This Sunday’s exploration and teaching on “White Supremacy” was a great beginning!
I would like to encourage everyone to watch the entire speech delivered by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on “Race and Monuments.” And, we need to have small group discussions on this topic as, I believe, we have diverse perspectives and experiences related to this issue. We need to “hear each other out” and see where we go from here.
Personally, I found the picture of the all white and overwhelmingly male folks President Trump has surrounded himself with to be VERY DISTURBING. It just seems like business as usual. How long do those of us who are not white males have to wait to have our voices included? Right now we live in a time when we desperately need new ways of thinking and acting…we need a diversity of intelligence to carry us through the challenges we face.
The examples Cathy gave of men on the supreme court, even the Unitarian Taft, trying to define “whiteness” shows us how we fail to see more of the truth when any system is dominated by one sector of the population. Don’t get me wrong, white men can make good decisions but they make better decisions when they integrate and then collaborate with women, people of color, those who are disabled, and those who have diverse sexual orientations.
In our church, of all places, let us strive to become even more open, to be inclusive of those who don’t watch PBS, like to listen to RAP music and all kinds of music, enjoy hearing from different kinds of religion, don’t have a university degree, are not middle/upper class. My hope is that we can be a church that LOVES everyone and works to create beloved community.
Respectfully Submitted,
Judith Pedersen-Benn, Social Justice Chair