I have often been tempted by the big redeeming moment, the one event, or belief, or change that I could make that would win a truly just and equitable world. But that’s not how this works, not how the work of changing the systems around us to be more just and equitable happens. As we ask what our faith tradition is calling us to live into in this moment, how we can become the allies and accomplices we are being asked to be, we find an invitation to daily struggle that will transform each of us.
This year, the Service of the Living Tradition sermon at our Unitarian Universalist General Assembly was given by Rev. Sofia Betancourt. Rev. Betancourt, you may remember, served in 2017 as the first female Co-President of our Association, when she was one of three African-American Co-Presidents. Her guidance has been patient and persistent as our movement has sought to dismantle systems of inequality within and beyond Unitarian Universalism. The sermon I am about to quote from is printed in this month’s edition of the UU World, and I encourage folks to read it there in its entirety. Here is what Rev. Betancourt says about our spiritual journey at this moment in time:
“Poet and prophet Audre Lorde told those embarking on a next great journey that it was their small actions, their everyday decisions, and how they moved through this world that not only gave them power, but would define our future. She did not offer them a great redeeming moment, she simply steered them back to the daily struggle, to what we might call faithful living.
This is about the journey of redemption.”
Today, we ask ourselves how our Unitarian Universalist faith is calling us to show up in the current moment. And the answer comes, that it is our small actions, our everyday decisions that give us power and define our future. No “great redeeming moment,” but rather a daily struggle for faithful living. Our faith commitments must be ever-present. How can we gird ourselves for this work, knowing it’s not a one-time thing, but rather something we do over the course of lifetimes and generations? Rev. Betancourt says:
“When I look for something to hold on to in these days when the death struggles of institutionalized white supremacy and heteropatriarchal capitalism are attacking every group thrown to the margins to justify unearned privilege and immoral gains, I turn to the wisdom of activists who have long taught us that our liberation is collective. Many of us know the words attributed to indigenous Australian activist, Lilla Watson, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Watson herself reminds us that this wisdom has grown collectively from activists and organizers, so I want to bring us back to one of our own, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who is remembered for teaching us that “we are all bound up together.” Collective salvation was not a new idea at the time, though Harper predates the theologians in our own tradition best known for embracing this worldview.”
Collective liberation. Collective salvation. These are the difficult but important truths UUs are being called to live into, today. There will always be more to do in our lifetimes, and we who would change the world will do well to find a method of participation that helps us to develop the stamina necessary for keeping doing what needs to be done.
So, what does need to be done? What are our priorities in this work? It would be foolhardy to look at what is happening in our country right now and not conclude we must vigorously join in the fight against white nationalism. August marked one year since the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville and the counter-protest when activist Heather Heyer was killed. In the words of Common and John Legend in the song “Glory”: “They marched with the torch, we gon’ run with it now.”
White Nationalism, the belief that the United States is and should remain a nation that is comprised of and ruled by white people, is a real threat today.The work of opposing White Nationalism is so real, and so imminent, so necessary to preserving the soul of our country and of our world. That’s part of the reason many of us white folks get impatient and defensive when the culture of our movement is described as White Supremacist: it can feel like such conversations detract from our ability to fight against White Nationalism today, in the ways that are needed right now. There are very real and important differences between Unitarian Universalists and White Nationalists. Using the language of White Supremacy can feel like it muddies that distinction, right when we need clear battle lines so we can fight, and we can win. One way of making the differences clear that I have found helpful, is to use the term “White Nationalist” for the Tiki-torch crowd, and the term “White Supremacy” to refer to systems of oppression in which we all participate and are called to dismantle. However, “White Supremacy” as a term can still be confusing to many of our partners in this work, and can elicit an unhelpful conflation in people’s minds. So, if referring to the problems that are internal to our movement that we need to overcome as “systemic racism”, or “systems of oppression” feels clearer and more helpful to you in your mind and in your context, I invite you to please use whatever terminology feels right. I care more about us working together to fight White Nationalism than I do that each of us uses the same terminology.
Where do we focus then: the White Nationalism that is out there? Or the building of a more just and equitable faith movement that we are working on internally to UUism? To borrow a phrase from some of my favorite folks at Crooked Media: we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can do both, and doing either of them well necessarily involves working on the other. The best leaders in our movement are not strong on one and weak on the other, rather they each set the example of how being good at fighting against White Nationalism also puts you in a position to be good at opposing systemic oppression.
Which brings me to the current President of our Unitarian Universalist Association, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray. You may remember that she got arrested protesting SB 1070, the racist immigration law in Arizona, in 2010. She also organized the “Justice General Assembly” in Phoenix in 2012, when thousands of UUs joined together for a vigil outside of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tent cities, bringing hope to the incarcerated and fear to the hearts of evil-doers. Last August, she stood shoulder to shoulder with other faith leaders at a counter-protest of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. This was not your ordinary counter-protest, not just a photo opportunity. Here is President Frederick-Gray’s description of the clergy’s run-in with alt-right protesters that day:
“The night before the rally was to take place, white supremacists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia with fiery torches. They assaulted members of the Black Student Alliance. They marched on to a Presbyterian church where faith leaders were gathered in a peaceful worship service, blocking the doors so people could not leave. Throughout this the police were nowhere. The police were similarly absent as men armed with long guns marched in front of a Charlottesville synagogue during services shouting hate-filled Nazi slogans at the faithful worshipers. The synagogue had asked for and been told that they would be given police protection. No police showed up.
The next morning, the police again stood back, far from the crowds. We faith leaders stood face to face with well-armed white men dressed in surplus military gear, carrying long guns and hundreds and hundreds of rounds of ammunition: a right-wing volunteer militia supposedly “policing” the event. And then, when dozens and dozens of white supremacists came marching down the street chanting and yelling with shields and helmets and bats and sticks, coming right at the faith leaders gathered by the park, the police moved back. Violence only started when antifascist groups stepped forward to protect the faith leaders, when they saw the police were doing nothing and would do nothing. It was absolutely terrifying to see that level of armed white nationalist violence, and it was terrifying to see it go completely unchecked by police.”
I have been arrested three times for civil disobedience. The situation that Rev. Frederick-Gray is describing is on an entirely additional level of risk-taking, of putting one’s body and life on the line. If I had been in the position she describes, I would have been directly contemplating my own mortality when I realized that armed White Nationalists were operating independent of police intercession. She’s fighting White Nationalism with courage and ferocity.
At the same time, President Frederick-Gray is working to dismantle systemic inequity in our own Unitarian Universalist movement. It’s not an either/or for her, it’s a both/and. The folks who do the best work at fighting White Nationalism are also generally doing the best job dismantling structures of oppression in existing institutions. I can tell you from personal conversations at GA this summer, it was not lost on the leaders of color in our movement the high degree of personal risk that President Frederick-Gray took in Charlottesville. It has not been lost on them, that she has used every opportunity so far in her administration to give promotions and public spotlights to leaders of color in our movement. She hasn’t been perfect, but she is demonstrating what this work looks like at an institutional level.
And, she is demonstrating what it looks like to bring a healthy awareness of one’s own privilege to this work. After describing the terror of realizing police would not intervene against armed protesters, here is what she said about her personal reaction:
… I own and want to name how my shock reveals my own white privilege. And hear this: my own assumption that the police are in the business of protecting me, my body, my safety, that is not an assumption that everyone gets to make. Police largely stood down to give space for armed white men to carry out intimidation and violence throughout the community of Charlottesville for days, but in Ferguson, Missouri, when unarmed black people came out to the streets to protest and mourn the killing of a young Michael Brown, they were met with a militarized police force armed with tanks and tear gas.
For President Frederick-Gray protest and action are also opportunities for learning and reflection. In my experience, they are the best such opportunities. So, I hope that our discussions about White Nationalism and institutional racism will not be based on a false choice between which of the two we devote our energies to, but rather how each can and must inform the other.
I suspect that for many of us, getting arrested at a protest is an unrealistic or unimaginable form of protest. If it is realistic for you, please let me know, I want to have you on speed dial! But for most folks, it’s out of the question. However, let me tell you, your support for protest actions by your congregation is still very impactful. As you prepare to call your next minister, let the search team know if it matters to you that activist involvement is part of the settled minister’s priorities. Utilize all the ways you can, both directly and indirectly, to let your minister know that you support their acting for justice in the public eye. Take pride in the knowledge that everything you do to support this congregation is a contribution to public actions your minister might undertake; when I got arrested last year while working for a congregation, the barriers were as much about setting aside time in a busy schedule as they were around fears of arrest itself. It matters, trust me, it really matters to ministers whether they feel like they have the enthusiastic support of their congregation when deciding about something big like civil disobedience. Your participation in the fight against White Nationalism matters, and so do the signals you send to those around you.
Let us remember the wisdom received from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Audre Lorde, and Lilla Watson, that “we are all bound up together,” that “if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then (we can) work together,” and that we must always steer each other back to the daily struggle of faithful living.
Peace, Salaam, Shalom, and may it be so.
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation
September 2, 2018
© Rev. Jonathan Rogers