By Commission On Institutional Change

We are aware that many congregations have been contacted about reinvigorating our Associational conversation about our democratic process and the fifth principle. Ten years ago, there was a task force that prepared a report (PDF) for the UUA Board of Trustees about these concerns that we would encourage all of you to read.

In our research, we frequently heard the call for reform of our largest governing body, the General Assembly, particularly the challenge of unequal access to decision-making that our current structure perpetuates. The Fifth Principle Task Force Report to the UUA Board of Trustees in December 2009 lays out in detail many of the challenges and potential remedies to GA. The Task Force reports, “We have focused our meetings and this report on governance because it is at once the primary purpose of GA and is dramatically broken. Four points buttress this contention of brokenness: GA is not really democratic in that delegates are neither representative of their congregations, other than being members, nor are they accountable to them; without subsidization of delegates, GA is economically discriminatory, and therefore generationally discriminatory; as long as GA continues as an annual event, its cost is a heavy burden to the Association and the member congregations; the GA process is not in alignment with the Board’s embrace of policy governance.”

The report continues, “The future of our UU movement can ill-afford to continue the ways of faux democracy and unaccountable representation that have characterized Associational governance, including the content and process of General Assembly. The Task Force believes that the status quo for the General Assembly is not an option. We believe our recommendations lay out a vision for effective governance that reflect core values of our liberal faith and the imperative for bringing the leadership of member congregations and our Association together in mutually accountable relationship around matters of greatest importance to the present and future vitality of our UU movement.”

The report recommends a fully-sponsored, biennial delegate assembly and details the values which informed their recommendation: economic accessibility and sustainability; empowered delegates authorized to represent congregations; excellence in governance; excellence in shared leadership and ministry; multigenerational participation and decision-making; and awareness and inclusiveness of AR/AO/MC concerns. We would place particular emphasis on economic accessibility, multi-generational participation, and decision-making, and the awareness and inclusiveness of AR/AO/MC concerns as being vital to all potential governance reforms of the Association. We recommend the Board of Trustees revisit the findings of the Fifth Principle Task Force as part of a broader governance reform agenda.

Deepening Spiritually

Good governance is essential in our congregations and our Association. Read the report and reflect on the values outlined in the report. In small groups, discuss how these values are reflected in the governance of your congregation.

Follow along with this five-part conversation between Commission on Institutional Change Commissioner Mary Byron and Former Commissioner Caitlin Breedlove, as they discuss the subject of intergenerational movement ministry. Following each clip reflect of the questions presented by the Commission to deepen spiritually and connect in the work towards an Anti-Oppressive, Anti-Racist, Multicultural Faith.

In a previous blog post, my colleague Cir L’Bert Jr. wrote about the way that lack of common framework upon which to continue our conversations about race and oppression and difference in our world and within our own endeavors hinders our faith movement.

One reason we may be at cross purposes is that we tend to think of racism as exclusively personal and interpersonal—any discussion of racism is heard this way, “I am a racist or I am saying you are or that your treatment of me is racist.” Personal and interpersonal racism does exist and we also need to build understanding that racism is also systemic—it shapes institutions including government, education, and places of worship. While greater awareness can prevent some of these personal/interpersonal encounters, many of us also want and need institutional and cultural change to address embedded oppression. Institutional racism refers to how biases are embedded in systems to create inequities cultural racism refers to the extent to which the broader culture promotes a single ideal of what is desired or good which is linked to white domination.

Institutional and cultural racism operate together to build systems of unequal treatment and benefit which denies the inherent worth and dignity of persons, one of the theological pillars of our faith. Addressing racism in its institutional form and acknowledging its cultural forms is so central to the work we should be committing ourselves to as a faith movement. Without institutional change, we cannot address the larger frame. Incidents of personal and interpersonal racism will continue and yet institutional change allows us to put in place systems that educate to prevent harm, increase equitable outcomes, repair relationships harmed by personal/interpersonal racism and reduce harm in the interim.

Why does this matter? Because many of those who would be among the most enthusiastic members of our faith expect our institutions to reflect our faith values and are repelled when we do not. The comment to a visitor based on an ignorant stereotype or racial, cultural or class assumption harms that person and denies the welcoming nature of our faith. Our first principle is not about allowing any opinion to be expressed but about cultivating practices that can affirm a diversity of people and experiences.

In our congregations and communities, we often find generational differences. Those who worked hard in the 1960s and 1970s, who defied the social order of that time and embraced new inclusivity may believe that we are now in a post-racial society. Some believe that Civil Rights laws eliminated oppression and oppression. Many believed that legal change would be enough to create the necessary opportunity and while some opportunities are created, the societal imbalances are seen across a variety of measures including employment, personal net wealth, educational attainment levels and health statistics. And the lived experience of many today, particularly younger people or those with multiple marginalized identities, tells them that changing laws did not change hearts and that cultural attitudes about the superiority of white cultural norms perpetuate discriminatory practices which mark countless aspects of our continued engagement.

We also find differences based on identity. Those who live within the margins of the larger culture are more likely to enter our doors because of our theology and beliefs. They come into our communities expecting to see us struggling to live into our values, not with perfect success rather with perseverance and commitment. They stay because of the beliefs, even if the community can be uncomfortable, difficult and damaging at times. Those who do not live with erasure or as the target of hate may be attracted more by the idea of a community that mirrors their general values and the social connections may be the most important aspect. They may fear discussion of the faith roots of anti-oppression work as moving towards the adoption of a creed. Because their lived experience does not include systemic or cultural inequities, they discount the need for conscious and continuous work to dispel cultural and institutional oppression.

For two years, the Commission has been collecting personal and institutional accounts of the ways this kind of inequity exists within the Unitarian Universalist frame. Through focus groups, surveys, personal testimonials, and analysis of events, we are tracking the forms this takes in order to make recommendations about the institutional remedies which we will compile by General Assembly 2020.

Changing hearts is the work of our faith community. This means we all continue to grow in our personal understanding and move our institutions to a higher plane to ensure inclusion, embrace diversity and a growing sense that what we all bring to the table is valued.

—Rev. Leslie Takahashi

Deepening Spiritually

The Commission on Institutional Change calls us into a practice of deep listening and reflection on the words of others.

Randomly select a line of reading from this blog post and try to engage it on these four different levels:

• What is being said in this line of text?
• Allegorically, what words or symbols jump out at you in this line of text?
• How does this line of text speak to your own life?
• Lastly, what do you feel called to after reflection on this line of text?

For a demonstration on how to engage in this practice listen to the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast on commitment: http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/listen-2

The theme of The Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly 2019 was “The Power of We”. In her thought-provoking and compassionate GA Sunday sermon, The Rev. Marta Valentin addressed this theme.

As Rev. Valentin notes, over the last few years there has been a consistent call from the GA sermons for our Association to move deeper into discernment about the direction our faith must follow to move in the direction of the Beloved Community: Now is the Time, Don’t be distracted by “Fake fights”, This is No Time for a Casual Faith. Rev. Valentin asks us to embrace the understanding that the “Power of We” rests in the South African Bantu concept of Ubuntu: I am because we are.

Read/listen to the sermon/service with these questions in mind:

1. Who is the “We”? What version of “we” do we uphold theologically and institutionally?

2. In what ways are we “reliable community” – a community of support and encouragement for one another?

3. Can our community turn toward the story of Black/Indigenous/People of Color UU? It is not only by knowing more facts but interpretation of facts that can unite or divide us. As Sofia Betancourt said at GA 2018: “We can never be the bearers of love and justice that the world so desperately needs if the foundation that sustains us is still perpetuating the very problem we long to solve.” Can we recognize that there are legitimate and differing interpretation of our past and present? Can we reconcile our differences in love?

4. How are we complicit in our own “whitewashing” of UUism? Rev. Valentin offers her own experience of re-connecting with the African, Native and Spanish roots she holds but from which she has been separated. At her Ware Lecture, Winona LaDuke said,: “How much and how brave are we in our ability to deconstruct some of the paradigms which we have embraced.”

5. In considering “I” culture or “We” culture, Rev. Valentin defined “We” culture as requiring speaking respectfully, upholding covenants, listening reflectively, teaching to truth and extending compassion to others we might not care for. Does your UU community operate as a “We” culture?

6. Rev. Valentin asks us to release what no longer serves us well as faith practices. Are there practices that you are ready to release? What new practices would you welcome into our faith?

7. Rev. Valentin speaks of the solidarity and survival strategies of POC UU’s. What can be learned from the experiences of People of Color Unitarian Universalists to enrich our faith institutions?

The UUA Commission on Institutional Change seeks to promote on-going conversation which engages our Unitarian Universalist congregations and communities in movement towards the Beloved Community.

Over the last two years, the Commission on Institutional Change has held an open call for personal stories and testimonies. As we enter the last year of the commission’s work, we submit one last call for submissions of stories, documents, and requests for interviews, through the month of September. This call seeks stories and examples of best practices in the service of anti-racism in UU congregations and communities. As well as, testimonies related to how systems of institutional racism and white supremacy culture impacts the lives and participation on Unitarian Universalist within our institutions. Within this context, the Commission asks you to respond to the following questions with specific examples:

Testimonies:

• In what ways have you or your group or community been hurt by current racist and culturally biased attitudes and practices within Unitarian Universalism?

• In what ways have we, as a faith community, been living outside of our values and commitments?

Examples of Innovation:

• Justice work grounded in accountable relationships with organizations led by and serving people of color;

• Providing space, childcare or logistical support to movements led by and serving people of color;

• Partnering on grassroots local organizing campaigns;

• Multi-racial staff teams serving congregations effectively for more than 3 years;

• Family ministries and/or religious education programming especially targeted to and serving congregants of color, adults and children/youth;

• Multiculturally sensitive pastoral care programs;

• A proven track record of financial partnership and fundraising for movements led by or serving people of color.

Ask yourself:

• What has been the new learning to emerge as far as diversity, equity, and inclusion?

• How do you measure success?

• What has been the struggle? For what were you unprepared and what did you learn?

Please note that no information provided in these testimonials will be shared with attribution without the prior consent of the author. The Commission is mindful that certain details in submissions can be revealing and commits to treating all submissions with full trust and confidence.

How to Submit Your Testimony

Submissions—written, audio, or video format—in response to this set of questions will be accepted, now through September 2019. Anyone is welcome to submit testimony.

Audio Submissions: MP3 format is best.

Video Submissions: MP4 format is best.

Written Submissions: Please use this convenient Testimonies form (Word) or Examples of Innovation form (Word) which contains the questions listed above.

To submit your testimony, save the file to your computer, and then upload it via the Examples of Innovation Dropbox or Personal Testimonies Dropbox

Please direct any questions about this process or requests for an interview to ChangeManager@uua.org

Each June, the Ministerial Conference at Berry Street selects an essayist to discuss a topic of relevance to ministry. This year’s essayist, Rev. Leslie Takahashi, spoke about “Truth, Trauma and Transformation.” Leslie is part of the Commission on Institutional Change and though the essay is hers and not an official part of the Commission’s work, it was informed by her participation in hearing the stories of those among us.

One premise of this work is that we are living in traumatic times which are much more painful for those who live with societal, racial or religious trauma.

Depending Spiritually

Truth, Trauma, and Transformation: Embracing the Cracks and the Gold by Rev. Leslie Takahashi

Berry Street Essay Response by Rev. Sofia Betancourt

Video (unedited) from the 2019 Berry Street Essay

Watch or skim through the essay and then consider the following questions:

• How do the practices of your Unitarian Universalist community affirm a theology which honors all, including those with traumatic wounding?

• How do the dynamics of traumatic experience intersect with our conversations about race in Unitarian Universalism?

• How is religious wounding that people bring in from other religious communities addressed in your community? How is the religious wounding that occurs within our communities addressed?

• How can we affirm—rather than deny or belittle—the traumatic experiences of those who have been marginalized in our larger societies and our Unitarian Universalist communities?

We want to take a little time and offer an update on our work, especially our work since we reported to this Assembly last year. The Commission on Institutional Change was charged with identifying the long-term cultural and institutional change needed to redeem the essential promise and ideal of Unitarian Universalism.

We were specifically charged with addressing the long-festering issues of race, racism and white supremacy culture within Unitarian Universalism and as part of our charge were directed to unpack the controversy in the spring of 2017 around the southern regional lead hiring process. We did this in our first year and reported extensively on this at last General Assembly, finding, in summary that our Association had created conditions in which religious professionals of color could not thrive or, in many cases, even survive. You can read our report on our website.

This year we expanded our focus, keeping our concern about religious professionals who should not sacrifice health and wholeness to serve among us and also turning our attention to the greater issue of how we welcome, or fail to welcome, a diversity of people into the congregations and other communities of our faith tradition. In part we did this by continuing to take testimonials of those who have experienced Unitarian Universalism and many responded to this opportunity to tell the stories they have had on their heart and let their voices be heard.

As we deepened our work towards hearing the stories and collecting information, we realized that it was difficult to make recommendations about the Unitarian Universalism we wanted to create because we so often focus on the difficulties and problems people of color and others with identities outside the white, resourced, cisgender, straight dominant identity experience in our faith. So we focused by convening what we called the Happy Valley Collabytory which gave us a chance to bring together people to create a vision for what an inclusive, diverse and more equitable Unitarian Universalism could look like.

We are grateful for those who came together. Perhaps the most refreshing and inspiring part was when we don’t have to spend our time arguing about whether we have an issue with racial bias, we can get a lot done. Many, many ideas are out there, pent up and awaiting expression and the spirit of creativity and cooperation should give us all hope.

We asked, What benchmarks, processes and accountability mechanisms are needed to transform persistently inequitable material outcomes into full access, full inclusion and full participation in our communities, seminaries, affiliate orgs, credentialing bodies, and the national organizations for UUs of color (recognizing the multiple social locations persons of color can hold relative to gender variance, class and ability)?

We made some assumptions based on our first year’s work including that equity, diversity and inclusion is possible within our faith, that multiple truths coincide, that we move best when we move together, the oppressive systems we have moved in have wounded people, we lack common agreements on past inequities and concluded that a Unitarian Universalism which addresses these systems will work better for everybody.  We identified what the characteristics of a more diverse, equitable and inclusive congregation would look like, what the UUA staff work would look like, what partner and affiliate organizations would look like in addition to what credentialing would look like. And what we found was that structural and systematic changes were needed.

We are appreciative of the many, many people who have contributed to our work. Since appointed, we have been collecting testimony and data to try to look for patterns across the data for so much of the conversation thus far has been shaped around events which were named and explored, often on social media. Data collection through interviews, focus groups and document submissions have produced 100 plus hours of audio and video recordings, and 450 pages of documents from over 225 participants.

Revised 10 Critical Areas on Intervention

From this we identified 10 critical areas of intervention, which we have revised more recently to encompass the analysis of the data we received and the patterns that it revealed. Through our work this year, we identified ten critical areas for intervention. If addressed, we believe these areas can allow us to make significant progress towards creating a more inclusive, equitable, hospitable and diverse Unitarian Universalism. We will touch briefly on these areas today and you can read more about them on our blog.

Today you will hear us engage in conversation about solutions more than problems, however, these areas come out of our deep engagement with what has been happening among us. We believe that we must articulate a theology of liberation, experimentation, and innovation grounded in our Unitarian Universalist principles and sources of inspiration. We need to ground our communities in a shared theology that helps unearth, manifest, and point the way towards liberation along with experimentation that strives for our collective flourishing.

The data we have collected led us to conclude that we need communities based on covenant and commitment rather than comfort and conformity with shared learning and exploration as a foundation. Most institutional forms of Unitarian Universalism are congregational and dominated by the practices familiar and comfortable for those who are white and well-off, cis-gendered and able-bodied. These can be seen as the only right way of being together and do not allow space for those from other experiences to lend their leadership and gifts. Those who would call us to more fully live into a liberatory faith are often cited as troubled or troublesome and we lack processes to allow healthy conflict instead of resorting to secrecy, bullying and isolation. These times and our living tradition requires us to always be living into new ways of being.

We also believe we must acknowledge the loss of those who have not been welcomed or accepted into Unitarian Universalism and deepen our practice of hospitality. People of color, LBTGQ people, people with disabilities and poor people are not new within Unitarian Universalism and many of us have been here all our lives. And yet so many have come, served and eventually had to leave because of disillusionment, trauma or a culture of white supremacy. Many of them are part of the majority of people who identify in census and surveys as being Unitarian Universalist and who have not found a way to be comfortable in our congregations. The greater Unitarian Universalist movement should be aware of these people and their contributions and should also recommit to the learning and growing that would allow our communities and bodies to be more hospitable.

We assert that we must value the knowledge of people of color and other groups we marginalize in our common life and ensure opportunities for full involvement for UUs of color in the various settings of our faith. We have heard countless stories of how our congregations and organizations diminish people of color who come in. Many people of color do not end up staying, some are repelled immediately, others are burned out. Those who opt to stay labor to nurture our faith and are not acknowledged for their contributions. And this year we saw that those who would be allied are often forced out. We also need to understand people of color are more likely to come into Unitarian Universalism because they hold another marginalized identity rejected in their birthright religions, especially LBGTQ.

We believe we must provide tools for us to understand the systemic and cultural impacts of oppression among us. We also do not have trauma-informed ministries and so do not understand—and often—judge systemic effects of racism as incompetence. We do not recognize the systemic effects of racism and white supremacy culture which results in more people of color struggling economically and still depending on self-funding to participate in much of our volunteer activities. This General Assembly is increasingly out of reach for most. We should consider the cost of losing work for those younger in their career or in more tenuous positions because of their race or other marginalized identities. [SLIDE 33 end] We need tools for assessing our congregational practices to understand how they uphold a culture which privileges whiteness and we need healthy ways of managing the controversy and backlash directed at the lay leaders and religious professionals who work to be more inclusive.

Last year we spoke extensively about the need to ensure quality of livelihood for religious professionals of color, especially those with complex identities for whom our current systems are destructive (or who bear the brunt of the destructive power of our current broken systems). We will hear some of the responses to our work in a few minutes.

The data we have gathered also makes it clear that we need to prioritize and enable leadership from those who are underrepresented in our communities including people of color, young adults, LBGTQ people especially those who are transgender or gender non-binary, people with limited economic resources, people with disabilities, and working age people. Intervention with the 18-60 age ranges and their involvement in leadership (young adults and working-age people) is needed. Who has power? The young folks already living into the culture that we want and so they have valuable skills. Youth are not the future, they are the present. People who are undervalued in the dominant culture also have many of the intelligences needed to navigate a more diverse world.

We also believe that we must identify, develop and spread examples of innovation of equity, inclusion, and diversity and establish channels of innovation and risk-taking. People and congregations are taking risks to be inclusive and we have models worth considering, not yet for widespread replication, rather, to inform and inspire. Developing a culture of experimentation will be essential in bridging the large gap between where we are and where we need to be. Learning to be comfortable with risk, healthy conflict and change is also critical. Culture change will necessitate that we stop punishing our truth-tellers and risk-takers and instead cultivate cultures of curiosity and humility.

As we have heard the stories of how people have been treated in our communities, we also believe it critical to develop healthy processes for repair, restoration and reparations. Within our larger Association and within our local communities, we need healthy processes for repairing relationships which have been damaged and understanding the boundaries that come with such restoration. When wrong is done, our practice should be to name and confront rather than ignore or cover up. Unitarian Universalism as a whole is woefully behind other civic and religious groups in exploring what it would mean to make real reparations to those who have been wronged as the resources which fuel our faith have been built on the uncompensated property of indigenous people and the unpaid work of people of color, especially African Americans during slavery, and of women.

And the last area we have identified based on interviews, conversations and surveys is the need to enact mechanisms of accountability and integrity towards shared goals of equity, inclusion, and diversity which transcend particular leadership. Mechanisms of accountability and integrity that identify the chains of command, place checks and balances through the system, and promote just relations are needed. Accountability is to the principles, to the commitments that have been and will be made; it is not accountability to any one group of people.

Next for the Commission on Institutional Change

As we leave here, the Commission will be focused on completing our data collection activities and our audit of systemic racism.  We will continue to analyze the information we have collected to date including all that you will share with us over the next two days. The last area or inquiry from our charge will be to explore systematic ways to repair the harms and heal relationships. We will then turn our attention to writing our recommendations for the continued work in our Association and congregations.  We’ll be delivering those culminating in a final report at next year’s General Assembly. When we started this work, we reflected on the necessity for our work not to be a report that sits on a shelf and is not actioned. Our history has many stories of starting anti-racism efforts, moving on without completing the work and reaping the consequences and harm of this approach. In one of the focus groups this spring, a participant likened the continued focus needed to create real transformation to making microwave popcorn. You need the full-on, full two minutes without stopping because 12, 10 second intervals isn’t going to get you your popcorn. We want to invite all of you to continue in this work with us and stay the course so we can all live the promise of our faith.

How can you help? First, by participating in the conversations and survey. And most importantly by getting your congregation talking about and engaged in conversation about how to be more hospitable and inclusive. We have resources on our page and suggested practices. We will make available study materials through our blog and the Congregational Resources section of our website.

Our work has convinced us that engagement in this work is essential to the future of our faith in this era when organized religion is on the decline. We have the beliefs that make sense and a culture that needs to be recentered. So many identify with who we are and yet cannot find a home among us. Too many have been injured by our lack of awareness. Younger and more engaged people expect a progressive religion to be hospitable and welcoming. Though there are many levels of engagement, from dialogue to learning and studying, to advocacy and self-reflection and learning, if you can do nothing else, the most basic support is to acknowledge the need for change, to listen and to not block action. Ultimately this will allow us to move to the structural reform and advocacy which we need and which we can do if we stay in dialogue.

It has arrived, the week of General Assembly 2019! The Commission on Institutional Change invites you to learn about its work and to share in it at GA 2019. For a full list of the Commission’s programming check out this blog post: https://tinyurl.com/CoIC-GA2019. The Commission is seeking to document incidents that occurred between individual Unitarian Universalists, within a congregational or Associational setting, or as a result of white-centeredness embedded within the greater Unitarian Universalist culture. To sign up for a focus group conducted by VISIONS, Inc. the Commission’s external auditor, please complete this form: https://forms.gle/7rUEmUeeUoThmrcx8

COMMISSIONER GA OFFICE HOURS

Exhibit Hall DRUUMM Booth

Friday 1 — 7 PM, & Saturday 3 — 4:30 PM

This year the Commission on Institutional Change has been engaged in shaping and framing General Assembly 2019, “The Power of We.” You are invited to join the Commission’s various activities and panels at General Assembly 2019 to learn about its work and to share in it.

Commission Programming

MINISTRY DAYS COLLEGIAL CONVERSATION

Tuesday, 2:00 pm — 3:15 pm

Rev. Leslie Takahashi and Rev. Dr. Natalie Fenimore of the Commission on Institutional Change will be on hand at Ministry Days to host a Collegial Conversation about how leading to create a community that is inclusive, equitable and diverse is challenging, requires quick wits and new strategies. Come and engage in conversation with members of the Commission on Institutional Change about the “bright spots” and effective strategies being explored. A brief update on the Commission’s work will also be provided. Ministry Days and LREDA Professional Days Participants may join in the conversation.

THEME PROGRAM AND CONVERSATIONS I: REDEEMING THE PROMISE OF OUR FAITH

Friday, 1:30 pm – 4:00 pm, Convention Center Hall BC

How does “The Power of We” deepen our faith as a source of liberation and transformation for all? Together we will build a common vocabulary, share perspectives on institutional and cultural barriers to diversity, equity and inclusion and share our stories as part of the Commission on Institutional Change’s work.

Rev. Leslie Takahashi Cir L’Bert, JR. Mary Byron Dr. Elias Ortega-Aponte Rev. Dr. Natalie Fenimore

CENTERING LIBERATION THROUGH UU THEOLOGIES

Saturday, 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm Convention Center 111C

This workshop seeks to reflect on the liberatory potential of Unitarian Universalist theologies. It will consider how the findings of the Commission on Institutional Change can inform our commitment to theological perspectives that resist white supremacy culture, that hold us accountable to the ways we have harm each other, and points to practices of hope.

Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt Rev. Leslie Takahashi Dr. Elias Ortega-Aponte

Share Your Stories with the Commission

Stories and Testimonials about Racism

The Commission continues to gather personal accounts and stories about how racism has affected individuals and groups within Unitarian Universalism at the personal, institutional, or systemic levels. We seek to document incidents that occurred between individual Unitarian Universalists, within a congregational or Associational setting, or as a result of white-centeredness embedded within the greater Unitarian Universalist culture. To sign up for a focus group conducted by the Commission’s external racism auditor VISIONS, Inc. completer our online form.

Office Hours

If you have questions about the work of the Commission or need a little more information on the upcoming Theme Program & Conversations I: Redeeming the Promise of Our Faith, we invite you to stop by the DRUUMM Booth in the exhibit hall to speak with a Commissioner Friday between 1 and 7 PM, or Saturday between 3 and 4:30 PM.

By Commission On Institutional Change

In our work toward the beloved community, a search for a common language and clarity around the meaning of the words and terms used by those with diverging opinions is crucial. The work of the Commission on Institutional Change indicates that there will probably be no consensus on language and yet a lack of consensus should not get in the way of continued conversation and action.

Many terms evoke discomfort, due to their past and current cultural usage across various generations, the interpreter’s experience, and various ways of understanding.

“White supremacy culture” is one such term that has continually presented a block in our goal toward a world of freedom, justice, and equality. We hear, for example, that some are very concerned about the term “White Supremacy Culture” associated with their UU faith though those very words were used in the charge to the Commission.

Why Focus on White Supremacy Culture/Racism?

In my reading, our first principle leads us to value the inherent worth and dignity of all people, and our second principle, asserts the importance of equity.

These two principles definitively oppose the concept of white supremacy, the reality of white hegemony, and the concept of “whiteness” having more inherent worth and value than other identities.

Further, both our personal journeys of acceptance and communal journeys toward universal equity among people reflect the history of our denomination’s journey from the “chosen people” trope of our more Calvinist roots, to the ever growing union of universalism.

Definitions

The term “white supremacy” has an image for many of Neo-Nazi skinheads, Confederate flags, and swastikas, and other individualized expressions.

For others, the term “white supremacy culture” describes the totality of race-based oppression, in its ideological interpersonal, institutional, internalized, and intersectional expressions—the term describes both the breadth and the depth of the impact in a way other terms such as “oppression” or “unconscious bias” do not.

On one hand, we have a definition that is so individualized that many of us, rightfully, fail to identify with it.

On the other hand, we have a definition that is so broad, as to occasionally overlook the processes which carried us to our current system of racial hegemony.

And further, some of us find it difficult to see our submergence in this cultural setting especially when we are ourselves victims of its brutal logic, due to our own individual places within its gradation. For others, the myth of individuality and meritocracy obscures the reality of privilege.

In my work over the past few years, and with the help of many colleagues and loved ones, I’ve come to some helpful ways of defining and interpreting this woeful system of oppression we find ourselves in.

Also, that while we may not agree on every instance of terminology, we may reach a common agreement on history and process.

In the spirit of that “search for truth and meaning” uplifted in our fourth principle, I submit an opinion on the definitions and processes as I understand them.

White Supremacist Ideology

An all-encompassing ideological system that permeates our entire way of life.

White supremacy is an ideology and organizing principle that presents an intrinsic denial of the African origins of life and civilization in favor of a revisionist view whereby all civilization and culture stems from Europe, centers the white male as the standard from which all other humans deviate, and seeks to create and maintain “whiteness’ as the dominant currency within the system it creates.

Historically, this belief system has been supported by major religions, social, educational, legal, and political institutions within the United States. The result is the stratification of society into a system where whiteness is considered the ideal, proximity to whiteness beneficial, and non-whiteness subject to ongoing surveillance and control.

White Assimilation and Aggression

The historical record shows us that the current system was created through a combination of “guile, fortuitous outcome of circumstance and sheer brutality” as described by author George Jackson(1941-1971) by people with explicit racial and class interests in mind.

White Assimilation

This refers to the process by which one small group of Europeans (initially Anglo-Americans, which became the planter class/“Slave Power”) colludes to maintain power over everyone by aggressively assimilating successive waves of Europeans into the “white” cultural group, establishing several layers of agents and buffers.

White Aggression

This term references the racially based genocide, enslavement, disempowerment, and exploitation of non-white groups by means of violent coercion, manipulation, and collusion.

White Domination

This delineates a racial caste system that ensures the White identity’s comfort, safety, defense, power allotment, and influence paramount over all other identities.

Though the usage of “domination” may seem harsh to some, I believe it is nonetheless more accurate than “supremacy.” Europeans are not in control of the planet’s resources because they are inherently supreme rather this has been accomplished and maintained by force.

The laws, the legal system, policing, the school system, hiring policies, public bureaucracy, the housing industry, media, cultural images, political power, and so on, all privilege people of European descent who possess various gradations of “white skin”.

Summary

White supremacy is best understood as an ideology, a belief system, or even a pathology*, not an action or effect or even a culture.

White supremacy is not inherently true as white people are not inherently supreme. In fact, that false assumption or belief that white people are supreme, can be understood as the defining part of that ideology. That false belief is then used to inspire aggression toward other Europeans, and “non-whites”, with the purpose of establishing a racial caste system.

White supremacy is the ideology, white assimilation and aggression are the actions, white domination is the outcome. This is my analysis.

*mental, social, or linguistic abnormality or malfunction, not medical

Deepening Spiritually

The Commission on Institutional Change calls us in to a practice of deep listening and reflection on the words of others.

Randomly select a line of reading from this blog post and try to engage it on these four different levels:

• What is being said in this line of text?
• Allegorically, what words or symbols jump out at you in this line of text?
• How does this line of text speak to your own life?
• Lastly, what do you feel called to after reflection on this line of text?

For a demonstration on how to engage in this practice listen to the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast on commitment: http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/listen-2