Comments on: Rethinking our approach to diversity

By: kim

kim — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:10:21 +0000

What is it really about class? What about someone of working class makes the middle and upper-middle class UUs uncomfortable?(and vice versa) Is it education level? Is it values? Is it what George Lakoff calls Nurturant versus Strict upbringing? What is it?
My father came from a family of working-class intellectuals (yes, there used to be such a thing…) and he was entranced with UUism, and quite comfortable. Is it the “intellectual” part?
When I think about cultural differences, I think about the kind of unconscious traditions like how far apart we stand when we talk, how long a pause between sentences we read as “end of paragraph — ok to cut in now”, and other things like that which are truly different in different cultures. When I think of that with respect to UU services, I think of how staid our services are, especially compared to the kind of service at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. If we made our services more lively, would we lose all the people who like the New England style?
How dangerous is spontaneity?

By: Doug Muder

Doug Muder — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:17:49 +0000

I wonder if I did Mark Morrison-Reed an injustice with that quote. It’s accurate (I just listened to the recording again), but in the larger context he was talking about UU ministers, not all UUs. I wonder if he meant to say “the people who become UU ministers” and it just came out wrong.

By: joseph santos-lyons

joseph santos-lyons — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:47:52 +0000

I love Mark, but I absolutely disagree that every person of color UU is middle class, assimilated and educated. It is true that we are inspired by the Principles and Purposes, and applied theology of Unitarian Universalism. Perhaps he is referring to his generation.

By: Steven R

Steven R — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:22:04 +0000

Our current attempts have failed to make Unitarian Universalism multi-cultural.
Is this something that can really be denied?

By: Rex Styzens

Rex Styzens — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:47:10 +0000

As someone who participated in GAs at the time a promise was made to fund generously the Black UU Caucus, a promise that was later called back when UU congregations (I am proud to say that was not true of mine at the time) refused to put our money where our mouth was, I find myself not reassured by the messages on race at this year’s GA.

UUs have consoled ourselves by claiming to have an influence out of proportion to the size of our membership. Well, our world is in one heck of a mess. I doubt we will ever take our share of the responsibility for that, despite all the flowery prose. It is in keeping with our, yes, class history where our denominations were slow to support the Abolitionists, because property rights were at stake. Money talks; BS walks.

It may be that property no longer plays a central role in issues of race. If so, that comes as a surprise. But it does in issues of climate change, urban decay, suburban sprawl, and immigrant rights, to mention just a few. Since war is the fastest way to take property away from others, I cannot help wondering how popular among us an anti-war position might be.

To be honest, I have never seen UUs flagellating ourselves over anything since the days of the Civil Rights struggle, at least not since our youth burned their draft cards and our clergy were gunned down in the South. The message that somehow we are doing all that can be expected of us does not ring true to me, regardless of the skin color of those reassuring us. The next thing you know we’ll be told that Affirmative Action is passe by those whose lives it has improved.