As a full disclosure, this is a long blog and it talks about both gun violence and white supremacy.
It has been a heavy few weeks as more lives have been lost to gun violence.
Our own denomination calls us to end gun violence. The United Methodist Church urges “congregations to advocate at the local and national level for laws that prevent or reduce gun violence.” Some of the measures noted in the Book of Resolutions include:
- Universal background checks on all gun purchases
- Ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty
- Ensuring all guns are sold through licensed gun retailers
- Prohibiting all individuals convicted of violent crimes from purchasing a gun for a fixed time period
- Prohibiting all individuals under a restraining order due to threat of violence from purchasing a gun
- Prohibiting persons with serious mental illness who pose a danger to themselves and their communities, from purchasing a gun
- Ensuring greater access to services for those suffering from mental illness
- Establishing a minimum age of 21 years for a gun purchase or possession
- Banning large-capacity ammunition magazines and weapons designed to fire multiple rounds each time the trigger is pulled
- Promoting new technologies to aid law-enforcement agencies to trace crime guns and promote public safety.
But, it does not stop there. Gun violence isn’t an issue in isolation, it is inextricably intermingled with white supremacy. In our own state and denomination, we cannot ignore the legacy and enduring presence of white supremacy. As we saw in El Paso, the use of gun violence can be racially motivated. Even the disparities between the treatment of white man who are arrested compared to black men should give us pause to see that something else is going on.
The evening of the Dayton, Ohio shooting, I was laying in bed scrolling through Instagram and a video caught my eye. Executive Minister of Programs for The Riverside Church, Rev. Alisha L. Gordon, posted a clip from her Sunday sermon. With the prophet Hosea as her text, Gordon’s sermon “A Radical Kind of Love,” weaves love and social justice into a tapestry of embodied love seen in accountability.
She preaches, “God’s love is not just a feeling, it is something that is radicalized by action. A radical kind of love holds us accountable. And this is not the kind of accountability that pats each other on the back for thoughts and prayers or sharing Facebook links. It is not the false sense of accountability that excuses us from our role in the deaths of these 20 people murdered in a local walmart or [the 9] who were murdered not even 12 hours later in Dayton, Ohio […]” She then goes on to proclaim that accountability at the intersection of white supremacy and gun violence, and other forms of violence in the U.S, “is the radical act of naming that white supremacy, not mental illness, is the reason white men with assault rifles are the biggest threat to life and liberty in this country.”
And maybe as we turn to God in prayer, we should also turn inward for self-reflection. What ways are we enabling this sort of violence, especially as a predominantly white church?
So, what are we going to do about it, Church?
Our siblings of color in the Unitarian Universalist Church suggest three main ways we can work to dismantle white supremacy:
- Expose the impact of white supremacy
- Look at the stories from Coalition of Communities of Color, specifically their document “Communities of Color in Multnomah County: An Unsettling Profile.” The racial disparities in Portland cannot be unseen.
- Read “10 Insidious Ways White Supremacy Shows Up in Our Everyday Lives,” available at: https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/white-supremacy-everyday-life/
- Engage in study and change
- Books: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, How to Be Less Stupid about Race by Crystal M. Fleming, and So You Want to Talk about Race by Igeoma Oula.
- Article: Semuels, Alana. The Racist History of Portland: The Whitest City in America. The Atlantic. June 22, 2016, available at:https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/.
- Enter partnerships for action
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- Attend YWCA’s August 23rd Intersectional Advocacy Training
- Supporting the Coalition of Communities of Color, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Interfaith movement for Immigration Justice, Native American Youth and Family Center, don’t Shoot PDX, and other organizations led by people of color
- Attend the White Ally Tool Kit Seminar, 6:30-9:00 pm August 23rd and 24th at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Portland
We need to act. If not us, who? If not now, when?
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