Join us for a potluck after today’s service for further community discussion about the path ahead for WUUC in the area of the Black Lives Matter movement. We are asking that everyone who comes to the potluck for the conversation listen to Rev. Meg Riley’s sermon from January 17. You can access it at:

http://gtest.wuuc.org/multimedia-archive/resisting-despair/

Please bring food contributions by last name: Main dishes: I-Z; Side dishes: E-H; Desserts: A-D
And: helpers are needed for set up and clean up (even 10 minutes helps!).

The Background:

At the Portland General Assembly of the UUA this past June  (attended by a large number of WUUCers),the assembled delegates considered and overwhelmingly approved the Action of Immediate Witness in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The AIW was initially brought to the assembly by Kara Marler (a WUUC youth leader who graduated this past June) and another youth. AIW’s are binding for the group of people who were assembled and are passed along to congregations to study and engage.

On September 27 Rev. Lois preached about the Black Lives Matter movement. About 45 members and friends of the congregation stayed after the service to talk about “Black Lives Matter.” The idea was to try and study race, racism, and the Black Lives Matter movement in various ways throughout the year. Around 20 people met with Rev. Lois for 9 weeks to further explore the issues of white identity and white privilege using the book, Witnessing Whiteness. That group is continuing to meet once a month to carry on its learning. A few folks are trying to get down to the Rainier Valley area to attend community conversations on Dismantling Racism.  Some of you have watched the film, “The House I Live In,” others have read The New Jim Crow and Waking Up White.  A small group of WUUCers were among the 150 people attending the workshop at Eastshore in January facilitated by Robin Di’Angelo who coined the term, “white fragility.” And the Rev. Meg Riley, the minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, spoke at WUUC on her personal experience with the BLM movement in the Minneapolis area.

The BLM sign remains hanging off the wayside pulpit. Some people have left the church because of it, others have started coming. Yet what does it mean to hang the sign there? What would it mean to be not just supportive but active around the issues of Black lives mattering? Having now had these additional experiences related to this social justice area, what are the further steps to WUUC’s discernment  around the UUA’s Black Lives Matter AIW?

On behalf of the Board

Gary Tomlinson

Board President

boardpres@wuuc.org