December 14, 2020 Meeting Program

 The BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team invites you to its December program meeting:  Monday, December 14 from 7-8:30.  We will listen to and discuss the Bryan Stevenson "Love is the Motive" podcast. You may listen to it before hand, if you'd like, or you can't attend the meeting: https://onbeing.org/programs/bryan-stevenson-love-is-the-motive/

Here is the zoom link to the meeting:

Topic: BLM Dec 14 Program Meeting at 7pm

Time: Dec 14, 2020 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

 

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Meeting ID: 969 1772 7292

Passcode: BUF

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Meeting ID: 969 1772 7292

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Meeting Minutes 12/7/2020

 BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

Business/Planning Meeting:  December 7, 2020

 

Present:  Mary Alden, Murray Bennett, Lauralee Carbone, David Curley, Claire Lending, Cat McIntyre and Henry Ohana

 

1. Eracism Minutes. 

Dec 13           Cat will ask Genia Allen about Coming of Age

Dec 20           Cat will ask Kevin Allen-Schmid about Holiday Music

Dec 27           Henry Ohana

Jan 3              Mary Alden

 

*Please email to all when you have scheduled one of these "will ask" eracism minutes

 

With the passage of the Beloved Conversation Covenant at the Nov. 15 congregational meeting, the Eracism Minutes will likely be broadened. This will be raised with the transition (from Eighth Principle) team. David has discussed with Rev. Paul the creation of a new team, possibly named the Beloved Conversation Covenant team, to include both "Inside BUF" and "Outside BUF" representatives. The goal is to involve all aspects of BUF congregation and leadership.

 

2. Program for December 14: Many good suggestions for topics, including Ta-Nahisi Coates "The Case for Reparations," conversations with UU BI_POC representatives abut what Beloved Community means, and a selection from Brave New Films (Henry will research). We decided on a podcast of Bryan Stevenson and Krista Tippett, "Love is the Motive." Cat will send event description to Midweek Update and BUF-News, and send links to BUF Black Lives Matter mailing list.

 

3.  Consistent Zoom Links.There has been confusion about zoom links sent out to recent meeting, particularly Nov. 29 meeting after the service. Henry volunteered to talk with Kathy to get a permanent zoom link for all Black Lives Matter events.

 

4.  Continuing Feedback from Beloved Community Covenant meetings. Many people attended the post-congregational meeting listening session on Nov. 22. Feedback later included some dissatisfaction with how suggestions were (or weren't) received. David, Henry and Barbara all dealt diplomatically with these, and concluded that: a) Very important to have Healthy Relationships Team facilitator in each meeting; b) Clarity of meeting and its purpose established; and c) Patience and tolerance as we embark on a journey that involves many people coming from many different perspectives.

 

Next BLM Program meeting: December 14 at 7 pm

Next BLM business/planning meeting: January 4 at 6 pm

 

Respectfully submitted

Cat McIntyre, co-facilitator, BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

Eracism Minute 11/8/2020 Claire Lending

 Eracism Minute Nov 8, 2020​

 

I am Claire Lending and I am going to talk today about a small part of my journey towards antiracism. 

 

In the book “How to be an Antiracist”, Ibrahm Kendi says a racist is someone who is supporting racist policy by their actions OR by their inaction—there is no neutral. He says that being an antiracist requires “persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism and regular self-examination”. 

 

I have been growing uncomfortable with my 30 year career teaching Finance in a College of Business. Finance is based on the capitalist system and like Elizabeth Warren I was capitalist to the bone! However, I am realizing capitalism developed and thrived when Europeans came to the Americas and took the land, and when enslaved people were brought to America to create a great economy. Capitalism is founded on exploitation. And Kendi (a historian) says that racist ideas did not lead to this exploitation; racism followed the exploitation. It is much easier to justify exploiting others when you tell yourself and others that the people you are exploiting are inferior. 

 

What am I doing with this clash between my values and my life’s work? I am educating myself through reading, task forces and workshops. I am reflecting on and starting to modify what I teach. Finance is pretty much an applied math course based on financial instruments. I struggled: what does racism have to do with these problems? And how can talk about race with my students after a lifetime of learning it was racist to talk about race?

 

I took a small step this Fall. I added something beyond the problems to my class. I ask the students to read articles, watchvideos or listen to podcasts that discuss inequities, racism, or irresponsible business practices. My students reflect on how these articles challenge their ideas or relate to their personal experience. Their reflections are remarkable in their honesty --some tell stories of the racism they or their families faced while others tell about their own racism. Classmates read the others’ reflections and see someone else’s point of view. It is amazing! 

 

I know I am very early in my anti-racist journey. To acknowledge my career has been supporting a racist system is very, very difficult. But I am so glad I am on this journey even though I have a long way to go. The journey is personal and spiritual as well as professional. I am allowing my personal values to find a place in my professional life.

Eracism MInute 10/17/2020 David Curley

Good morning. I’m David Curley, a member of the Black Lives Matter ministry action team. Today I want to talk about the role of listening in building a diverse, multicultural Beloved Community. And I want to talk particularly about how to “stay in the room” when we are listening to stories about injustice.

We can practice with the first of the first of the formal statements that are meant to explain why an eighth principle is needed. “Whereas white supremacy perpetuates the assumption that white people and their culture are superior to other races, and those in power use this assumption to dominate others and to serve their economic, political and social interests.”

I was in college. It was 1966, a hot summer night on the South Side of Chicago, and I was walking with a friend in in acity park. A group of young Black men approached us. One of them asked us to stop, said that he just wanted to talk. We stopped, not sure where this was going. He asked: “You go to the University of Chicago, right?” I said I did. He said, “I live here. I get A’s in my high school. Our teachers, our school are so bad that we can’t get into college.”

He may have said more, but in any case, I felt afraid ofemotions of frustration and anger. I remember that he insisted, “You are smart, tell me what I am supposed to do.”

Here is what I wish I had known to do. I wish I had taken a deep breath, relaxed my shoulders, and asked them all to tell me more. I wish I could have said, “Do you have time to talk for a while?” Instead, I said, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” and we left.

All of us have established habits of response that tend to shut down conversation. At the BLM program on Difficult Conversations led by Kaitlin Davis we learned about twelve of responses that tend to say “end of discussion.” I’ll list a few: of course, shaming or blaming, but also, agreeing and praising(that’s great!); advising, providing solutions (“what I do is”);interpreting “What you really mean is . . .” You will see the whole “dirty dozen” list on this week’s BUF news.  Jayme and I are trying to learn new habits.

ERACISM Minute 10/3/2020 Claire Lending

 Hello, I am Claire Lending and I am going to talk youtoday about Michelle Obama’s early life based on her book Becoming. As I talk, I ask you to think about the racist system she had to face.

 

Michelle Obama grew up in Chicago’s South Side living with her parents and brother on the top story of a house owned by her Mother’s Aunt and Uncle. Her father worked for the government, but they could not afford their own house. As a young child her neighborhood was middle class and racially mixed. In Michelle’s kindergarten class a boy was earning gold stars for being able to read the names of colors. Michelle was very competitive so she studied at home so she could earn gold stars too. In second grade Michelle’s teacher was incompetent; the children were unruly and labelled bad kids. Michelle complained to her mother who then went to the principal and Michelle ended up moving with one other girl in the class to a newly formed joint 2nd/3rd grade class of high performing students. (Now she looks back and wonders how the rest of the children in that second grade classfared.)  Every year when Michelle showed up for school there were less White kids on the playground. Some transferred to the Catholic school but more left the neighborhood altogether and the schools reflected this. 

 

Michelle tested into a magnet school for high achieving high school students. She had to take a one hour city bus ride each way which meant she gave up sports and family time. She was at first not sure she belonged in the new school, but she worked hard and ended up in the top 10% of her class. She went to her counselorearly in her Senior year to discuss college. Michelle said she wanted to go to Princeton; the counselor discouraged her and said Michelle was not really Princeton material. But Michelle was stubborn. Her brother went to Princeton on a track scholarship and Michelle knew she was smarter than her brother. 

 

Michelle applied and got into Princeton. When she firstarrived, she thought other students were looking at her and thinking she was just an Affirmative Action choice. However, when she earned an A- average her first semester, she knew she belonged. Michelle found a community at Princeton and did well, then applied and was accepted at Harvard Law School. 

 

After graduating from law school, Michelle got a job at a prestigious law firm in Chicago doing intellectual property law work. One summer she was assigned an intern from Harvard Law. As soon as she saw him, she knew why he was assigned to her; he was Black. However, this turned out well as the intern was Barrack Obama.

 

Michelle did not stay in the job with her high salary. She wanted to give back. She took a big pay cut to work in Mayor Daley’s office and has continued to work for the public good since then.

 

As I read Michelle Obama’s story, I wonder how different my life would have been If I were Black and had grown up in South Side, Chicago.  Even though I am a college professor in the male dominated field of Finance, I very much doubt that I would have had the courage and determination to overcome the barriers that Michelle Obama faced.

ERACISM Minute 10/11/2020 Henry Ohana

 

The 13^th amendment was passed in December of 1865.  The text of that amendments reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”  This loophole was immediately exploited and many of the newly freed slaves were imprisoned for minor crimes such as loitering or vagrancy.  Thus, slave labor was allowed to continue and the notion of the “black criminal” was created.

 

This system of labor allows states to maintain their reliance on forced, uncompensated or undercompensated, and predominantly Black labor to this day.  Cheap prison labor is a powerful labor market incentive against criminal justice reform.   Private corporations are incentivized to lobby for policies that maximize prison populations in order to sustain a business model that is only profitable because they can exploit artificially deflated labor costs.

4100 corporations profit from prison labor and every state, except for Alaska, has a state-governed prison industries initiative.

 

Most inmates are engaged in in-house work within correctional facilities, such as food service and laundry, however around 63,000 inmates work in prison industries which produce goods for external sale. Work ranges from farm production and manufacturing to call centers and distribution services.  Those Idaho potatoes you may eat?  Prison labor.  McDonald’s containers, cutlery, and employee’s uniforms?  Also - prison labor.

 

Usually inmates are not “required” to work; however the consequences of not working are harsh.  They may lose their “privileges” such as family visits or even may end up in solitary confinement.  If the prisoners are paid, they can earn as little as 74 cents a day and are often required to pay for basic items such as soap, deodorant, and shoes. Inmates can have 80% of their measly pay taken for taxes, room and board, and restitution.

 

Here are some companies to avoid if you don’t want to support prison labor