#506 Closing Ceremony on Black Lives UU at UUA General Assembly 2016

lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter my name is elandra williams i'm a delegate from tennessee valley u-church in knoxville tennessee um a place where the standing on the side of love came from because of a church shooting and a place where a church burning happened this week they are completely completely connected somebody in my church was shot and killed some jake morrell who a lot of you know sister wrote a piece that was really beautiful around why this matters and why we as a faith community have to stand with people regardless because we know what it means to go through this just as much as everybody else so me as a person who is black identified who is also you you and a proud one at that needs you to support us and everybody else because we do believe in the hair and work and dignity of every person which we believe which means we believe that black lives matter that our children matter that our families matter and that all of us black people's bodies are sovereign just like all of us want our bodies to be as well so if you actually want to stand with all of us including the people in this hall who need you please vote for this vote for this amendment vote for this action and take action today at 4 30 out in front of this place because in portland right now they're on a decree because they are chewing shooting here too so staying with the people in portland and staying with the people in this assembly black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter black lives matter uh so here man here here good evening good good evening good evening we are honored to be here with you and i just want to know that tamir rice would have been 14 today and i imagine what his mother is wrestling with now but i come from a tradition that even in the midst of trouble and tribulation we still say hallelujah and so will you just as we go into this other song but we just say this with us hallelujah hallelujah can you say that hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah raise our say hands one more time why don't you stand up hallelujah hallelujah no matter where from you can always call this place home no matter where you've been oh what you've done can you say that with us no matter where you are no matter where you are you can always call no matter where you've been come on say that with us no matter where you are you can always say it one more time no matter where you've been the me everybody no matter where you've been god turn to your neighbor and say it to you oh me what dr john gilmore i'm a minister retired minister still doing work in wellness and social justice i'd like to welcome all of you here tonight hi everyone my name is ashley boyd and i'm from chicago illinois and i'm very happy to be here with you all today thank you i'm isis james karns from new london connecticut and i'm also very happy to be with you guys today we are all unitarian universalists we light our chalice today in celebration of our journey together this past week of our ability to harness love's power to end oppression and of the road that lies before us may the flame we light now remind us of the power beauty and fragility of our lives in the ongoing struggle towards freedom for all oh ella's song was composed by bernice johnson reagan the founder of the black women's vocal ensemble sweet honey in the rock it is named after ella baker a highly revered adult advisor of the student nonviolent coordinating committee also known as snick she said remember we are not fighting for the freedom of the negro alone but for the freedom of the human spirit a large freedom that encompasses all mankind she also said until the killing of black men black mother's sons becomes as important as the killing of white mother sons we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens um we believe in freedom cannot rest who believe who believe in freedom can i rest is as important as a killing a white man that which touches me most is that i had a chance to work with people passing on to others that which was passed on to me who believe in freedom rest until it comes to me young people come first they have the courage when we fail if i can but shed some light as they carry us through the beds the older i get the better i know that the secret of my going on is in the razor in the hands of the young who dare to carry us through the storm freedom cannot me i need to be just one of the number as we stand against tyranny struggling myself don't mean a and teaching others to stand up for what is right how we're gonna struggle survive shall not rest we who believe in freedom shall not rest until it comes i'm a woman who speaks with a voice and i must be heard sometimes i can get quite difficult because i bow to no man's words come until will you just repeat after me i can hear my neighbor crying saying i can't breathe and now i'm in the struggle saying i can't leave we're calling out the violence of the racist police and we ain't gonna stop until the people are free choir will you help me out we all please stand and help me out we all please stand hear my neighbor crying saying i can't angry and now i'm in we're calling out the violence of the racist holy until the people are free in the until we ain't gonna stop ain't gonna stop me free good afternoon g.a i'm so honored to have this opportunity to speak with you today but i have a confession to make it was all set to deliver an address i wrote over a month ago those ga deadlines are very very real but i woke up like we sang about in worship this morning with freedom on my mind and a new message in my heart so my friends can i share it with you this morning this week was my first general assembly experience and it's been truly amazing it's been a week of joy and pain of connection and separation of new faces and old friends general assembly 2016 for me like life has been a lesson in contradictions this actually makes perfect sense because our faith is a lesson in contradictions right we see contradictions in the wave of black lives matter banners being hung in our congregations around the country and yet in truth many black uus feel unwelcome in our pews we see contradiction in the historic black lives of uu collection yesterday and this whole hall proclaiming black lives matter and yet this body delivered a no vote for divestment this week we see this in a ga planning committee who wholeheartedly supported our request for an explicitly black healing space and yet the need for that space exists at all amongst our people my friends there's a disconnect i said there is a disconnect and we need to get it together we must be transformed there's a disconnect between the work we want to do and the way we go about doing it between our principles and our actions between our words and our deeds and we really need to get it together we must be transformed over the last few years so many white uu's have come up to me and said leslie mack how can we show up for black lives my response is always the same i say well it's really simple you just show up and then you show up again and again and again and you keep doing it until it becomes a habit for you and your life until the effects of your words and actions on communities of color become something you think about before you say and do them and not after until including black voices in your search for truth become as comfortable as the white voices that you're used to until the spiritual lives of black people in your communities are considered in every single decision you make as a congregation this brings us to the question that looms large for us as a people of faith in the face of a global movement demanding action towards black liberation how can we be transformed how can our faith be transformed this work towards collective liberation is more than just about outcomes how we do this work is also how we create the world that we want to see the second principle of black lives says love and self-love is practiced in every element of everything that we do love must be the driver of our work and an indicator of its successes without this principle and without healing we will harm each other and undermine the movement we're building together so we can no longer cause emotional harm to people of color as we did at last year's black lives matter aiw in the assembly hall and then return to general assembly 12 months later to claim that action as victory we can no longer do things the way they've always be done and then ask why change is taking so long quite frankly my friends we can no longer fail to take collective action as a faith and still call ourselves a movement at all if we as a faith are truly committed to transformation then i say to you change must come to unitarian universalism the way we have always done things must change the way we seek connection must change the way we move in the world must change the way we worship must change the way we breathe must change so i ask you today if you are personally committed to black liberation do you consistently live that out if your congregation is committed to black liberation does it consistently make decisions in alignment with that commitment and if our faith is truly committed to black liberation are we finally ready to consistently challenge the long-held systemic practices that do not live up to that commitment only when we are able to answer those questions with a definitive yes will we truly be collectively transformed into the faith that we claim to be into a faith we strive to be into a faith that lives up to our principled belief in the dignity and worth of all people let us make that commitment to be consistent in our lives in our congregations and in our faith to say unapologetically with actions and not just words that black lives they matter here thank you and blessed be one of the most powerful ways the church offers us an opportunity to be one with another is through the power of music david frazier wrote a song he calls i need you to survive and i'd like to say that as we endeavor to be a community standing together affirming the worth and dignity of black lives we must enter the songs of black lives with humility curiosity and first we must endeavor consciously to resist the temptation to colonize it with the changes with the changes that make us more comfortable inside of it if we can be present to black faith and black faiths then in solidarity we might enter into the blessed relationship that allows us to deserve to be called allies in this sense sing this song with me with curiosity with humility and with joined faith i need you you need me stand with me agree with me that every need be supplied you are important to me i need you to survive you are important to me i need you to survive i need you you need me we're all a part of god's body stand with me agree with me we're all a part of god's body it is you are important to me i need you to survive listen i pray for you you pray for me i love you i need you to survive i won't harm you with words from my mouth i love you i need you to let's sing together i pray you pray for me i love you i need you to survive i won't harm you with the words from my mouth i love you i need you to survive i pray for you you pray for me i i love you to survive i pray for me oh i sing everything tell somebody else you are important to me tell two more people i you are important to me one more time you are important here amen amen in the same man hey are you coming over a river we're not singing but you can come up here every month so i love you all right so i didn't know what i was going to say because this has been a hard week on lots of lots of levels and but what helped was what happened right before this assembly but right before we closed business and we came back to worship so my first ea was 20 years ago i was 16 years old and i came from a pretty amazing church this little church called tennessee valley is kind of incredible we're kind of incredibly young that's where there's so many ministers and the irish are just amazing red folks all over the place and my congregation always told me that i was amazing powerful important both that one and mount zion baptist church because without going to a black baptist church or some black church you might not know where you come from as a black person that's for me so i needed both and i got both but my church always told me that i was loved and then i came to my first general assembly and i was like oh snap i walk in the room and these two girls are like guess what i was like oh what they like we got some folks because it's indianapolis right so it's the big uga so we were real smart back then and put like 600 youth and one hotel with no adults it was real smart uh we had a good time though we took over the segment so and we're pretty powerful young people but what i remember is the sheer amount so i the first thing i encountered was two white boys that decided to call themselves kareem and abdul and decided to dress and act like they were black what they thought was black that was my first encounter at general assembly and i went oh we have already started on the bad foot and it got progressively worse and worse and worse and if it wasn't for kristin harper and joseph santos lyons who called us in to a youth and young adult of color space i would never be back and then joseph called me back in again and so i'm going to stand here and say my piece but i also can't stand here without announcing the legacy in which i come from so i'm staring at male hoover over there and miss mama thea over here and denise and there's been hope and there's so many more that we could go on for days but people i met when i was 14 and 15 who changed my life in more ways than i know i had kept and they taught me what it truly meant to be with white people not back home right because back home white people who are on the good foot be doing the work they just real they don't say stupid stuff because the ones that you g like oh my we ain't doing that because we had confederate flags in my high school so i didn't come from a pretty happy cute place they were very clear and tend to see what they liked and didn't like so all the likes liberal nicety is strange right i'm like you're very obvious and so those folks were like they went through the work they sat with we went through we did journey to our homeless we did transformation teams i was the youngest person on district transformation team by like 20 years and then i got called back to do work with concentric and opus with young adults where i met mr matt marva here and other people and her youth work and they fed my life and my soul and then this thing happened in fort worth texas that we don't like to talk about as a faith but i've decided that i don't care anymore one day you get to tell your truth even when people try to hide it someday you get to be up here with the mic and tell your truth so i watch my young people and i call them mine because damn it they might be in a church that locked its doors on them being a church that called the police on them being a church that when the shower broke said go outside and bathe yourself with this water hose so when people go i don't understand it's like for real why don't you get it y'all did it so then we come to general assembly and i tell some people that we're in the highest leadership positions there are this is what happened and they said oh and didn't listen and then of course because of general assembly more and more stuff happens until there's a blow up over time and then what do we call a nametag commission and so one of my best friends who wasn't even here got put on the thing that i call the name tag commission because except for us saying what actually happened we said well you know if you just had your name tagged on then you would have been all right and didn't worry about why otherwise would come in with no nametag but just said all the nametag commission and so in 1996 when crazy stuff went down we didn't get to come on stage when i was a youth and 2000 was at five when that went down nobody was allowed to come on stage when groundwork was defunded and so now we have no youth and young adult anti-racism work happening in a really large extensive way especially for white people which is why you have some of the most amazing ministers ndr's and organizers in this country by far no one stood up now here we are in 2016. and so someone asked is change possible ten years ago i would have told you me and bill senford would not have stood on this stage next to each other fighting for a black lives matter nissan because i'm just going to be real right now but i stand with that million that man just a minute ago to say where are we now where are we now that would not have happened 10 years ago what you just saw would not have happened 10 years ago some of this because of relationships because i met tempe long time ago but i want to say that all of it can't just be about relationships we have spent a lot of our time here talking about we have to build relationships and we have to go past divisions and we need to unify which is nice except for one problem that doesn't actually deal with the problem do we understand what i'm saying unification is not my problem i need my twin to not have to worry about paying bills you hear what i'm saying paying bills i need my friends to not be shot at and locked up i need police to not sexually harass me right i need my folks in west virginia to not have died two days ago because of flooding because the u.s government does not give a damn about west virginia sandy got a whole bunch of money because it's new york and new jersey south irrelevant so what i'm saying to us is that we both have to sit here and say how do we stand together and unify of course and how do we use our leverage our money our time our resources our positionality to shift this world can you do that with me shift this world so here's what we're going to do but i think my time is up who remember is there's a chance that we're going close with um because i learned a long time ago and juvenile incarceration work doing all justice work just say i also want to offer this one wish the next time we do an offering pay attention to who you're giving the money to are you giving it to a radical organizing group that can't get paid that is led by people of color in most directly impacted communities are we giving it to service organizations that are run by white people that can give money anytime they want who are we putting our dollars behind i don't care about your words i care about your money in the end of the day are we investing in black infrastructure hbcus we used to do that are we doing that now so if you stand as you are willing and able because we're going to do a chant and then they're going to go so i need you to stand up if you can i know it's hard so here we go we're going to go low then high come here come here a second i've known you wait too long come on wait wait too long it is our duty to fight for our freedom it is our duty to win we must love and protect one another we have nothing to lose but our chains it is our duty to fight for our freedom it is our duty to win we must love and respect one another we have nothing to lose but our chains now i need you to think about tamir rice martez and the 22 young people i lose almost every year i almost committed suicide twice this year because i am tired tired and i cry almost every damn day because i am going through actual people problems in the places where i work so i need you to go through actual people problems in your communities with me because otherwise we ain't gonna win you cannot be liberated as it is tattooed on my wrist if we don't do it together so one more time because i need you to be my church don't tell me anymore thank you for being here this is my faith mine i got here in the third grade because i chose it not when i was 25 not as a minister i chose it there are youth that were born and raised here it's there so i need you to hold when it is us don't tell us thank you for being here because it ain't just yours it is mine so if you can't be my faith then guess what you might need to find another one because it's mine so i want it to be all of our faith so the next time you see a person of color or you don't you ask them don't say thank you for being here say thank you for welcoming me and because we welcomed you i am tired so i'm saying this because nobody wants to actually deal they're born and raised you use we welcome by the way side i run into folks every single day that our unitary universes and they don't count we got people running the best organizing groups in the country best in the country you see white young people i guarantee you they you you and they don't run their terms and they're not here so you don't need speakers that aren't you you bring the old ones back if you don't know them ask somebody else because they are doing amazing powerful movement work they can so please dear god work with me because this is my faith and yes i'm a little universal christian that's where i was raised i'm from the south so you just gotta hold that on you'll be all right so here we go one more time and we're gonna sing it we're gonna say it's so loud so so so very loud that our ancestors can hear us that the generations that come after us can hear us are you ready and i want to say this too you don't have to be a minister to be a preacher you don't have to be a minister to do safe work we don't need everybody going to ministry of school do the work go out in community and do that work so i'm don't ask me anymore if i'm gonna become a minister i am one hey are we ready one more time it is our duty to fight for our freedom it is our duty to win we must love and protect one another we have nothing we have nothing we have nothing to lose to lose but are tummy oh and the local arrangements chair for ga 2017. on behalf of the lay people in the clergy of greater new orleans louisiana i will extinguish this chalice grateful for our time together and the struggle that continues in great anticipation and great anticipation for our gathering next year may we go in peace assure that love surrounds us everywhere we may go y'all ready to get out of here i think now somebody told me i'm a pentecostal but i didn't know your unitarians had so much value put your hands together come on hey yay might be early in the morning midnight we read we you don't believe that mean it's great what you you don't get no peace we they think it's a game baby i believe one more time is it's our duty to fight for our freedom i believe i believe i believe me hey i got is hallelujah hallelujah let's go hallelujah hallelujah over my head i hear freedom in the air over my head oh oh yes thank you god bless you my name is reverend seiku this is jay marie the holy ghost our band members i think you can get cds of ours in the back god bless you we love you so do so i

Channel: Unitarian Universalist Association

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Length: 74min 29sec (4469 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 26 2016