marginalized groups.

To help address this failing, Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism, or BLUU, urges each Unitarian congregation to adopt the following 8^th principle which shows on your screen:

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.

The 8th principle was introduced in 2013 and to date, 26 UU congregations have adopted it, with hopes that one day soon there will be national UU adoption of this language. One of our members, Beth Beyers, attends the UU church in Honolulu, which was among the very first to adopt this principle a few years ago.

I hope our congregation will soon be one of the congregations embracing this principle to help us improve our awareness and practices in this area, and bring us closer to truly realizing our beloved first principle.