I wrote this as my annual report for the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association's Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism
The history of the America's since 1492 is a story of conquest, slavery, relentless violence and genocide. Racism and an ethic of domination were developed to justify these crimes and mask the power and privilege of the "White" propertied and educated classes. Our religious movement was born and has evolved in this historical context. To their credit, our spiritual ancestors advanced ideals about human potential and the social good that inspired and sustained generations of religious liberals to work for justice and equality. But for too long both the Unitarians and the Universalists denied and neglected their own complicity in the perpetuation of racism and other forms of oppression. In the most recent period, the Unitarian Universalist movement has begun to make some tentative first steps toward correcting this long neglect.
The Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association has committed itself to becoming an anti-racist, anti-oppressive and multicultural community of ministers. Our Ministers Association has established a position on the Executive Committee to help achieve that end. Given the complex and multifaceted nature of this work, a Committee on Ministry for Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppressive, and Multiculturalism was established to provide advice and counsel to the Executive and the Association in the work of transformation. I am the current portfolio holder on the Executive for this work, and during the last year, the Reverends Suzelle Lynch, Patricia Jimenez, Hope Johnson, and Scott Prinster ably served our committee.
Much of the work of our Committee on Ministry is confidential. We look at actual situations involving ministers and members of their congregations through an anti-racist, anti-oppressive lens. On the basis of our examination of these situations, we make proposals to the Executive Committee, Continental and chapter Good Offices, as well as the Unitarian Universalist Association on measures that can be taken that will move toward right relations and deconstructing institutional racism and oppressive systems. We also engage in consultations with members of the UUMA Executive, the C.E.N.T.E.R. Committee, the UUMA Guidelines Committee, the Ministry and Professional Leadership staff group of the UUA, and chapter leadership about questions they might raise relative to our common work of overcoming racism and oppression.
In the last year, such consultations have involved the following questions:
€¢ How our UUMA culture is distorted by economic privilege;
€¢ How the power of senior ministers relative to associate and assistant ministers leads to inequities and injustices;
€¢ How the UUA attempts at "affirmative action"-while well intended-often lead to problems for the very ministers those policies are intended to support;
€¢ How our participation in the dominant culture leads to distortions in our relations to oppressed cultures; and
€¢ How those distortions affect the ethical dimensions of cultural appropriation.
The Committee has also assumed a modest role in education and resource development. We have developed workshops for C.E.N.T.E.R. and have encouraged ministers to write articles on the theme of preparing for ministry a multicultural world for a forthcoming special collection of UUMA Selected Essays. We are working to develop resources for students and those in preliminary fellowship from racially and culturally oppressed backgrounds as well as for ministers who are serving as their mentors.
Our committee is open to the thoughts and concerns of all members of the UUMA. Together we are called to create the community of right relations that we espouse.
Clyde Grubbs
