Commitment
The Four Outcomes
To become an anti-racist multicultural institution requires commitment, analysis, strategy, and willingness to risk, grow, and change. The benefits of embarking on this journey are to experience a spiritual change of heart and to enter into what some anti-racist theologians and organizers describe as a “politics of conversion” to create the beloved community.
There are four outcomes that we hope will be achieved as people do this work in their UU congregations, districts, and organizations.
First, we are called to develop and practice anti-racist multicultural identity within and beyond our congregations. Identity is determined by how we define ourselves. It involves the core values we believe are central. Practice is determined by how we live out these values. It involves what we do in the world.
Developing an anti-racist multicultural identity and practice means we do the things we normally do in the life of the church but we use an anti-racist, multicultural lens while we do so. Hopefully, all of our programs (worship, religious education, community action, membership growth, and so on) will be done in an anti-racist multicultural way.
Second, we are also called to develop anti-racist multicultural identity and practice in our communities when we engage in racial justice work. This involves working with leaders from People of Color communities in an accountable way to dismantle institutional racism. We want to equip people to engage in racial justice efforts that are more effective, authentic, and accountable to oppressed communities of color.
Third, many Unitarian Universalists work in the basic institutions of our society like government, corporations, non-profit agencies, educational institutions, health care structures, and so on. Racist identity and practice are still embedded in these institutions today. We look to the members of our congregations to take the analysis and organizing experience that they learn in our Unitarian Universalist congregations and apply these tools in the organizations where they work.
Fourth, we are called to join with other anti-racist activists in religious communities and local community organizations that are determined to create a broad anti-racism movement in the United States. We have many allies in other faith traditions who are committed to the same vision of a world of justice and reconciliation that we as Unitarian Universalists are. But we need our ongoing commitment to work with these groups and as we take the next steps in the Journey Toward Wholeness.