Today there are front page articles in the nation's major newspapers, and on the cable news about the census bureaus report that in a few short decades the white majority will no longer be a majority. Latino/as, African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and other so called minorities will together constitute the majority, and America will then be a nation of racialized ethnic groups each of which is a minority. By the middle of this century the white population will be older than the population as a whole, and the United States will have 400 million people (it is a little over 300 million today.)
The Los Angeles Times puts it this way "[t]he white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The future of America is epitomized by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future."
Historically Unitarian was a religion of the white elite, and after the merger the spirit of Unitarianism prevailed over the more inclusive and generous Universalist way of being religiously liberal. While there have been people of color in Unitarian and Universalist congregations in every stage of our history, those "pioneers in a white denomination" were exceptions to the rule, and did not motivate any concerted effort to reach out and seek to become more ethnically diverse.
In the late 1960s, because of the work of Unitarian Universalists in the civil rights movement there was an influx of African Americans into our congregations. These Unitarian Universalists while they saw the promise of religious liberalism also experienced the elitism and complacency of the white majority, and there arose a movement of African Americans and their allies to build Unitarian Universalism in African American communities. While this movement had wide support, it became divided relative to tactics, and the defenders of the status quo were able to turn back the effort.
Many Unitarian Universalists left the movement and the leadership settled back into self congratulation and complacency.
Again in the 1980s African Americans began to organize and came to the conclusion that it was "internalized racism" that was the main obstacle to Unitarian Universalism becoming more diverse. In the 1990s Unitarian Universalists resolved at General Assemblies to become more diverse and recognized that they must overcome their own cooperation with systemic racism to accomplish that task. While much has been done, and the African American initiatives provided an opening for other people of color to find their voice, we still have much work to do before our congregations reflects the ethnic and racial make up of the nation as a whole
Given my experience with working with congregations (currently Throop Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, California), I believe that most Unitarian Universalists would support the work to become an anti racist, anti oppressive and multi cultural community if they were given leadership by their minister(s) and lay leadership. This leadership in turn will need support from the Unitarian Universalist Association providing excellence in programs such as Building The World We Dream About, and Now is the Time! Leading Congregations Into a Multiracial, Multicultural Future.
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