I'm Kenny Wiley, UU World Magazine senior editor. This spring, I've spent time with two black Unitarian Universalist young adults--Charina "CJ" Austin, a participant of the Baltimore Uprising, and Raziq Brown in Fort Worth, Texas, to share their stories and explore how UUs are participating in the burgeoning 'Black Lives Matter' nationwide movement.
Thank you for the invitation to share with you my passion for social justice, for promoting UUism, and for helping bring about a more peaceful and interconnected world by encouraging people to cross all the borders that separate us. These borders include linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, theological, and many others.
MY LIFE AS A UU
I have been a UU for over six years. I greatly envy those of you who are lifelong UUs. I wish I had stumbled upon it sooner when my kids were still little. As they say, better late than never. I actually came across UUism at a gathering with fellow Esperanto-speakers. I noticed that many of them were UUs. After some research the reason was crystal clear. The ideologies of both movements are so similar! They both encourage us to move beyond a culture of monolingualism and into a world community that is truly universal in its embrace of diversity and in its ability to speak, listen, covenant, and act as “We, the Peoples of the Earth” by crossing all the borders that separate us. At international Esperanto gatherings I can chat with people of over 100 countries with a language that only took me about six months to learn.
My name is Mar Cárdenas Loutzenhiser, and I am a dedicated Unitarian Universalist, helping to bring the Del Lado del Amor campaign to Mexico. One of our partner organizations is the Deported Vets Support House, better known as “The Bunker”. Two years ago, my husband Gary and I found out that since 1996, the US Government has been deporting veterans who joined the Armed Forces as legal permanent residents, served their country proudly, and received honorable discharges. Veterans who have been deported served in wars such as Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Iraq & Afghanistan, and served in both combat and peacetime.
In most of the cases I know, the vets got in trouble after being discharged because they had severe PTSD and made the mistake of using drugs and alcohol to alleviate the pain while waiting for the VA to give them the medical care they needed.
Last month we issued a call to join us at the upcoming General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in Portland, Oregon. We’ve heard back from many of you who are doing some wonderful justice organizing and actions in your communities. So join us! We have one spot left share in our workshop. Read below for all the details, and if you aren’t planning on going to GA, we will share all the great resources afterwards. Stay tuned!
Jeanette Vizguerra is a fixture in the Denver justice community. Along with her three young children, we often see her at rallies, hear her speak at monthly vigils at our local detention center, and witness her tell her story at the state capitol to influence policy change. For the last 15 years, Jeanette has worked hard to bring more justice to Colorado- for workers, for immigrants, for families.
Many Unitarian Universalists in the Denver area have had the pleasure of spending time with Jeanette, inviting her to speak in our congregations or share her story with our social justice ministries. Over the years, she has helped us to better understand the ins and outs of the immigration system, what it’s like to live with the constant threat of separation from one’s family, and the impossible choices often faced by immigrants in this country. She has inspired us with her courage and her passion. And she has become a friend and mentor to many of us, when some of our own families were experiencing the threat of deportation, detention, or separation.
I'm just returning to Boston from the second city uprising I've visited this year. Baltimore, like Ferguson, is still a community where people eat and sleep and chat and work. But they do all these things with police helicopters buzzing overhead and National Guards watching with their machine guns gripped hard.
I know that in my white privilege I can come and go, smile at the officers and not have to worry about my relatives night and day. That's why I show up for these protests wherever I can, to march in solidarity and to learn from the leadership of those who are trying to assert their basic rights to freedom and safety.
Unlike many other social problems, climate change is an issue that affects all of mankind. And to stand on the side of love with those most affected by climate change means to tackle this problem together. When the very air we breathe is at risk, we have no choice but to think about our loved ones and what their lives would be like if we allow these hazards to exist. And who better to take on such a task but people of faith?
People of all faiths have long played a powerful role in advancing the cause of justice. African American faith traditions, in particular, have been at the center of the most important social movements of the last century—from civil rights to voting rights to anti-poverty efforts.
As a human rights lawyer and a mother of a toddler, I was personally struck by what I saw on my visit to Karnes detention center in Karnes City, Texas, last month. Refugee women and children, who have come to the United States seeking asylum, are being held in jail-like conditions.
Many of you have asked how can you help these families. We invite you now to volunteer with the Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), a UUSC partner, and help detained women and children secure asylum in the United States.
We must not imagine that what's happening in Baltimore will be "over" for a very long time. There are cries for "peace" in our city--and from outside our city--which imagine that stopping the violence-spree of angry (and organized!) youth and getting back to normal is desired. I am not sure that this is desired, and I know that it is not even possible. The frustration of the young people in Baltimore is the frustration of a people that have known police harassment their entire lives. The "War on Drugs" created a culture that made it illegal to be poor, to be Black, to live in the neighborhood you live in and to hang out with your friends. This generation has faced a city where the "Zero Tolerance Policy" criminalized childhood, criminalized growing up in East and West Baltimore, and that is not going to change, even when the State of Emergency is lifted and the National Guard goes home.
On April 23, Standing on the Side of Love, along with our partners at the UU College of Social Justice and the UU Service Committee, hosted a webinar called Immigration Justice Stalled. It was a powerful time of building community together, as Unitarian Universalists and our partners on both sides of the Mexico/U.S. border shared their stories, including allies and people directly affected by our broken immigration system.
Due to tech difficulties, the webinar is in two parts, access Part One here, and Part Two here.
