Social Justice News and Events
8th Principle Team Update
The 8th Principle that we adopted in 2017 is: “Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by building a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions”. Our congregation was the first in the country to adopt it, but at this moment, over 150 have now adopted it (out of about 1000), and that number was only about 30 a year ago!Our 8th Principle Team is Bruce PJ, Portia H, Cathy M, Anam OE, Fern C, and Wayne B (with Rev. McKinley ex-officio). In February, we organized and facilitated Dinners for 8th gatherings (on Zoom only, unfortunately, although one came close to being in person…) with a focus on the idea of Covenant, talking about times when we have felt especially connected with our Restoration/UUs of Mt. Airy community, and also about times when we have felt less connected. As before, these were deep and meaningful conversations, and we look forward to doing more Dinners for 8th in the not-too-distant future.
Now that our Covenant work is coming to a conclusion, we are gearing up for following up on our Widening the Circle conversations from January to June of last year. As preparation, our Team is reading Journeys of Race, Color, & Culture by Rick Huntley, Rianna Moore, and Carol Pierce, to give a framework for our process in this work. We expect this work to start this summer, and continue through much of next year. Some of the areas we plan to examine are Governance/Decision-Making (moving to more inclusive modes of decision-making, such as possibly Modified Consensus), Radical Hospitality, and Leadership Development (incorporating the work of the Nominating Committee). Look in the weekly newsletter for dates and times of specific gatherings as they get scheduled, and participate!
Living the 8th Principle: Trevor Noah on George Floyd,
Amy Cooper, and The Uprising
This 18-minute video is a brilliant analysis of racism, white privilege, and the social contract, using George Floyd, Amy Cooper (who called the police on Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper - no relation to her), and the property destruction that came after them. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4amCfVbA_c
Following, are several links important to our congregation's Social Justice program:
- Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC):
http://www.uusc.org/ - American Friends Service Committee (AFSC):
http://www.afsc.org/ - SOA Watch/Northeast:
http://www.soawne.org