This sermon was given on 30 November, 2014, by Rachel Udow. We had an excellent group discussion afterwards, just between the sermon and the final hymn.
“The sixth Principle seems extravagant in its hopefulness and improbable in its prospects. Can we continue to say we want ‘world community’? ‘Peace, liberty, and justice for all’? The world is full of genocide, abuse, terror, and war. What have we gotten ourselves into?
“As naïve or impossible as the sixth Principle may seem, I’m not willing to give up on it. In the face of our culture’s apathy and fear, I want to imagine and help create a powerful vision of peace by peaceful means, liberty by liberatory means, justice by just means. I want us to believe—and to live as if we believe—that a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all is possible. There is no guarantee that we will succeed, but I can assure you that we will improve ourselves and improve the world by trying.”
—Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, Tree of Life Congregation, McHenry, IL
Reading 2:
(This excerpt is from the most recent issue of UU World and predates the grand jury’s decision on Ferguson)
“As we tentatively enter the aftermath of this summer’s events in Ferguson, we are all choosing to whom we will listen, deciding which accounts we will believe. Such times of not knowing can be transformative, when something new has happened, or something old has been seen in a new way, and the official story hasn’t yet been written.
Times of not knowing aren’t my favorite. I like to feel well-informed and smart, and it is unsettling to realize how deep my unknowing goes. Right now a lot of white people are saying, “Let’s just wait for the experts to tell us what really happened. I recognize the impulse: to find someone impartial and fair, who knows the truth, so that we can know what ‘really’ happened.
Pew Research statistics show that 76 percent of black people don’t expect official investigations into Michael Brown’s killing to be of any help, while most whites think they will help. How do we move forward, in a nation with statistics like that?”
- The Rev. Meg Riley, Church of the Larger Fellowship
Sermon: Moving Toward the 6th Principle by Rachel Udow
This is a different sermon
than the one I was planning to give a week ago: “A Grant Writer’s Guide to the
Sixth Principle.” Fortunately, I tend to work best under pressure – which is a
nice way of saying that I tend to procrastinate – and so I hadn’t gotten very
far with my original concept before the grand jury’s decision on Ferguson impelled
me to change course.
Our first reading, from
the Rev. Sean Parker, begins: “The sixth principle seems extravagant in its
hopefulness and improbable in its prospects…What have we gotten ourselves
into?” I’m feeling this as acutely as ever after this week’s verdict and
ensuing events.
Regardless of where
individuals throughout the United States stand on the verdict, I don’t think
there’s a person in this country who would argue that the events surrounding
Michael Brown’s death and the aftermath have been reflective of a “world
community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.”
In the face of the myriad
ways one could unpack the relationship between Ferguson and the 6th
principle, I’d like to focus on one: the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter.” Black
Lives Matter…I’ve been turning this over and over in my mind. To say Black
Lives Matter implies that there is a need to say it – implies that we have a
situation of Black Lives Not Mattering.
In last week’s sermon,
Emily referenced postcolonial and feminist theorist Chandra Mohanty, who said
that “privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges.” In my
29 years, it has never occurred to me to, first of all, think of myself as a
“life” attached to one facet of my identity, and, second of all, state out loud
that I matter as one of these lives. Let me unpack those two points.
The first point was that
I’ve never thought of myself as a life attached to a facet of my identity. I
have many “identity markers,” as we all do: White, Female, Daughter, Dog
Mother, Friend, Musician, Employee, and Small Business Owner are some examples.
Still, I think of myself primarily as “Rachel” and the unique configuration of
identity markers that is me; I don’t think of myself as a “White Life” or any
other kind of “Life.” Privilege is at work here; none of my identity markers has
ever caused me so much trouble as to become particularly defining. As far as I
know, nobody reads the visual manifestations of my identity – my skin color,
for example – and feels threatened to the point of needing to kill me in order
to feel safe.
The second thing that has
never occurred to me is that my life does not matter. Of course it matters. Why
wouldn’t it? I’m pretty sure this is what Mohanty was talking about when she
said that privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges. The
statement “Black Lives Matter” is impactful to me because of my unfailing confidence
in my own life mattering. While I’m painfully aware that injustice and
inequality are rampant, I’m still able to be startled by the need to assert that the very lives of a whole race of
people do, in fact, matter.
Yesterday morning, Melissa
Harris Perry – writer, professor, television host, and political commentator – asked
a diverse group of experts on her show to weigh in on the question, “Do black
lives matter?”
Salamishah Tillet,
Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, responded:
“What does it mean to be part of a country that was predicated on black lives
not mattering? Or mattering only in the service of property or service of
maintaining the power of white, slave-holding society? It’s a founding
principle, the fact that black people have been denied humanity as a part of
the democratic experience. It’s not just shocking, it’s true, but now we’re at
another moment where that same principle is just resurfacing, and we have to
deal with it as a nation.”
Another response came from
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture: “There’s a fascinating statement circulating on Facebook right now
that says, ‘How interesting that we've moved from Black Power to Black Lives
Matter.’ The diminishment of a social movement that helped to transform and
make possible a black president has become about, ‘How do we save people?’”
We’re trying to make sense
of and activate our 6th principle, a world community with peace,
liberty, and justice for all, and our nation is trying to figure out how to
save black lives because black children are dying. This makes me feel the way that Shirley, in
one of her recent sermons, described feeling about climate change – despondent,
depressed, overwhelmed. I was steeped in
these emotions, feeling both self-indulgent and absolutely stuck, when I opened
the most recent issue of UU World and came across the Rev. Meg Riley’s
commentary on Ferguson, “Up to Our Necks.” She writes:
As a nation of diverse races striving to be one
people, we are buried up to our necks in a history of violence and brutality
against people of color. Where do we look for safety, for help, as we try to
excavate ourselves from this sinkhole? For a long time I have been one of the
mostly silent, but increasingly alarmed, white folks struggling to discern how
to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. But standing
silently, trying to figure things out may be a life-threatening course of
action when you and your neighbors are buried up to your neck. So I’m looking
on the local level for practical actions I can take. And I refuse to be silent
or still anymore.
Without stating it
explicitly, Rev. Riley is essentially saying that, even though we’re all buried
up to our necks in a history of violence and brutality against people of color,
she’s not giving up on the 6th principle. Giving up would be, quite
literally, a life-threatening course of action. So she acknowledges her
starting place, holds the end vision in her heart and mind, and resolves to act.
I’m right there with her –
and now I’m looking for practical actions. Fortunately, so are many, many
others, and more fortunately still, there are people with far more experience
and sophistication than I have regarding antiracism whose thoughts I have
shared and will continue to share with you this morning. The following is taken
directly from an article by commentator Janee Wood titled “12 Things WhitePeople Can Do Now Because of Ferguson.” For the sake of time, I’ve chosen to
focus on ten of Woods’ twelve points. Also, for the purpose of today’s sermon,
I’d suggest thinking about the following ten points as “Ten Ways to Move Toward
the 6th Principle in Light of Ferguson.”
One: Learn about the racialized
history of Ferguson and how it reflects the racialized history of America.
Michael Brown’s murder is not a social anomaly
or statistical outlier. It is the direct
product of deadly tensions born from decades of
housing discrimination, white flight, intergenerational poverty and racial
profiling. The militarized
police response to peaceful assembly by the people
mirrors what happened in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement.
Two: Reject the “He Was a Good Kid”
narrative and lift up the “Black Lives Matter” narrative.
Michael Brown was a good kid, by accounts of those who knew him during his
short life. But that’s not why his death is tragic. His death isn’t tragic
because he was a sweet kid on his way to college next week. His
death is tragic because he was a human being and his life mattered.
The Good Kid narrative might provoke some sympathy but what it really does is
support the lie that as a rule black people, black men in particular, have a
norm of violence or criminal behavior. The Good Kid narrative says that this
kid didn’t deserve to die because his goodness was the exception to the rule.
This is wrong. This kid didn’t deserve to die because he was a human being and
black lives matter.
Three:
Use words that speak the truth about the
disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment and racism that are rampant in our
communities. Be
mindful, political and socially aware with your language. Notice how the
mainstream news outlets are using words like riot and looting to describe the
uprising in Ferguson. What’s happening is not
a riot. The people are protesting and engaging in a
justified rebellion. They have a righteous anger and are revolting against the
police who have terrorized them for years.
Four: Understand the modern forms of
race oppression and slavery and how they are intertwined with policing, the
courts and the prison industrial complex.
We don’t enslave black people on the plantation cotton fields anymore. Now we
lock them up in for profit prisons at disproportionate rates and for longer
sentences for the same crimes than white people. And when they are released,
they are second class citizens stripped of voting rights and denied access to
housing, employment and education. Mass incarceration is The
New Jim Crow.
Five: Examine the interplay
between poverty and racial equity. The twin pillar of
racism is economic injustice but do not use
class issues to trump race issues and avoid the racism conversation. While
racism and class oppression are tangled
together in this country, the fact remains that the
number one predictor of prosperity and access to opportunity is race.
Six: Diversify your media.
Be intentional about looking for and paying close attention to diverse voices
of color on the tv, on the internet and on the radio to help shape your
awareness, understanding and thinking about political, economic and social
issues. Check out Colorlines, The
Root or This Week in Blackness to
get started.
Seven: Adhere to the philosophy of
nonviolence as you resist racism and oppression. Dr.
Martin Luther King advocated for nonviolent conflict reconciliation as the
primary strategy of the Civil Rights Movement and the charge of His Final
Marching Orders. East Point Peace Academy
offers online resources and in person training on nonviolence that is
accessible to all people regardless of ability to pay.
Eight: If you are a person of faith,
look to your scriptures or holy texts for guidance.
Seek out faith based organizations like Sojourners
and follow faith leaders that incorporate social justice into their ministry.
Ask your clergy person to address antiracism in their sermons and teachings. If
you are not a person of faith, learn how the world’s religions view social
justice issues so that when you have opportunity to invite people of faith to
also become allies, you can talk with them meaningfully about why being a white
ally is supported by their spiritual beliefs.
Ten: Don’t give up.
We’re 400 years into this racist system and it’s going to take a long, long,
long time to dismantle these atrocities. The antiracism movement is a struggle
for generations, not simply the hot button issue of the moment. Transformation
of a broken system doesn’t happen quickly or easily. You may not see or feel the
positive impact of your white allyship in the next month, the next year, the
next decade or even your lifetime. But don’t ever stop. Being a white ally
matters because your thoughts, deeds and actions will be part of what turns the
tide someday. Change starts with the individual.
In closing, I’ll return to our first reading,
a reflection on the 6th principle by the Rev. Sean Parker Dennison.
He wrote: “As naïve or impossible as the sixth Principle may seem, I’m not
willing to give up on it. In the face of our culture’s apathy and fear, I want to imagine and help create a powerful vision
of peace by peaceful means, liberty by liberatory means, justice by just means.
I want us to believe—and to live as if we believe—that a world community with
peace, liberty, and justice for all is possible. There is no guarantee that we
will succeed, but I can assure you that we will improve ourselves and improve
the world by trying.”
If we truly believe in the ideal of a world
community with peace, liberty, and justice for all, let us leave here today and
show, by our words and by our actions, that Black Lives Matter – and let us
work for a world in which this sentiment is so innate that it no longer makes
sense as a rallying cry.
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