Less is More. Say the words: BLACK LIVES MATTER

Minute in Support of Black Lives

(Clerk of Peace and Social Concerns) 

University Friends Meeting, in support of the testimony of equality, acknowledges and strongly affirms that Black lives matter. We acknowledge that this is a symbolic first step, and thus commit to study and continuing work with those in our society who are experiencing systemic discrimination.

Peace and Social Concerns brought this to Meeting for Business in October. Now we seek your ideas on how we move forward. Please send your ideas or suggestions on how you as an individual or how we as a Meeting might work together in support of Black lives here in the Seattle area or nationally.

 

RantWoman has been arguing with herself about how to receive this news. RantWoman promises to distill some advice but first, some experiences.

"It's about darn time! Took ya long enough!"

Earth to RantWoman: in UFM history, which minutes have you felt able to engage about as opposed to just observe?

Earth to RantWoman: if you are going to fall asleep when offered the King County Equity training in connection with some volunteer transportation advocacy and still not get around to watching some videos with important information, MAYBE you should just chill and go watch the videos and not get impatient with other people's seasoning.

 "....thus commit to study and continuing work with those in our society who are experiencing systemic discrimination...."

Do I smell OTHERING?

RantWoman, can you TRY to talk about the issue lovingly? What if you scare people away? 

Let us all learn the terms "calling in,: "laboring with..."

and Disability??? 

RantWoman has a LONG list of disability-related topics on her mind...

Not kidding. RantWoman as a pretty privileged white person gets to finesse this one all kinds of ways in all kinds of spaces. Why would Quakers be any different. RantWoman's favorite example for now: this summer Pacific Yearly Meeting was experimenting with an "Ouch, Oops, Whoa" framework for calling out moments of systemic racism. The Ministry committee discerning about how to do process imagined that such examples would show up in plenaries and God did not disappoint. When someone outlining the schedule completely mangled the name of a keynote presenter, RantWoman did not manage to bang her Zoom Rainse Hand in time to scream WHOA before the speaker moved on. RantWoman is grateful to know other people also noticed and is holding in the Light the Friend who mangled the presenter's name. 

Ouch also recurred in Daily worship. One Friend kept offering a message RantWoman must have slept through. The second hand version of the message RantWoman gleaned from Friends of Color sharing about it in the daily opportunity to debrief the experience called to mind a woman from Spokane WA. Rachel Dolezal is a white woman who proclaimed herself "transracial" and served for a number of years as president of the Spokane NAACP.  Friends at Pacific YM Annual Session labored considerably about the repeat messages. RantWoman opted just to hold in the Light.

OK, part of the reason RantWoman opted just to hold in the Light: RantWoman found the process of the daily debriefing illuminating and RantWoman means to post about another sequence of efforts. AND every day, a person of color from HI kept making sweeping generalizations about white men in wheelchairs. RantWoman opted to call out and not focus on that. RantWoman actually would have been happy to talk further to that Friend about other interesting comments, but the social realities of Zoom make it harder to chase someone down for a less public conversation.

RantWoman also gathered comments about experiments at North Pacific YM annual session. It meant a great deal that, as with Pacific YM Annual Session, the clerk every morning read an announcement about working with the process. RantWoman also collected comments about how the daily White People working on issues sessions went. RantWoman is responsible for not getting herself there but was interested to hear about one approach that invited Friends to discuss one question in many angles and a different approach that tried to rely on the one person at a time non-interactive blops of comment during Worship Sharing. 

At NPYM Annual session, God even delivered an ouch moment in an offhand comment during Sunday Morning Bible Study. RantWoman happened to be Zoom hosting the Bible Study which was running long and on the same Zoom link as Meeting for Worship. The ouch statement generated a clarifying back and forth and the Zoom session was freed for the next event. RantWoman has been sitting with a small possible technological Oops and resolves to season the point further.

Oh wait. Maybe less is more!

RantWoman here gives herself permission to be a little half-baked and in need of an editor.

This sounds really freeing!

What does community care and support of individual leadings mean?

What does it mean to listen to the voices of for instance people of color?

Black (non-binary) lives matter--on the bus

What does it mean to listen to the voices of Friends of color?

Aboolition, Suffrage, same gender marriage and the fine Quaker practice of laboring with

Algorithms! Does your life involve algorithms, creating them, propagating them, validating them? Given abundant evidence that many modern information systems embody horrendous bias and perpetuate bias on many levels, what opportunities does your work provide to live out #BlackLivesMatter?