Erika is moving to Vermont!

 Hi All,

 

Many of you remember our friend and BUF member, Exquisite Erika, who helped initiate our journey toward a Beloved Community by founding our BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team. She moved to Portland a few years ago and now is moving to Vermont!

 

Transitions are difficult, especially for people of color, who experience direct and indirect racism in everyday life. Exquisite is going to have a lot of transitional expenses such as moving her car, winter tires, snow boots, warm clothes, possibly furnishings, etc. If you would like to contribute, I’m taking up a collection. You can send checks to me and I’ll send them along to Exquisite before the end of January.

 

I hope you will be generous in your giving and show Erika the appreciation for all that she did at and for our BUF community!

 

Lauralee Carbone

360.201.3445

2212 40^th St.

Bellingham WA 98229

January 11, 2021 Program: Susan Burton

A New Way of Life:  Susan Burton is a black woman who experienced incarceration multiple times. When she left prison the last time, she was finally offered treatment for substance abuse, and her life turned around. She purchased a home and transformed it into A New Way of Life--a program to help other women leaving prison. She provides a safe, drug-free space where they can rebuild their lives despite enormous challenges.

 

Join us for a video about Susan Burton and A New Way of Life, at 7 pm on Monday, January 11. 

ERacism Minute 1.9.21 David Curley

 In the national election, ending in Georgia on January 5th, we saw the hard won fruit of many years of work.

The next day, in the Capitol Building, a white nationalist race-riot encouraged by the President tried and failed to use violence to annul the results of this election.

What lessons can we learn?

Of the two, I believe the national election was by far the more important event.

Elections matter. Offering solutions to sharedproblems matters. Black voices matter, and Black lives matter. But all of these also can be ignored, silenced, orannulled.

As we celebrate Dr. King in January, we remember that in the 1960s people lost their lives in the effort to register Black voters in the South. Their actionssecured passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We also can remember that this landmark legislation was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.

Beloved Community in the Civil Rights Movement always required both the courage to stand up for justice, and the courage to offer forgiveness and loving kindness to violent opponents.

Even the white nationalists who rioted on January 6th.

In the spirit of our Covenant for Beloved Community, we have an opportunity to learn more nextSaturday, January 16th, at the 23rd annual celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Day. Sponsored by the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force, the theme is, “Recapturing the Revolutionary Spirit: Dangerous Unselfishness.”  

For details, and to register for this on-line event, go to www.whrtf.org

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)

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/96917727292

 

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.