If we seem critical of the UU leadership and its political agenda, we are motivated by hope for better progress. Based on the last 23 years, the current philosophy would seem to be ineffective. Spreading justice is an important project, and we would like to achieve.
UU Leadership and Lay People
UU Leadership and Lay People UU leaders express low opinions of us rank-and-file UUs. If scolding and shaming worked, that would be one thing, but the leadership’s antiracism program has not proven to be successful. Maybe if the leaders played up our strengths instead of denigrating us, we could move forward. I’ve also witnessed leaders bad-mouthing UUs in several personal conversations for which there is no link or documentation.
Rev Frederic Muir, 2012
Lay UUs cherish their misconceptions like birthers or climate-change deniers do. They need their church authorities to correct them.
http://www.uuma.org/mpage/BSE2012
Beloved Conversations (2017)
Egalitarian-minded progressives are the greatest threat to people of color in our society.
Citing Derald Wing Sue, Microaggressions in Everyday Life, 2010.
While hate crimes and racial, gender and sexual-orientation harassment continued to be committed by overt racist, sexist, and heterosexist/homophobes, the greatest harm to persons of color, women, and homosexuals does not come from these conscious perpetrators. It is not the white supremacist, Klansmen or Skinheads, for example who posed the greatest threat to the people of color, but rather well-intentioned people, who were strongly motivated by egalitarian values, who believe in their own morality, and who experienced themselves as fair-minded and decent people who would never consciously discriminate (Sue, 2005). These individuals have been labeled unconscious-unintentional oppressors or bigots (Sue, 2005). Because no one is immune from inheriting the . . .
Rev Ashley Horan, on The VUU #185, June 2017
Lay liberal UUs are misguided and ineffective, but they have resources and can be recruited into the radical inner circle to help dismantle civilization.
youtu.be/VdVzGNb5SmE?t=490
start at 8:10
Nora Rasman, on The VUU #185, June 2017
Lay UUs’ liberal outlook makes it hard for them to accept that they need to completely get rid of their ways of being, and that white people will be taken down a notch.
https://youtu.be/VdVzGNb5SmE?t=825
start 13:45
Meg Riley, on The VUU #185, June 2017
Old UUs need to change or leave. UUs who object are self-centered.
https://youtu.be/VdVzGNb5SmE?t=2520
start at 42:00
Robin DiAngelo, in White Fragility, 2018, published by Beacon Press
“white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color”
www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-sociologist-examines-the-white-fragility-that-prevents-white-americans-from-confronting-racism
Commission on Institutional Change, March 2019
Most lay UUs, perhaps a significant majority, are blindly living in denial about racism.
https://www.uua.org/uuagovernance/committees/cic/blogre/tapestry/adults/commitment/statement
White ministers’ letter, June 2019
If lay UUs don’t see things the leadership’s way, it’s because they are struggling to see reality.
https://www.muusja.org/reprint-an-open-letter-from-white-uu-ministers/