The state of NJ branch of the Poor People’s Campaign is preparing for the national launch by inviting anyone interested in learning more, or joining the campaign, to a meeting with the NJ Poor People’s Campaign Coordinating Committee.
Tag: Racism
UULMNJ Fall Issues Conference: Register Today!
Registration is now OPEN for the Oct. 14 Fall Issues Conference–only 3 weeks away!
The Legislative Ministry’s Fall Issues Conference takes place on Saturday Oct. 14 from 12 noon until 6 p.m. Hosted this year by our member congregation, the UU Congregation of Monmouth County in Lincroft www.uucmc.org, the conference features a keynote speaker, issues-related break out groups and a working lunch. The Lincroft congregation is active in antiracism and immigration justice work and we are very pleased to partner together in support of a more just and hopeful New Jersey.
For those new to UULMNJ, the Fall Issues Conference is the premier opportunity for UUs from across the Garden State to learn, discuss, and become involved in the most pressing social justice concerns facing our state. It is the time each year when our six volunteer Task Forces (listed below) decide on their advocacy, education and legislative priorities for the coming year. We work on a collaborative model, so make sure to come help shape the UULMNJ agenda and the outcome of long-term policy and culture change in our home state.
We are very pleased to welcome our 2017 keynote speaker, Johanna Calle. Johanna is Program Director of our partner organization, the NJ Alliance for Immigrant Justice, one of the most effective and vocal immigrant rights groups active in the state today www.njimmigrantjustice.org.
Ms. Calle will be joined by Rita Dentino, Executive Director of the Monmouth County immigrant rights organization, Casa Freehold www.casafreehold.org and a partner with the UU Congregation of Monmouth County. Johanna and Rita will bring us up to date on the increasingly punitive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions and deportations and what we can do to mitigate harm and call out for justice on the public stage. Johanna and Rita expect to be joined by a NJ undocumented resident or family member willing to speak out about current conditions in our state.
Ted Fetter, long time Immigration Reform Task Force chair, will give an update on our State Sanctuary Challenge initiative–our 6 month-long effort to involve all 21 UULMNJ member congregations in advocating for sensible and human immigration reform locally, and against the mass criminalization of undocumented people.
Additional speakers during the break-out groups include Lena Smith from Food and Water Watch, Dr. Dione Johnson, CEO of JARC: Juvenile and Adult Re-Entry Connections, and Andrea Long, long-time reproductive rights activist and clinic escort.
As if that were not enough, there will be six break out groups during the working lunch to cover the issues we advocate for in Trenton and our member congregations: Environmental, Criminal, Reproductive, Economic and Immigrant Justice and Gun Violence Prevention.
Come also for the official launch of the NEW NAME, mission and vision statements, and special presentation of the logo and website design. Thanks to a generous donation, we are retooling to better serve justice-making, congregational liveliness, and “soul growth” in 2018 and beyond.
Finally, we sure to add your name and concerns/hopes/dreams to an interactive art installation, “Wall of Anger/Wall of Hope” over the course of the conference.
Questions/concerns? Please email the UULMNJ office at admin@uulmnj.org. We will make every effort to accommodate accessibility/special needs but it is very, very helpful to know in advance, so please do reach out.
Be sure to join us, 12 to 6 p.m. for a day devoted to justice-making and spirit-reviving. See you there!
We will make every effort to accommodate accessibility/special needs but it is very, very helpful to know in advance, so please do reach out.
Be sure to join us, 12 to 6 p.m. for a day devoted to justice-making and spirit-reviving. See you there!
Article: “Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed”
Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed
By Ijeoma Oluo
Ed. remarks: This isn’t an easy article but it is a very smart one, and hits home for many but perhaps especially for those among us who recognize ourselves as “well meaning white liberals” (or “well meaning white conservatives/independents” though you are not mentioned very much in this article) who are beginning to see with greater clarity the pervasiveness of racism in American culture. Spoiler alert: there is bad language here, and a perspective some may (will) find troubling. The editor’s take is that the UULMNJ was never meant to be another institution that comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. Or as one writer has said, “It’s not unity we are fighting for, but freedom.” Worth reading. — Rev. Rob Gregson
What is the 287(g) policy and why is it bad for New Jersey (and the nation?) (RG May 2017)
Thanks to Steve Ramshur and the Hudson Civic Action Group for this excellent discussion of the immigration policy–called “287(g)” in government speak–that pays counties to do the work of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency–by providing local jails and detention facilities.
287(g) is a totally voluntary program. Hudson County is now one of only 41 counties in the entire country (out of 3,144) to sign–effectively putting greed for dollars before the necessary boundary between local law enforcement and national immigration policies.
In other words–now Hudson Co. taxpayers are now subsiding the increasingly harsh, arbitrary and wholly unnecessary pursuit of nonviolent, often long-established undocumented people. Throwing many parents and hard-working people who have been here for 5, 10, 20 years into immigrant prisons.
Here is the link to the Hudson Civic Action article. It’s an easy and good read–highly recommended. http://hudsoncivicaction.org/287g/
UULMNJ Board Statement on Dismantling Racism
Unitarian Universalists have long been spiritually and morally committed to the elimination of racism and oppression. We have a long history of coming forward to answer the call for racial justice, and UUs have shed their blood in these struggles. In this we are motivated by the moral imperative of our covenant to affirm and promote the principles that are the uniting basis of our faith community.
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
The work to eliminate racism continues to be a litmus test of the strength of our principles and the authenticity of our faith.
The appearance and practice of racism in our society has in many ways radically changed, yet its basic manifestations remain the same. The illusion of a “color blind” society after the victories of the great civil rights movement and the historic election of an African American president has fully dissolved. Even though attention is being paid to the continuing epidemic of unpunished killings of people of color by police, it took a series of increasingly disturbing incidents before anyone paid attention to a long-established pattern of violence. This demonstrates that we have far to go to address the problems of racism. While it could be unfair to compare police killings to lynchings, the simple fact is that the rate of such killings in the last 15 years matches or exceeds the rate of some 5,000 recorded lynchings between 1882 and 1968. About 60 of these have been recorded to be of victims while in police custody. Currently the rate of police officer killings of people of color is reported to be at a rate of about two or more per week in the United States. The divide that exists between the criminal justice system and people of color is not an accident. It is a direct result of institutional racism.
This seemingly easy and all-too-common resort to lethal force in the moment of confrontation between police and persons — usually men of color — is only the most brutal aspect of the “New Jim Crow”. To the cry ”Black Lives Matter” we hear the casual and cynical reply “All Lives Matter.” The problem with proclaiming that all lives matter is that it denies the particular need to focus on black lives. Fundamentally, until our society accepts that black lives matter, the call that all lives matter is simply a denial of reality based on the limited experience of privileged people.
A basic condition of American racism is that the realities of life of people of color are not known well enough. In all aspects of American life, already drowning in inequality, people of color, as a group, continue to be victimized in the denial of human and civil rights, employment and income, health, reproductive services and life expectancy, wealth accumulation and home ownership, and in de facto residential and educational inequality and continued segregation. African American author Neely Fuller, Jr., has written,
“No major problem that exists between the people of the known universe can be eliminated until racism is eliminated.”
Racism continues today to be a key, interactive force affecting all issues in the struggle for social progress. Issues of race and racism infect all issues that the UULMNJ and Unitarian Universalists feel strongly about. From Criminal Justice Reform and ending Mass Incarceration to Fair Housing, to Immigration, to Gun Violence, to Health Care, to the Impact of Environmental Degradation, it is crucial for us to recognize that people of privilege experience these issues in an utterly different way from people of color. We must commit to expanding connection and understanding in order to unleash the full transformational power of a multicultural, multiracial alliance for meaningful and lasting change.
We continue to work to build the Beloved Community of all people, regardless of race, regardless of economic condition, regardless of sexual preference or gender identity, and of other seeming differences. The differences among us are not categories for separation; they only serve to show the amazing variations and possibilities of the human race. Seeing, understanding, and appreciating different realities and experiences is the major goal for achieving the transformational power of the Beloved Community.
The UULMNJ will continue to address the dismantling of racism on every issue and in all aspects of its activity. We ask that the New Jersey Unitarian Universalist Congregations we serve join us in this endeavor.
The Boards of
The Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey
The Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey Public Policy Network
April 14, 2015