Anti-Racism Minute 4/25/2021 - Lauralee Carbone

 

Good morning,

I’m Lauralee Carbone. I use she/her/hers pronouns.

I’d like to talk about the intersectionality of race and gender. There is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.

Centering the lives of trans and gender diverse BIPOC is the only way to achieve our collective liberation. At the core of this belief lies our commitments to racial and economic justice, intersectionality, accessibility, inclusion, and sex positivity. The work is about reducing state harm and violence, increasing sustainable employment, and engaging in advocacy and education work with service providers to create safer, affirming, and affordable care for all trans and gender diverse people. Achieving these goals is not possible without an explicit anti-racism lens that closely examines and resists anti-Blackness and uplifts Indigenous sovereignty.

We recognize that in order to move the trans community towards liberation, we must address the violence and oppression that targets trans BIPOC, and especially Black trans women and femmes. If we can solve these injustices for trans BIPOC, it will solve things for all. Because our work must dream of a world where all trans people have what is needed to survive and thrive, we need to explicitly center the dismantling of anti-Blackness in all of our work. Defunding police, prisons, and other structures that uphold racism and colonial systems of power and leveraging our power and resources to topple the structures that uphold white supremacy and lead to grave disparities and death is necessary.

The numbers are in. Every issue and experience with transphobia is dramatically exacerbated by the additional intersections of racism and anti-Blackness. These experiences are compounded further for those with additional intersections, including queer and disabled people, women, immigrants, and sex workers, among others. 

The 2015 U.S. Trans Survey highlights these disparities. Black trans and gender diverse respondents reported experiencing homelessness, poverty, violence, and mental health distress at significantly higher rates than white trans people and cisgender Black communities nationwide. They also experience significantly higher rates of police harassment, violence, arrest, and incarceration among Black respondents, with Black trans women being four times more likely to be incarcerated than trans people generally. Since the COVID pandemic, it has only gotten worse for our beloved communities. 

Lack of secure and affordable housing, policing and the prison industrial complex, medical racism and healthcare access issues, and increasing gentrification and generational wealth disparities, among other issues, contribute to the systemic violence that trans and gender diverse BIPOC communities face. Systemic and structural racism and oppression exist alongside interpersonal violence, and both severely impact BIPOC, especially women. In 2020, 44 trans people were murdered in the US, an all time high, the majority of whom were Black and brown trans women. I mourn these valuable lives lost, and celebrate the trans and gender diverse communities across WA State that tenaciously survive, and fight for collective liberation from these structures that seek to destroy. 

Prioritizing and committing to anti-racism and resisting anti-Blackness requires thoughtfulness, intention, resources, transparency, and accountability: this is why we need an expansive anti-racism action plan to infuse and prioritize anti-racism throughout our organization and all of our programming. This is what the work of building Beloved Community is about.

AntiRacism Minute 4/18/2021 - Cat McIntyre

 I would like to give you an update from Beloved Conversations: Meditations on Race and Ethnicity, a program held here BUF in spring 2019. At the end of the twelve-week program, the group of 30 participants came up with a list of goals for BUF. One goal was creation of a rapid response network to mobilize congregants to boldly respond with actions for justice when racial justice issues arise in the community, the state and the nation.

 

Possible projects included vigils for momentous events, especially events affecting people of color.  To this end, Henry Ohana and Genia Allen drew up a Rapid Response phone tree with 57 people from our congregation who said they wanted to be involved. Ten of the people on the list would call the others. 

 

We recently used the BUF Rapid Response Phone Tree to alert congregants of a candlelight vigil  held at Maritime Heritage Park on April 3 to recognize Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders recently murdered. The vigil was organized by the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center, Whatcom Focused Youth Movement, Whatcom CARE and Whatcom Human Rights Task Force.

 

A good—sized group of BUFsters assembled that evening at the vigil. We sat together, with our candles and listened to several local speakers of Asian American and Pacific Island heritage. They described their personal experiences of racism in Whatcom County.  The vigil began and ended with songs by William John, from the Lummi Nation. 

 

If you were not called for this vigil, and would like to be notified by phone of similar, future events, please let me, Genia or Henry know of your interest.

Anti-Racism Minute 4/11/2021 - Barbara Gilday

 

My name is Rev. Barbara Gilday. I am a member of the Black Lives Committee and the recently created ABC’s – Actions for Beloved Community, committee. Today I’m sharing the anti-racism moment.

I recently came across a prayer given by Rev. Dr. Randy Becker 9 years ago, at the 2012 GA. In it, I heard the battle fatigue between good intentions, hard work and outcomes. Today I’ll read Excerpts from the prayer with my responses as a representative of our new Actions for Beloved Community group.

Rev. Randy said: The General Assembly has opened, and I am waiting –

listening to past injustices

enduring jingo-istic rhetoric about justice

hearing historical songs about visionary struggles with oppression.

And I Barbara, say: Out of the ashes of the past, the work of the many faithful ones on the journey, and the continuing horrors we have witnessed this past year, a new consciousness and broader determination is evolving.

Randy said. . . I am waiting . . . for someone to say that our Universalist heritage calls upon us all to a radical vision: trusting the whole of humanity and the earth to be of one creation that transcends all humanly created systems of nations, people, and cultures.

And I say: out of our studies, our good intentions, our successes and failures, comes a radical new vision for the future.

Randy said: I am waiting . . .for us to begin to be part of the creation of the future, by proclaiming more than repudiating, by inviting more than condemning, by focusing on connections more than differences- believing that compassion is a greater force of transformation than pain, regret, or shame.

And we in the ABC’s group are acting: With a vision of creating educational initiatives and a mission of collaboration with Western and other students for our mutual transformation. Currently, we have 2 projects:

First: we are inspired by the 8^th principle and are discovering new ways to manifest radical visions for racial and social justice. We are working cooperatively with Western’s Woodring College and students in its social justice minor, to develop a cooperative, transformational mentoring program which will open doors in the desired careers of these young people working for social and racial justice and transform us in the process.

And Second: We are doing our own reparations with African Americans and other people of color through the Call Me Mister mentoring program for teachers. We are beginning supporting a couple of African American students at Southern Florida University, throughout their studies to allow them to graduate debt free. Our long range vision for this project is to expand it, to invite greater numbers of UU congregations to follow our lead in the future and thus grow the numbers of teachers of color in our classrooms.

Randy said: I am waiting . . .for a General Assembly

which is filled with a spirit of vision, values, and hope

which builds on a thoughtful and spirit-filled

theology of possibility, inviting all the world and all her people to

a new community -to a new unity.

And we say: We are committed to being those people, working with one another organically: listening, questioning, supporting and being patient with one another. We are being awkward in the not knowing places, brave enough to take first steps without knowing what next steps will be and kind to each other, bringing the best out of each of us. We are inspired in the knowing that together, we are enough to create meaningful transformation, equally, in us and in those we are companioning. This is the work that the new ABC’s – Actions for Beloved Community, aspires to, to bring forth racial and social justice with trust, vision and lived values.

Minutes of April 2021 BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team business/planning meeting

 

BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

Minutes - April 5, 2021 Business/Planning Meeting

 

The meeting, on Zoom, began at 6 pm. Present were: Murray Bennett, Lauralee Carbone, David Curley, Barbara Gilday, Amoret Heise, Tom Kirschner, Claire Lending, Cat McIntyre and Henry Ohana

 

Anti-Racism Minutes:

            April 11           Barbara  Gilday – Report on ABC

            April 18           Cat McIntyre, on Rapid Response      

            April 25           Lauralee Carbone

            May 2              Henry Ohana will find someone  

 

Remember to alert Rev. Paul on or before the Wednesday before the service where you will speak that you’re giving the anti-racism minute at that service.

 

Program Planning: 

April 12 – Activity to write letters on Resolution 1 (filibuster), and HR 40 reparations. We will state brief description of each and encourage those attending to write together to Congress people. Hank will send article on reparations. The Faith Action Network has a list of important legislation that is in the offine.  We will also discuss whether to use other means to advise congregation to write

 

May 10:  Beginning of five monthly meetings where we watch and discuss “Amend,” available on Netflix

 

Beloved Conversations 2:  

Evaluation of Beloved Conversations 1 –a short eval questionnaire sent out today to 35 people, six responses already.  Other resources, possibly local: Kim Harris, WCC, WP&JC; and the speaker at Fall 2019 How to talk to your Racist Uncle. We need to assess cost of each

 

ABC:  Lauralee, scholarship at USF, mentorship program at WWU, Erica Malllin and Barbara Gilday co-chair

 

Phone Tree.  Working well; we will request additional interest as part of April 18 anti-racism minute.  We also want to ascertain the condition/adequacy of BUF banner; the one used on April 3 is small and plain. Is there another in the SEJC closet??

 

Next Business Planning Meeting:  May 3, 6 pm

Next Program Meetings:  April 12, 7 pm and May 10, 7 pm.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Cat McIntyre, co-facilitator

BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

Anti-Racist Moment 3/28/2021 - David Curley

Good morning. I’m David Curley, a member of the BUF Black Lives Matter ministry action team. 

Two weeks, two more mass murders. Two very troubled young men, armed and armored, play-acting violent power—power utterly absent in their actual lives.

We want to explain.

“We know racism when we see it”—Senator Raphael Warnock about targeting Asian Americans, and true in the Atlanta event, but not true of all mass murders.

“It’s a problem of toxic masculinity in American culture”—overgeneralized, perhaps true in some sectors, but not of all men. To me, this statement ignores changes that women have made in our community.

Still, across and within racial boundaries, we perform the same roles in the same grieving, horrific, and terrifying play.

Can we imagine a new play? Can we model new roles of courage?

What would self-aware soul-gardening look like? 

What would a diverse, antiracist, Beloved Community response be?

Can we sing a new song?

 

P.S. This antiracism moment took me in an unexpected direction. Comments and criticism are welcome.

More books...more videos!

 Last summer I read Michelle Obama's BECOMING. I'm now reading Barack's PROMISED LAND. Highly recommended, as well as COLOR OF LAW for judicial history of racism.

Also, on Netflix, the limited series AMEND about the 14th Amendment is excellent. I was so impressed, I even contacted them through their Facebook page to suggest another episode on how corporations, judged as persons, have coopted the 14th Amendment to their own ends.

~Lauralee

Anti-Racism Minute 3/21/2021 - Mike Betz

 Decades before Thoreau’s move to Walden, more than a dozen formerly enslaved Black residents of Concord made Walden Woods their home. With its infertile soil, Walden Woods wasn’t considered valuable land and thus became a place for the town’s outcasts to live more freely. Thoreau felt a certain kinship with this community living on the fringes of society. He devoted nearly half a chapter in Walden, titled “Former Inhabitants,” to telling their stories.

Born around 1744, Brister Freeman was one of the first known inhabitants of Walden Woods and the second Black man to own property in Concord.

Freeman fought as a soldier in the American Revolution. He spent the first 30 years of his life in Concord, enslaved by the prominent John Cuming, a doctor in Concord. He went to war on three separate tours while still legally designated as property. On his final tour in 1779, he self-emancipated by declaring his last name as “Freeman” on his military papers. This was an incredibly risky move as enslaved soldiers took the last names of their owners as a means of protection, the assumption was that there was a white person who would come to his aid as a way to protect what they viewed as their property.

Unable to prove this new freedom outside of Concord and barred from assimilating into the city itself Freeman pooled his resources with one of his Black comrades, Charlestown Edes, and bought a one-acre tract of land in Walden Woods.

He built a home for his three children and wife, Fenda. With farming and survival skills accrued from time on Cuming’s land, the Freeman’s family grew what they could in the sandy soil, fished, and gathered other foods in the woods.

Around the time Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1783, the community of Black Concord residents living freely in Walden Woods grew. Freeman’s sister, Zilpah White, moved into a one-room house at the edge of what would later be Thoreau’s bean field. She continued to live in the woods into her 80s.

Ultimately, few could survive on the lands of Walden Woods. Freeman’s wife and his friend Edes died of diseases related to malnutrition. Freeman is thought to have died in 1822. Over time, the other Black residents in their community left for cities with more opportunity. Many houses in Concord were stops on the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Lewis Hayden, William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown all visited and spoke there.

When Thoreau arrived in 1845, all the Black residents had moved on. He was intentional about building his cabin within these original homesteads. As he began piecing together the stories of the inhabitants who’d come before him, he was very much inserting himself into that community.

Thoreau was staunchly and vocally opposed to slavery. He made it clear that he had admiration for not only their independence, but their ability to withstand a constant onslaught of racist harrassment.