A Special UUA President’s Column

A message to white Unitarian Universalists.

“I wanted to write to my sibling white UUs, to share how my attitude towards policing has dramatically changed over the last fifteen years.

As I watch the news unfold this week, I feel heartbroken and angry. I also feel something else—trauma. As I watched the videos of police cars in New York City and Columbus, Ohio, drive into crowds of people, I felt in my body the fear and trauma of what it was like to be on the streets in Charlottesville, Virginia, when the police stood and allowed armed white supremacist, white nationalist, antisemitic, neo-confederates to attack peaceful, faithful counter-protesters who had come to witness against their hatred.

I also notice how my left arm is hurting. The one that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies tried to break, the one that had scars on it for years from the zip tie handcuffs they used on me when I was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2010.

We must demilitarize and defund the police. We must defund and decarcerate the jails. 

These stories I share of witnessing and experiencing police violence are minor compared to the lived experience of many Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color in the United States. Even the violence I experienced in the Maricopa County jail was minor compared to that of the young Latino man arrested with me who was beaten unconscious by sheriff’s deputies. My experience is minor compared to the violence Black Americans have experienced for generations at the hands of police, at the hands of white people, at the hands of slave holders.

My experiences are minor in comparison, and I only experienced them because I chose solidarity with communities of color. That choice taught me a lot about whiteness, about policing, and about the United States.

Listening to and organizing with Black and brown communities in Phoenix, I learned how my neighbors lived under a virtual police state. Their neighborhoods were constantly surveilled by police, and in Southern Arizona, by Border Patrol as well. Police, sometimes in riot gear, would move through neighborhoods and apartment buildings knocking on doors, stopping pedestrians and people in cars and on bikes, asking for documentation. Listening to Black organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the Issue 1 campaign in 2018, the story was similar. Police surveillance is constant in many communities of color in the United States.

As white people—especially those with class privilege—we are taught that police protect and serve the community. They are seen as “helpers.” We teach our children if they are lost, in danger, or need help, to look for a police officer. And largely, through most of my life, this narrative has matched my experience. However, the killings of Tamir Rice and Aiyana Stanley Jones are devastating examples of why Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) cannot teach their children this.

Uprisings are occurring across the country because police have never been “helpers” for most Black people in the United States, nor for most Indigenous people and people of color. As with so many experiences of inequity in this country, white supremacy shields white people from harm while teaching us to disbelieve the lived experience of our Black, brown, and Indigenous neighbors.”

 

From Gene Heater:

During the pandemic while the church is closed to physical gatherings,  I am hosting online meditation sessions via Zoom.

These sessions are recurring so the same link/URL works each week for each session.

Tuesdays: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/465362885

Wednesdays: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/420507564

Thursdays: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://us04web.zoom.us/j/586281525&sa=D&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw0-mEO2y1TYqblUaG0ipTrU

I have cancelled the Sunday morning session as I am planning to attend the Prairie Mountain Zen Center session.  You are welcome to join me.  Their schedule is:
8:30 am zazen,
8:50 kinhin (walking meditation)
9 am zazen
9:20 am break
10:30 am Dharma Talk and discussion;

Here is the link  PMZC – Sunday Morning
You are welcome to attend all or part of the session

There is also  a Thursday evening session at PMZC
6:30 pm zazen;
7:00 kinhin and break:
7:10 to 8:00 pm or so for open discussion/check in.   

Here is the link   PMZC – Thursday Evening

Hope you will join us.

Gene