ANTI-RACISM INITIATIVE OPPORTUNITIES

Members of our congregation who completed the faith formation program Beloved Conversations:Meditations on Race and Ethnicity have continued to meet regularly to further our own education and understanding of racism and anti-racism and to seek ways of engaging other members of UUCV in this vital work. As Beloved Conversations is a specific program with a specified curriculum we have renamed our efforts UUCV Anti-Racism Initiative and have created a page on our website to offer materials for your independent exploration of these topics. This page can be found at www.uucv.org under the “Justice” tab on the home page.

In January and February, in addition to options for independent learning, the Anti-racism Initiative in conjunction with Rev Aija, the Social Justice Committee, and Small Group Ministry, is sponsoring several community wide activities. These include a community read of Imani Perry’s book Breathe: a Letter to My Sons; providing session plans on Privilege and Systemic Racism for Small Group Ministry; and Rev Aija will offer several related worship services. Below you will find a review of Perry’s book prepared by Joan Bechtel, information on how to obtain the book, and information on how to participate in a Small Group Ministry session if you are not a member of an established Small Group.

Joan’s Review of Breathe: A Letter to My Sons

Imani Perry’s book is a beautiful meditation on the hopes and dreams of all American mothers, perhaps of all mothers everywhere. However, it is much more because she is writing to her black sons, Freeman Diallo Perry Rabb and Issa Garner Rabb, who have no choice but to grow up in what she calls the “beast of American culture,” with its “perverse imperative.” American culture requires that young men (and women) be all the same, indistinguishable from each other and, at the same time, to be distinguished in a quantifiable, superlative manner, that is, to be the best, the most. Growing into the teen years means learning to wear the right clothes, to listen to the same music, to fit in, and at the same time pressures young people to excel, to be the best in something or many things. Furthermore, we humans tend to measure our value in the eyes of others, making growing into who we will be, immensely difficult, and even more so for Perry’s black sons whom culture regards as inferior. For her sons growing up and becoming who they will be in this culture is made much more difficult because of the white imagination that views black people as undifferentiated in the mass of inferior blackness. They will always be subject to the white world’s evaluation of them as worthy or unworthy as they struggle to grow in the beast that is American culture. She focuses with tender love and language on insisting they ignore cultures’ stigma and pressures, to dig inside themselves to find who and what they want to become.

Perry admonishes her sons to not let shame eat you up and neither let it be deflected into anger and violence. She urges them to grow into caring, sensitive men, sufficiently confident in themselves that they can respect and support women, those who suffer oppression, and those who do not have education and support that her sons have. She wants them to respect hard work and labor. They are to know and understand the history of blacks in America and of their families in particular, to respect their forebears, and to live into a future in which they will be free and blackness will no longer bind them and all people of color..

The book, full of gorgeous sentences and paragraphs, is an education in understanding the difficulty of growing up black in American culture, as well as an expression of the joys, sorrows, expectations, and limitations of parenting in a culture that emphasizes prominence ,“making it,” and external recognition rather than valuing empathy, respect, caring, and love. To her sons Perry says, “I want to hold you safe. I also want you to fly.”

A Good Deal on the Book!

Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry is published by Beacon Press. Martha Bergsten negotiated a good deal with Jeff Wood at Whistlestop Bookshop in downtown Carlisle. If you mention UUCV, you will receive a 20% discount. So you can support our local bookseller and get a great bargain! The book is also available from other outlets including Amazon and the Bosler Library.

Small Group Session Opportunity

If you are NOT a member of an established Small Group but would like to participate in the Small Group sessions mentioned above, Cheryl Parsons and Wendy Gebb will be facilitating the session on Privilege on Thursday, January 28, 2021 at 6:30 PM via Zoom. We plan to have the session end no later than 8 PM. We are requesting that you register in advance so that we can plan appropriately and have the correct email to send the Zoom link. Please register by January 20, 2021 by emailing Wendy at wendywinter@comcast.net. If you are interested in participating, but this date or time do not work for you, please email Wendy and include dates and times that do work. A time and date for the February session on Systemic Racism will be announced at a later time. To clarify, this would not be making a commitment to being in an ongoing Small Group. It is an opportunity to experience a Small Group session and participate in a UUCV activity.

In the months when we acknowledge the life and work of MLK and the contributions of countless other African Americans, we look forward to sharing this learning journey with you.

Wendy Gebb, a member of UUCV Anti-Racism Initiative