Regarding the sermon title, What’s Going On? US Racism and Us,” the “Us” refers to Unitarian Universalists and our living tradition.
“What’s Going On?” refers to Marvin Gaye’s 1971 hit song we heard in the beginning of the service. It was written about a soldier coming home from Vietnam. Did you feel the power written into that song? When he recorded it, Marvin had many hits under his belt. He was the prince of Motown. Gaye brought his signature smooth sexy soul sound. He brought his pop influence to a blossoming protest culture. Motown did NOT want to release it. Marvin told them that if they didn’t release it, he wouldn’t release the rest of his album.
The song is historic, and yet it is painfully relevant 52 years later. In ’71, the hippie culture and the anti-war movement were rocking the establishment. Today, reactionary forces are making the big waves. Underneath MAGA & anti-woke mania are fears of white Christians losing their place of privilege and power in society. White society fears that a reckoning is coming soon. The nation has been brutal and unjust to people of color for too long for it not to come.
At the core of division are two polar opposite views: to acknowledge and seek to repair the trauma of racism or to ban ban teaching of its existence. How will our (Unitarian Universalist) denomination respond?
Education always plays a vital role in the advancement of humanity. If teaching the history of oppression and racism is prohibited in public schools, progressive congregations will need to step up. We can contribute significantly toward human learning if and only if we are willing to advance our education, further develop our anti-oppression consciousness and skill. We can’t give what we haven’t learned. In order to retain the integrity and vitality of our prophetic and social justice tradition, we ourselves will need to do our own work.
During the years of the civil rights movement, there were excitement, hope and passionate attempts to invest in Black efforts to diversify our denomination. Hope, passion and empowerment led to Black UUs plans and proposals for creation of congregations whose culture would appeal to more blacks. For reasons that are still debated, what came instead was conflict and a Black Exodus from from Unitarian Universalist churches.
Fifty years later, many UUs know this history and are determined not to repeat it. Religious educators led nationwide teach-in on White Supremacy. Many congregations adopted an 8th principle. There has been a growing determination on the part of many to see our predominantly white denomination transform itself away from the white supremacy culture that is written into our normal social structures of inequity and violence.
It’s hard work but we have taken a lead many times before on advances in justice and dignity.
This work is bigger than us, and we lack the ability to complete it. However, we have much to contribute. We have a part to play in the healing of this nation’s original sins of slavery and genocide!
Maybe a good start is for us to seek clarity by asking ourselves: What is our part? What is the work that is ours to do?
A growing number of people have been breaking through the misinformation and false narratives given to us about our country’s history. These narratives have been cornerstones of American patriotism. The problem is that the narratives deny the truth of how the wealth of this nation was acquired. Continuance of the narrative means continuation of the myth of white superiority, which led to and provided the justification for the capture, murder, torture, rape, and countless other cruelties inflicted on kidnapped and enslaved African people, as well as the genocide and obliteration of the numerous Indigenous Nations of the Americas.
Traumas of this magnitude are difficult to consider. The chain of trauma reaches back through hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history: the Inquisition, medieval wars, cruelties endured by citizens of societies built upon domination.
Europeans carried these traumas with them when they invaded the Americas. The genocide of native Americans and the treatment of kidnapped and enslaved Africans became driving forces that shaped U.S. culture and character.
It may be obvious to us that suffering continues to be visited upon African Americans and Native Americans. To be a prophetic faith we must heed cries for justice. I believe to do this, we also need to get a better picture of how profoundly this truama effects society and ALL of us. The unhealed trauma of slavery, the continuance of caste system, these are responsible for the violence, suffering and division tearing our country apart.
Slavery, torture, lynchings, and rampant police killing of Black men and women have had deleterious impact upon our collective psyche. The same is true of US attempted genocide that continues to this day through exploitation of indigenous lands, breach of treaties and disregard for native rights. The wounds from all these remain open.
The soul of this nation longs for healing. How do we repair harm done to Black and Native people? How do interrupt for good the cycles of violence? Perhaps we, the people, do not know what to do. Perhaps we don’t know how to respond to the challenges our nation faces.
Healing will require all who have gained privilege in America to examine our responsibility and become committed to do what it takes to correct and repair this harm.
We need to move beyond guilt to unleash the power of love that lies dormant. We need to gain understanding of how our patterns continue to harm. The lingering effects of trauma tend to dim human intelligence and imagination. We must find a way to correct our vision. And we can’t wait until we are fully enlightened to act. Changing behaviors will be essential in our education.
There have been many events in the last seven years that have created or contributed to widespread trauma, including the rise of white supremacist hate groups, mass shootings, the pandemic, loss of human rights, climate catastrophes, and the work of adherents of Steve Bannon’s strategy of “flooding the zone”.
Trauma it turns out, can be good for business. Traumatized people desperate for relief, can be sold all manner of crap. Demagogues exploit and fan fears. Traumatized people can be divided. All of these effects enable the richest to capture greater shares of wealth.
In a functioning democracy with an educated and empowered populace, shared interests can lead to cooperation and the building of social structures that enable health and progressive quality of life for all.
In times of great oppression, kindness, joy, creativity, hope, community organizing, and building bonds of connection are powerful acts of bravery. Racism and all forms of oppression serve to divide humanity and create a culture of “each person for themselves.” Promoting “we are all in this together” is an act of rebellion. Being anti-racist is what’s needed to make humanity humane again.
Privilege has enabled many of us to survive with at least some of our critical thinking skills intact! We have likely escaped or been spared the worst of oppression’s disempowering effects.
Many of us have had great advantages regarding education, which have been instrumental in our efforts to help bend society toward justice, dignity, and beauty. We are often economically advantaged as well, giving us the slack to focus on matters other than immediate survival. UUs can use this ability for sustained thinking to help strategize for justice. In this way, we put our privilege in service of the greater good.
Additionally, our tradition has supported us to develop faith in human capacity to shape our destiny. We have a history of finding reasons for optimism!
Perhaps our hope lies in getting honest about the contributions of working-class and poor people, people of color, indigenous and other marginalized people toward the success of progressive social change efforts. Not only the labor but also the intelligence of oppressed groups has been and will remain essential.
Oppressed people bring insights and create effective strategies for change because they know what’s going on! They are intimately acquainted with the effects of society’s failings in very real ways that those higher up the privilege ladder may not experience or understand. Because of this, they often see more clearly what is needed. When I was a boy, there was a bumper sticker that said: If you think the system is working, ask someone who isn’t.
Working-class people have consistently provided the labor force for social change. Oppressed people are often the ones willing to go to the great lengths needed for significant change to occur. Labor unions are responsible for increasing the safety of workers. They enabled an unprecedented standard of living in the 20th century.
One of the key reasons I was attracted to and have remained connected to this UU thing, is our ability and proclivity to roll up our sleeves, put on our thinking caps, and then stay engaged long enough to be part of a tide turning toward justice.
And if you think of these matters as strictly political and not religious or spiritual, keep coming back! There is a strong and unmistakable stream that runs through our modern religious history and can be traced back through Jesus to the prophets. It’s a connection to what some of us call God. Others of us name this connection Truth, Beauty, Decency, or Humanity that inspires and requires us to oppose whatever oppresses humans. It is Jesus’ central thought articulated when he said What you do to the least of these, you do unto me.
Our ancestors were leaders in the fight for abolition of slavery. We have occupied both rank and file and leadership positions among social justice movements in our country. Though our numbers are small, again and again, we have participated disproportionately in forces for progressive social change. Anthropologist Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
To be honest, we UUs haven’t always leveraged our privilege in service of the social gospel. Often, we’ve hidden in our ivory towers. Denial can be very compelling. We can admit the inclination in us to choose safety, ease, and comfort over justice, spiritual growth, or righteousness. Here are some of the excuses we might use: Look at all the good our members do. The sanctuary inspires and equips us to bring compassion and advocacy into the world. Isn’t that good enough? And we have a small congregation in a predominantly white town.
What do you expect us to do? We are some of the most progressive people in town. Isn’t that enough?
One thing we could do that would be courageous and bold would be to shift the motivation for our progressive activism from guilt to love. We can grow in effectiveness by growing in our capacity to love. Our work might include looking at the places where fear rules us, and replace it by enthroning love. By now we all know that love is more than sentimentality or being chronically nice. Love gets to be hard work sometimes. True?
We can continue to use our educational resources in many creative ways. We can use them to move us out of our addiction to comfort. We can educate ourselves on how to become allies by paying attention to what is being asked for
by members of the groups we wish to ally ourselves with. If we take our work seriously, we’ll be directed back to discover the many ways we participate in systemic racism.
We can become clear on the difference and the overlap between personal bias and systemic racism. We can learn
how our efforts can prop up or dismantle systemic racism. We can become effective in our anti-racist efforts.
We can bring a focus of learning and progressive anti-racist work to our church. Whit people can study the words of people of color who have spoken or written about the everyday racism they have encountered within our congregations. We will learn how wonderful and well-meaning progressive people like us visit the pain of racism to our brothers and sisters of color.
Choosing spiritual growth will mean examining the racist patterns we carry. By educating and transforming our thinking, speech and behavior, we will learn to become advocates for healing beyond us. We can move beyond focus on individual failings to address the systemic patterns of harm. We apply our learning to our own denomination, and work to heal the harms we have created knowingly or unknowingly. This will make us more effective beyond our doors. We can become advocates for the healing of our movement and our nation.
We can do this because we love Unitarian Universalism, and we know that to be who we claim to be, we must be willing to learn and grow. We can do what is needed to nurture this next huge step to keep our vision, our dreams, our legacy, and our spirit alive.
So may it be. Amen. Ashay.
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