May 2017 Inclusivity Team Order of Service Insert.

Download the PDF of this insert. (full text below)

What is White Supremacy?

Why “white supremacy” as the term here? It conjures up images of hoods and mobs. Here, we mean: “White supremacy as a set of institutional assumptions and practices, often operating unconsciously, that tend to benefit white people and exclude people of color.” In 2017, actual “white supremacists” are not required in order to uphold white supremacist culture. Building a faith full of people who understand that key distinction is essential as we work toward a more just society in difficult political times.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your meth-ods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the time-table for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrat-ing than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

Let’s Work Together to Lower the Line.

Want to Learn More?

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU)
http://www.blacklivesuu.com/teachin/

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King, Jr.
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_ Birmingham.html

What is White Supremacy? Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez
https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/up-loads/2013/01/What_Is_White_Supremacy_ Martinez.pdf