#BLACKLIVESMATTER A Sermon offered by Rev. Tim Kutzmark December 14, 2014 Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Martin Luther King, Jr. This isn t the sermon I had planned to offer this morning. Two months ago, thinking about today being one week from the Winter Solstice, I planned that the sermon was going to be about the lessons we can learn from nature at this Winter Solstice time. Today s sermon was originally going to be titled: How To Survive The Longest Night of the Year. Given the ongoing street protests against the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island, and the recent police shooting in Cleveland of 12 year old Tamir Rice, it seemed necessary to change our topic to Black Lives Matter. But, in reality, this sermon could be still be titled How To Survive The Longest Night of the Year. For Trevon Martin, the longest night of the year was February 26, 2012, the night he didn t make it back home, shot and killed by a security guard in Sanford, Florida. For Michael Brown, the longest night of the year was August 9 th, the night he was shot multiple times in a street in Ferguson, Missouri, reportedly with his hands held up in the air. For Eric Garner, the longest night of the year began July 17 as he was taken down and restrained by Staten Island police. For the family of Tamir Rice, the longest night of the year extends on and on as they wait to see what the justice system will do for their dead 12 year old son. An African American friend of mine told me this week: The longest night of the year is any night I walk out the front door of my house. I never know if I m going to be stopped by the police for walking or driving or living while black. I never know if a police officer is going to see me as a threat that requires lethal action. I never know if I ll end up as the next dead black man in the headlines. For me, every night is the longest night of the year, and I have to figure out how to survive it. These thoughts are echoed by Ahmed Green Hayes, who, at yesterday s March on Washington, said: I stand here as a black man who is afraid of the police, who is afraid of never knowing when my life might end, never knowing when I might be gunned down by a vigilante, or a security guard or a police officer. There is a Native American saying: Do not judge a person unless you have walked a mile in their moccasins. In other words, take the time to understand what someone s life, someone s world, and someone s experience actually is. Over the past three weeks, I have become acutely aware that I really have no real idea what it feels like to be black in America. For many of us, here in the predominately white sheltered suburbs north of Boston, we can read headlines, watch video images, hear interviews on NPR about race, about inequality, about stereotypes, about police brutality against black men we can recoil from images of police using military armament for 1
crowd control, of tear gas canisters exploding on America s streets, but, for most of us not all of us, but most of us there is a sense of distance from it all. It is not our world. We may truly care about what we are seeing and hearing we may feel anger about what we are seeing and hearing but for most of us we are protected by otherness. Most of this is happening to someone other then ourselves, not to us not to our friends... not to our families not to our children. We are protected by distance. Last Sunday, The Reverend Dr. Grainger Browning, pastor of the 8,000-member Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal church in Fort Washington, Md... asked his largely African- American congregation during services how many people have had some negative interaction with police and 99 percent of the hands rose. (Dec 8 th Washington Post, online) I think if I asked that question, 99% of us would not need to raise our hands. What has been most unsettling, most upsetting, and most paralyzing to me over these last weeks is truly hearing how so many people of color feel that the value of their lives is discounted on a daily basis. There are so many black Americans (and Latinos) living with the belief and the experience that the police, judges, juries, jails, and the entire justice system act as if their lives don t matter. White America acts as if their lives don t matter. Hence the cry: Black lives matter. The complexity of race and class is woven into our society by a long history. As Caesar McDowell from Cambridge said yesterday on the Boston Common, where 1000 protestors gathered: Racism is a deep wound in this country. A first step in tackling that wound is taking seriously the voices of black men and black women who are telling us that they live in fear because of injustice, inequality, and a deadening imbalance of power. A black friend of mine who raised her son in a suburb north of Boston remembers that, 20 years ago, people used to call the police because her black teenage son was simply walking down the street. She feared for the day he d say something to a harassing police officer that would set off a deadly chain of events. She moved her son from that town. Today, she wonders if he ll be safe anywhere in America. The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, a black Unitarian Universalist minister who currently serves as President of Starr King School for the Ministry, our Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley, CA, wrote these words on Sunday of last week: I wish my position as a seminary president could protect me, my husband, and my two young adult sons. I wish my educational attainments or the books I ve written might render me immune from fear. I wish my husband s tenderness, my older son s musical brilliance or my younger son s humor could protect them as they go about the business of living while black, two of them in cities far from my watchful eyes. I wish my brother in Boston and my brother in Chicago and my nephews in downstate Illinois and Denver could lead their lives with a certain casual indifference to their surroundings. I wish that the work and the struggle and the deaths and lives of generations of people before me had come to 2
mean something more than they mean at this moment. But they don t. I am still a black woman in America, and all the men I love and mention here are black men in America, and all of us are expendable at any time, and that is the truth of our lives. There are voices we need to listen to. The first principle of our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That is not easy. It means we have to be willing to see the world through someone else s eyes in order to understand them. It means we have to stretch and see something beside ourselves and our reality. This is never easy. You may know that in 1965, our denomination sent more ministers to march in Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King than any other faith tradition. According to Mark Morrison Reed, in his new article in the UU World, our faith s national magazine, 500 Unitarian Universalist congregants and 250 Unitarian Universalist ministers marched with Dr. King. Looking back at our involvement with Selma, and looking ahead to where we are today, Morrison Reed writes: In and of themselves, noble aspirations and heroic deeds cannot undo systematically embedded patterns [of oppression]... UUs preached... sermons about human rights, sang... freedom songs on Sunday mornings, and devoted... Sunday School classes to the situation of African Americans. But [we] sang the songs and preached the messages, by and large, in lily-white settings in the suburbs... For how long would the cause of African Americans people who were not [our] peers nor part of [our] lives remain paramount? (UU World, Winter 2014 adapted) In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a book entitled Where Do We Go From Here? That, my friends, is the question that is before us still. We as a Unitarian Universalist people of faith are once again being called to become part of that answer. As King wrote in his book: We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The grand jury rulings in Ferguson and Staten Island have given us a new opportunity, a new moment in time. As Gina Russell, a black grandmother from Brooklyn NY said yesterday at the protest in New York City: I think this is a seminal moment for this generation. I haven t seen this much activism for a worthy cause in a long time. Where do we go from here? Will we listen to voices that need to be heard? Will we engage in difficult conversations? Will we seek together to do more than talk? Will we stretch ourselves so that we become catalysts of change? Will we be compelled to march with others who have already taken to the streets? Will we use our bodies and voices and create statements that cannot be ignored or forgotten too soon? Will we continue and 3
continue and continue and continue to create a holy unrest? How will we help our communities and our nation survive this, our longest night of the year? * * * BLACK LIVES MATTER: A MOM S RESPONSE By Kelly Thome Five years ago, church member Kelly Thome and her family adopted a child from Ethiopia. Kelly is a mom raising a black son in a predominately white suburb. When the non-indictment was announced in Ferguson, my 16yo daughter Ali was watching with me while Skyping with a group of supportive friends, and posted this on FB: What really scares me about this is that my little brother is a loud black kid who has trouble following orders, giggles when he's nervous, and loves gold jewelry. And tonight proves that my baby brother is not safe in America. Several friends asked if they could share it... here are just three of the responses they received: her post is absolutely ridiculous. She is wrong Then relocate and Is her little brother stealing and resisting arrest? If not then he's got nothing to fear. But, my friends, Ali isn't wrong. Michael, Eric, Tamir and others would agree, if they could. Elon James White, a blogger we know who was teargassed while reporting from Ferguson and who saw his efforts providing teargas protection kits from a church basement raided by police the police raided a church, would agree. Fact is, racism and white privilege are alive and well in 2014 America, even here. That baby brother you met as an impossibly adorable 4yo five Decembers ago is 5'2 and already gets more attention in stores than Ali does now... unless he's standing near us. I know in a few more years he'll be over 6'... and that some people will cross the street to avoid passing him on the sidewalk. Do parents of white sons worry about that happening, like I do? My heart breaks when I see reports of another black child or adult killed by the very people who are supposed to protect us ALL. Yes all lives matter, but it seems from my view as though some lives black lives - matter less. I worry that even if my son is a good boy, says and does all the right things and none of the wrong, one day I'll get that dreaded call that my child is injured or dead. For many parents, the fear is drunk drivers. For me and other parents of black children, it's because they were living while black. As I thought about what to say today, I thought about what wisdom we as parents strive to impart to our children. Think about the talks you've had or will/would have with kids about life. (pause) I'm sure much is universal... but let me share the parts parents of black children have to include because we fear for their safety: - Keep your hands out of your pockets in plain sight when talking to police/people in 4
authority. - Don't ever wear a hoodie pulled up. - Be respectful and don't laugh, giggle, cover your mouth, or fidget while anyone in authority talks to you.... and a dozen more things. When he's older we'll cover other things. My heart crumbles thinking about teaching hands up, don't shoot. I know you're wondering what about Ali? She is acutely aware we never *had* to tell her this stuff. Our make sure Ase behaves when they walk down to Rite-Aid in the summer really means protect your brother. In stores like, as she reminded me this morning, Sephora in the North Shore Mall - she tends to wrap an arm around him and casually work his age into their chat so it's clear who he is, because she sees how the clerks notice HIM first, even if he doesn't yet. Do white siblings do that? Let me be clear... I believe the majority of law enforcement are good people. But until the Darrin Wilsons, Daniel Pantaleo's and Timothy Loehmann's are no longer glorified as heroes and (yes, I saw this on Twitter) Animal Control Officers, I will be afraid for my beautiful son and all the others. I'll do what other mothers do... stop by the station to make sure the police in their towns know their sons belong there. Help me stop being afraid, please. Listen. Learn. Because Black Lives Matter. Copyright 2014, Rev. Tim Kutzmark and Kelly Thome 5