WORSHIP SERVICE AT PAINT BRANCH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
AUGUST 10, 2008

CALL TO WORSHIP

By Tricia Most and Carol Carter Walker

Our call to worship this morning honors the congregational vote from the June 2007 Annual Meeting that set Paint Branch on a Journey Toward Wholeness to learn, look inward, speak and act to make this congregation a more beloved community that embraces diversity—in itself and in the world. After that meeting, the Diversity/Anti- Racism Transformation Team was created to guide us all on this path. In the past year, we have had two covenant groups on race and ethnicity where race has been discussed honestly in mixed company—a rarity at Paint Branch or anywhere. There have been two film and discussion series to inform and educate all of us providing common ground for communicating about race. We’ve had three book discussions to further the conversation and most recently, we began our first community outreach project: voter registration and empowerment project with the NAACP.

The United Church of Christ recently sponsored a full-page ad in USA Today which calls anti-racism work ‘sacred conversations.’ What we hope to model, in today’s service, is that while these conversations on race are never easy–especially when honest talk makes us confront both our national and personal pain–these sacred conversations can, and often do, yield a rich and deep understanding that honors the value of diverse life experiences and brings us ever closer to true beloved community.

Let the journey continue!

FLAMING CHALICE DEDICATION By Bruce Baker, worship associate

Abraham Maslow, the great psychologist, has said “What is necessary to change a person is to change his (or her) awareness of his or her self.” Transformation through awareness works because we can change or adapt to things we know about. The greatest barriers to our growth and happiness, however, are often not the things that we are aware of. Rather it is the things we are not aware of which bar our progress. When we lack awareness we are powerless to change, and thus we become subject to the realities and conditions that are beyond our consciousness.

But awareness is often painful. The truth can hurt. For example, I have two teenage children who are quite skilled at letting me know of my numerous character flaws. It really hurts when they are right. It would be nice if they could tell me gently and in caring ways, but it usually doesn’t come that way. I usually hear it when they are angry or upset. But if they hadn’t shown me my flaws, I would have remained completely unaware, and thus unable to change. I consider the tough times with my family to be the greatest periods of personal growth in my life.

Our relationships are like mirrors. We can’t see ourselves directly. We have to rely on others to show us the things about ourselves that we can’t see. The feedback we get from family and friends, and even strangers can be valuable. When I see how other people see me it helps me to see myself more clearly, decide how I want to be, and then how to related better to others.

But this process isn’t easy. Change and growth are difficult. Nevertheless if we are to progress on our journey through life we must accept each challenge that comes our way. This means accepting the awareness, letting go of our past judgments, adjusting our attitudes, and opening to each other. Personal growth, freedom and liberation come through personal transformation that allows us to transcend the prison of our own ignorance.

I dedicate the lighting of this chalice to personal and communal transformation through awareness and our commitments to each other.

DISCUSSION: GATHERED AROUND THE CHALICE

Moderated by Bruce Baker, Participants: Bob Rand, Carol Carter Walker, Emma Sue Gaines-Gerson, Muriel Morrisey, Peter Wathen-Dunn, and Tricia Most

Question:
The core of any form of social transformation is in the process of sharing and discovery. The DARTT team will now present a discussion guided by questions that I will ask. What brought you to participate in the Soul Work or Covenant Group of DARTT?

Muriel:
I began attending Soul Work sessions because I had built up a lot of uncomfortable feelings about experiences I had with members of the church that I found racially insensitive and troubling. I wanted to talk about this with people in the congregation in a structured and constructive way.

Peter:
I watched the “Power of an Illusion” video when it was presented by the Diversity and Anti-Racism Transition Team. The discussion afterward made me aware that there were large gaps between what white people of this church professed to believe and their real attitudes. There was a denial of the racism within. We weren’t being honest with ourselves about how we relate to each other.

Bob:
I wanted to face racism. Ever since I was a teenager, racial divides have seemed so wrong to me. Yet I have often felt uncomfortable around black people because of my guilt and shame as a white person over slavery and my sense of the ongoing legacy of racism. Maybe I project this, but I have also often felt what I thought was smoldering anger from blacks over my whiteness.

I also sensed that a respectful and honest engagement with blacks was important to my own search for personal wholeness and my own search for community. I have felt a deep longing for this experience but didn’t know how to find it. I long for healing those mean parts of myself that contribute toward racism. In some way I was searching for the meaning of atonement for slavery and racism. I wasn’t sure what was possible but I wanted to try. I had a lot of hope for a small group process.

Tricia:
Like you, Bob, I find small groups appealing. When group members deliberately develop a culture of respect and agree to talk openly and honestly, valuable learning happens. I wanted to participate in the Soul Work book discussion because I wanted to continue the conversation about race started in the Fall and Winter Covenant Groups. Taking about race and listening to Black Paint Branchers helps me to see beyond the blinders of white privilege. I’ve learned that People of Color at Paint Branch don’t always feel as safe or as comfortable as I do. And that’s not okay with me. I want everyone who walks through our doors to feel as welcomed and as accepted as I felt the first time I came to Paint Branch. In Charge of the Chalice, Rev. John Crestwell quotes Paula Cole Jones saying that we have to talk about Race until it loses its power over us. Race doesn’t effect White people the way it effects People of Color. And that’s not fair. My sense of wholeness – my ideals about Beloved Community – can’t be realized unless and until we get closer to fairness here in my faith community.

Carol:
I have been in a state of cognitive dissonance since becoming a UU more than 20 years ago—feeling totally at home with the theology—but feeling estranged because of the racial makeup in our churches and in the denomination. I am committed to this work because I’d like to feel that I’m truly a part of a beloved community where there are many people who look like me are not merely tolerated in small numbers, but truly welcomed and embraced and there are people who don’t look like me who are willing to do the hard work of owning and dismantling racism. .

Emma Sue:
I wanted to get deeper into myself. I never thought about White privilege before. I never felt that I was biased racist or anything. But I know that there have been times when I thought or said something that had a derogatory tone. I began to see and become aware of the subtle derogatory thought or attitudes around. As Bambi’s mother said to Thumper when he said something mean “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” People should take that to heart as a principle. We do in our principles in treating everyone with inherent worth and dignity.

Question:
What did you learn that changed you?

Tricia: There are a number of early learning moments that stand out in my mind. I remember the first time I saw Race: the Power of an Illusion. Beth Lyons and Leo Jones led the film discussion and many of the White people present talked about being shocked to realize how calculated, intentional racist propaganda was used first to justify slavery and later used to justify segregation and violent terrorism against Black people. And during that film discussion, Muriel, you said that you grew up having these conversations at your dinner table. It made me realize how different growing up with that awareness is from the privilege of not being vigilantly concerned, from the privilege of growing up oblivious to institutional and socialized racism. I began to realize the significance of growing up white – growing up without the fear that you may be victimized because of your race, growing up without thinking about racial disparity. Another learning moment for me happened when I heard the two words “White privilege.” A light bulb went on for me. It gave me a name for the kind of racism that I am a part of just by being White in America – it gave me a name for the fact that I’m exempt from the stress that Black people go through – in trying to be accepted and understood. I’m privileged. I’m accepted. The playing field is not level. It has changed me to realize how easy it is, even for UUs, to be unaware, unconcerned, and out of touch with today’s racism and the legacy of our racist American history. We don’t worry about what’s behind the fact that our church does not look like the multi- cultural neighborhood that surrounds it.

Peter:
What is amazing is how unconscious and truly clueless white people are about their own White privilege. I have suffered from white privilege and blindness even as I professed my progressive ideals. Marrying Muriel opened my eyes. Awareness of this illness is new to me; so new, in fact, that I get angered when I see white folks act and say ignorant and dismissive things. They don’t even realize they’re doing it.

Muriel:
I knew intellectually about white privilege, but until I married Peter I didn’t fully apreciate what it means. I saw how easily Peter and his daughters, who are all very place, move through the world without having to think about their white skin. But my son and I, with our brown skins, have to think about being black all the time. And my son has to be careful every where he goes because the society always thinks and expects the worst of black males.

Peter:
Talk about it! Muriel’s son Andrew went to the local video store to rent a movie. The neighborhood association had just attended a crime awareness meeting. The message: keep your eyes out for suspicious activity. So, one of my neighbors sees Andrew walking home, calls the cops, and reports that a black man was casing the neighborhood – suspiciously looking at the houses. Now the idea that Andrew might be casing the joint is preposterous. He was just walking home from the store.

Well I’m sitting at home watching the TV and Andrew starts walking in the side door. Guess what? The police had been following him and as soon as he started walking to the side door they jumped out of their cars and started grilling him. What are you doing in this neighborhood? Can I see your ID? They escorted him to the door and asked me to vouch for him. Talk about driving while black; Andrew was caught walking while black. If he had…If he had been white doing the exact same thing, no one would have paid him any attention.

Muriel:
Now I see how people can be completely unaware of what it means to be white. It still makes me very angry, but I understand it better.

Bob:
I listened and I shared. I discovered that blacks and whites could meet in a safe container, a sacred space to explore the pain of racism and take beginning steps toward healing. I learned about white privilege, that I was part of an inheritance that I don’t want but that I can’t easily give away. I was surprised to discover the scale of white privilege and how angry blacks are over it. I had originally thought that taking responsibility for racism would mean being careful about my personal relationships with blacks one on one, but I have discovered the huge scale of institutional racism.

I discovered, as I had thought, that there is much anger, rage, guilt, and shame surrounding white privilege. There really is a big elephant in the room.

Carol:
Talking a lot about white privilege has, ironically, been helpful to me, although it’s painful to experience, In understanding its power which includes a trained blindness to not see how you may be hurting others by simply being in the world in a way that is very comfortable and natural makes me understand that there are many people who really don’t understand that they may be saying and doing things that are experienced by people of color as racially and culturally insensitive without being consciously mean-spirited. I think that here at Paint Branch, through the Covenant Group, the Soul Work discussions and the film series, we are educating ourselves and learning to talk about the unmentionable in mixed company—race. We stay on point with courage in spite of our fears.

[Insert Reading on White Privilege “Unpacking the White Knapsack”]

What is White Privilege? Peggy McIntosh, a sociologist who has written extensively the subject, says “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.”

These are a few examples of White Privilege from a list of 50 that Peggy McIntosh pulled from her knapsack:

“If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.”

“When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

“Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

“I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

“If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

“I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

“If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation, whether it had racial overtones.

“I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.”

Question:
So how do you speak up to racism?

Emma Sue:
As a Jewish girl growing up in a mostly Catholic neighborhood. One day when I was about seven, some of the kids picked on me because I was Jewish and they stuffed snow down my snow suit. I didn’t like it, and I cried for them to stop, but they didn’t stop. When I got home my Mother asked me why my snow suit was so wet, and I told her what happened. My mother asked who had done this and then she took me to the home of each of the perpetrators and asked the parents of each, after the children admitted their actions, “Is this what your religion teaches you about how to treat other people.” Each of them reacted apologetically.

Carol:
This form of speaking up was a courageous act on your mother’s part. The reaction could have been verbally or even physically explosive.

Carol:
This awareness has helped me to get in touch with my fears. I had a fear of speaking up and set off a conflagration of anger in response. I found myself asking myself if I have to leave Paint Branch where would I go? Then I found the courage to say: This is my church and here I stand. Once you own this awareness you can’t put it back in the box. We can’t retreat.

Peter:
But Carol, when whites hear objections to a racist statement they’ve made, they don’t go into rage; they get dismissive. They say you are too sensitive, that what they said is “not really about race.” That ends the dialog. They act all innocent. If the conversation goes anywhere, the black person has to do all the work. White progressives just don’t want to think of themselves as having racist tendencies; that would ruin their illusion that they’re not part of the problem. They are so busy denying their guilt that they can’t understand how they hurt the black person. Instead of dealing with what is going on, they either deny the reality or try to run from the discussion by offering a lip-service apology.

Muriel:
So many people experience discrimination because of religion or sexual orientation or gender, but it seems to me even among UUs they don’t use their own experiences to understand the experiences of other people. They don’t see their own racism, or dismiss anyone who tries to get them to see it. I think one reason personal experience doesn’t lead to better understand about race is that most whites, even the people in this church, don’t’ have people of color as their social peers. Even if you have a good relationship with a black person at work, or think very highly of some black public figure, who may not every have face to face conversations about race with any you consider a friend or social peer. Maybe relate to a person on that level is essential to tap into your own experiences to understand racism.

Bob:
I have a lot of discomfort and fear over getting close to a black person. I really want the experience, but I usually feel there are such intense emotional undercurrents that it seems almost impossible. First is my own sense of guilt and shame, which I don’t like feeling. Then I often sense an immense reservoir of black rage that scares me, especially because I believe it is justified.

Frankly, I’m scared of being called to account. I’m afraid you are going to point out that I am white and privileged and that I contribute daily to institutional racism. It’s all true – I am and I do. And staying in integrity with you as you share your hurt and pain over ongoing racism means I really can’t be white anymore. And I don’t yet know what that means.

Muriel:
Bob, you’re the first white person who has ever looked me in the eye and told me about your discomfort and fears around race. This has given me a whole new perspective — that to a white person fear might be a dominant emotion. I want to hear more about the fear.

Carol:
Speaking up to racist statements is important. I think we need a code word at Paint Branch that signals a statement that needs to be examined by the person who spoke it for its derogatory content. Something like “tut tut” because we aren’t always able to be together enough to have an intelligent, thoughtful response at the time something is said. We need time to process and reflect on the statement. Yet we need to signal that something is amiss at the moment that it happens…

Tricia:
In Our UU principles, we promise to treat each person with dignity and respect. The lack of multi-cultural diversity within our congregations shows how we have failed to live that principle.

Muriel:
It’s not easy being a member of a person of color in this church. One of the things that bothers me most is that this church has so few people of color but it’s in a county where whites are the racial minority. It makes it hurt even more that bad things have happened to me in this congregation on account of my race.

Peter:
I feel I have to take responsibility and drum up the courage to speak up to racism. Because of my relationship with Muriel it has become too personal for me to be quiet.

Question:
You have mentioned the importance of taking responsibility and owning the legacy of racism that we have inherited. How do we own it? What does owning it look like?

Bob:
Owning it for me means carrying the discomfort and guilt and transforming it into action and ministry. And it means not looking to blacks for exoneration. I have learned that atonement doesn’t mean forgiveness – it means being aware of my own complicity in racism and the complicity of white people in general and doing something to change it.

I drank deeply from my engagement with this group. I feel I touched wholeness and I want more.

Tricia:
With awareness comes responsibility. It takes courage to stay in the conversation about race. It requires us to really listen. Really listening means listening without denying another person’s reality. I hear white people wanting to dispute or deny the experiences that people of color talk about having here at Paint Branch. Seeing the “Journey Toward Wholeness Film Series” especially The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, forces me to confront my own naivety at the same time as it keeps sinking in for me, deeper and deeper how our nation’s racist history brings us to the present – where Whites are exempt from all kinds of negative assumptions, suspicions, and fears, that Black people experience everyday, everywhere, regardless of education and income level.

Carol:
People who own this work would think before they speak.
They won’t say, :You’re too sensitive, or that wasn’t really a racially insensitive remark, or people at PBUUC are warm and caring to everyone. And their thinking would have to be the product of education and reflection resulting in a true transformation. This is a diverse congregation that is likely to become more diverse, so we need to practice our first principle—honoring the inherent worth and dignity or every person—in all of our interactions with each other. We have or could have other minorities here. Although there is a different history, once we can address black/white issues, we are more easily able to transfer what we’ve learned to interactions with other communicates of color.

Muriel:
Most people can’t visualize the problem. You can’t see a solution until you can see the problem. To me, owning it means being willing to talk about race, even when it’s uncomfortable, and willing to work towards solutions. I’m glad some people in the church have shown the courage to work on these issues. I hope more will find the courage, because this church has more work to do about race than most seem to realize.

Peter:
To own it is understanding that everyone over the age of 35 grew up in a racist society – some younger ones, too. We sang Steven Foster songs about “Dem Camp Town ladies sing dis song, Doo-dah! Do-dah!” My mother told me that “blacks are just like children.” I – We – All Whites have these racist little tapes playing in the backs of our heads. We can’t totally escape them, they might slip out unexpected at times. But, like (recovering) recovering alcoholics, we have to acknowledge them. Knowingly confess our guilt. Even when there are no blacks or other minorities in the room, we must summon the courage to call our White friends out on their unknowing racist thoughts. If we do that enough times, if we do it with care, we can hope to see a more just world.

Emma Sue:
We have to speak up to people saying something that isn’t right, even if it’s someone in our own family, and explaining why it’s so wrong to continue the habit of making derogatory statements.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE DISCUSSION:

By Bruce Baker

In the last three weeks as I performed the duties of a worship associate in preparing this service I have been drawn into it more deeply than I had anticipated, and in ways I could not have imagined. I have not attended any of the previous DARTT activities, so I was only indirectly conscious of what they were doing.

But the nature of the discussion that I moderated and the process I observed confronted me powerfully in compelling and deeply personal ways. I can’t let this moment pass without sharing what I have learned.

I find this issued difficult because it is hard to see that the entire web of social reality that makes up my life is based upon things which I know I am not personally responsible for, and yet it reeks. It bestows opportunities and privileges and benefits to undeserving individuals and denies them to others for no good reason, only on assumptions, based on conditioned responses, misunderstanding, and fear. This system has no legitimate defense and there is no choice but to challenge it when it becomes known.

Racism is particularly challenging because it is so human. It is just how the human brain works. My recent reading of cognitive science has shown me that humans are prone to racism because to survive our minds create categories and rules of thumb to make the intuitive judgments and decisions that guide our actions. One of the obvious markers that we have historically used to categorize and separate from other people is skin color. We have no control over the default understandings that we have through evolution and inherited culture and history.

But my understanding of the human mind also indicates that we can transcend racism. The way to do that is to actively evolve. We cannot ignore race, it is too obvious. It is too richly ingrained in our history, and in our perceptions. We have to evolve our judgments and perceptions, and retrain them by engagement with the people we see as different. We can condition racist instincts out of our minds by creating positive experiences with people who are not like us. .

White privilege isn’t just going to go away by itself. It will stay with us for a long time. As long as it exists, the only way I can see to ethically deal with it is take the privileges I receive as a white man and share them with those who are not, or to use them to create a society that is fair and compassionate. This becomes possible to the extent that we can truly open our hearts and our communities to all people without regard to skin color, or national origin, or gender, or sexual orientation. And see the love and the beauty that lies within each and every person.

CLOSING WORDS

By Bruce Baker

We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person We affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations

We affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth within this congregation.

We have gathered in worship this morning to exercise these principles by raising awareness, and by modeling a process of transformation through sharing and discovery, and by sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

May we find places in our hearts to hear each others voices, to accept each other with compassion, and be together in a shared journey towards justice and wholeness.