Tag: Unitarian Universalism

Black in White Spaces

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Yesterday, I offered a message at First Parish in Cambridge based on my thoughts around being black in white spaces.  In January, I consciously chose not to mention Black History Month until the very last Sunday of February.  I wanted to see how people responded to my not naming it.  We still brought plenty of black history through the month, but I wanted to “normalize” the inclusion of black history into our basic worship experience.

Black and other clergy of color serving largely white churches have a particular set of challenges. Among those challenges is being able to invite direct communication and even criticism from our congregants and staff.  It is a challenge because too often I have heard of these communications not happening because white congregants and colleagues believe they will be perceived as being racist.  Being criticized for our work as ministers or being called into covenant is not racist.  Being lied to, worked around or having information witheld from us is racist.  It is an expression of mistrust based in seeing someone as the “other”.  If you are being racist (or sexist, or abelist) we will tell you and we deserve the right to do so, just as you must tell us when we are doing the same…which we do.  We are human.

After a brief discussion about Black History Month yesterday, I offered a poem: BLACK IN WHITE SPACES. The following is the final stanza of the piece and the poem in its entirety is available here: Black in White Spaces – Poem.

Black in white spaces
Has for me been a painful blessing
A journey of understanding
Of self and surroundings.
I’m sure this equation is shifting
My observations will soon be obsolete
But in the meantime, I am happy to be a guide.
And isn’t it ironic that the “black power” child
May be the one holding the candle in the darkness of white spaces.

-ALD

#FeedtheFeverofLove

.Reading time 4 minutes.

This morning, I could write about the sickness of gun culture. I could write about the incompetent presidential administration. I could write about another nation working to sew discord in ours. I could write about yet another white mass murderer captured alive. I could write about politicians who value job security over lives. I could write about many things for many people…

But today, I’m writing specifically to the people of color in my chosen faith tradition of Unitarian Universalism asking us all to invest in better direct communication with one another. I believe that we are uniquely positioned to lead the change that the world needs to embrace. We have the creativity, the diverse and divergent views that don’t abandon each other in crisis and frankly we have the trans-generational resilience to stick it out, however long the struggle takes. If we want to see a healthier world, it must begin somewhere and I believe it can begin with us.

I am a casual student of the history of war. I am fascinated by the human desire to destroy the one thing that we all share…life. In that study, I have learned that the primary difference between warfare before WWI and afterward was the proximity of combat. WWI was the first widespread use of weaponry that allowed for anonymous killing. Machine guns, more powerful rifles, advanced bombing techniques and air power allowed mass killing to be faceless. Although there were plenty of horrifically deadly conflicts prior to “The Great War” none had previously been so impersonal.

As I see it, the latest iteration of that anonymous battlefield has become social media.

My personal prayer is that Unitarian Universalist people of color learn to lead the way in detoxifying our own discourses, de-emphasizing the veil of social media and remembering that if it can be said on a smartphone through Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, it can also be said by dialing someone’s number and talking directly to them. And even if it is not about talking in real time, or face to face, we can at least work to recapture the art of deep listening in social media spaces. I am not “calling out” any specific situation or person/people.  I have been wrestling with this for a few years now.  What is more, I also acknowledge that everyone has different ways of communicating for any number of reasons both physical and technological. But none of us can afford to forget that people of color have already had their faces and their identities too frequently erased by the dominant culture.  It does none of us any good to be doing it to ourselves whether it be by shutting each other down, shutting each other out, or shutting each other up. We have an opportunity to model the multi-cultural, interfaith world that everyone else just talks about as a pipe dream. But we must actually be in conversation with each other in order to do so.

Starve the sickness of self-righteousness; feed the fever of love.

#feedthefeveroflove

– ALD