What is Race
A Sermon
By Rev. Daniel Gregoire
Unitarian Universalist Society of Grafton and Upton
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Reading:
“If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, ‘yes, the victim. How terrible it’s been for black people.’ I’m not a victim. I refuse to be one... if you can only be tall because somebody else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.”
Toni Morrison, in an excerpt taken from a 1993 interview with Charlie Rose on the Public Broadcasting Service, featured in Esquire magazine
Sermon:
The solution to any problem begins with asking the right questions. The answer is the question in many cases.
Unitarian Universalism encourages us to ask questions of ourselves and others, it encourages us to question our faith.
We are invited to search for truth, with the knowledge that the truth (lowercase truth) is on the move, searching us out too, and the truth will set us free from the binds that bind us.
Freedom our spiritual theme for February, which is also Black History Month, a time where we celebrate the often overlooked contributions and experiences of those of African descent in the larger unfolding of the American story. When we say Black History we are talking about American history and I think it is important to remember that. Moreover, freedom when looked at through the lens of the African American experience takes on a deeper, richer meaning, due in large part to the Trans Altantic Slave trade, and obvious contradiction that exists between the presence of enslaved people in a country founded on the principles of freedom and equality.
I remember, when I was a High School student, taking the elective class of Black History, and suppose since it was an elective, I should not have been surprised that there were mostly black students in the class. But I was surprised. The teacher was white, and most of the students in the school were white. So this class was different from any other class in the school, other than the more vocational track classes offered by the school. I really enjoyed that class and there were lessons on struggle, triumph and empowerment that I still remember. There were surprising Firsts that always were a delight to discover. That Black History class, together with some unique learning opportunities from my early childhood in New York really shaped my understanding of myself and others. As I think back to that experience, I also remember the overwhelming sense of disappointment I had that others were not there in that class. Why didn’t this class better reflect the ethnic makeup of the school? It didn’t feel right that this class was an elective, in other words, one had to choose this class, but it was not required. So it could be avoided.
The idea that one could graduate into adulthood, and then take on their role as American citizen and not know about Black History, not just the suffering and oppression of African Americans, which is altogether impossible to avoid, and is sometimes almost fetishized. But the real loss, is not knowing the spirit, the joy and triumph, the firsts and the gifts of the Black experience. It seemed to me like an awfully big “Missed Opportunity” in the 21st century, in our interconnected and interdependent world.
Of course one can begin to make up for the missing out on that experience by visiting the new Smithsonian museum of the African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. or the African American History museum in Boston, or taking advantage of the opportunities that come up from time to time to explore local Black history in Worcester and the surrounding areas. Now is the time that we must begin to take that important part of our education seriously and connect with African American history, and the people.
Some in this room will recall our Kwanzaa Service from a few weeks back where there were slips of paper inserted in the order of service with the names and short biographies of historic African Americans, that we shared in the service, that was also an opportunity to begin to think, and connect and reconnect with the people and stories that remind us that we are all one. What I didn’t share then, was the fact that the slips of paper were prompted by the fact that the year prior, in a similar service, it seemed that the congregation struggled to come up with names of famous African Americans, as we poured libations, which is to say we struggled to name famous Americans who are also black. I was surprised then.
One could say, well, Daniel, the vast majority of your congregation is white. But, of course that isn’t reason enough. We are not so separate, we are not so different.
The Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, says that:
We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.
And, that is where we will find our freedom, which is the extraordinary power to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The empowerment to Be.
We are alive to get free, to regain our freedom by awakening from the illusion of our separateness. And that is perhaps best illustrated in the Black experience, in the will to become free. But as we, even with a very limited vantage point, can see that the will to be free has been long restrained by racism in general and White Supremacy in particular.
Toni Morrison, who died last year at the age of 88, you might recall was the author several iconic, and award winning works of American literature, including the Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved, Beloved was quickly adapted to a film in 1998.
Toni Morrison was a chronicler of the American experience through the lens Black Folk. She beautifully, magically and hauntingly describes the experience of racism in our country; both the internalized racism of a young black girl who desperately wishes to have blue eyes and the broader systemic impacts of oppressive systems on African Americans and European Americans alike, in the trauma of slavery and post-civil war America. Morrison courageously examined the blight and ugliness of racism on the very soul of our nation. Racism distorts everything, even one’s perception of self.
In an interview from 1993, where our reading from this morning comes from.
Charlie Rose asks Morrison: “How do you feel about racism?”
Morrison responds by saying “That’s the wrong question,” and she goes on to ask rhetorically “How do you feel?”
Then she replies:
“Don’t you understand that the people who do this thing, who practice racism, are bereft? There is something distorted about the psyche. It’s a huge waste, and it’s a corruption, and it’s a distortion. It’s a profound neurosis that nobody examines for what it is,”
I believe this is the clearest construction and definition of racism: its is a waste, a corruption a distortion of the human spirit, a neurosis (or obsessive behavior) of individuals and societies.
Morrison goes on to say:
“If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, ‘yes, the victim. How terrible it’s been for black people.’ I’m not a victim. I refuse to be one... if you can only be tall because somebody else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.”
The takeaway for me, is that the right questions will help us to arrive at the right answers.
When asked about Racism Morrison, who is Black, asks for interviewer, Charlie Rose, who is white:
“How do you feel?”
This is a question we must ourselves from time to time:
How are we feeling?
In this moment.
How do we feel when we encounter differences?
How do we feel, when we hear a joke clearly meant to demean a group of people, and their experience?
How do we feel when families are torn apart?
How do we feel when so many images of suffering show people with faces that look like ours?
How do we feel when so many images of suffering show people with faces and features that look, unlike our own?
How do we feel?
This is a good place to begin, a truly courageous starting point.
Another question we might consider is what is race?
Especially, what is race? that it should be the cause of so much suffering, both here and around the world?
It is another illusion of our separateness.
Race is a myth!
Dorothy Roberts a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says in a recent interview in Spirit of Change Magazine, explains that race is a myth, confirming what I think many people believe in their hearts to be true.
From Dorothy Roberts:
“The biological concept of race has been refuted by evolutionary biologist and geneticists and genomicists for decades. The scientist who led the Human Genome Project made a point of saying human genetic variation isn’t divided into races. There’s no such thing as black genes or white genes.”
She goes onto say:
“You might have genes that can be traced to a certain population somewhere on the globe, but there is point at which you can draw a boundary line and identify one race on one side and a different race on the other ...All humans originated in Africa and then migrated outwards in groups, each carrying a subset of the genetic variations found in Africa.” (page 34)
Our living tradition Unitarian Universalism, religious in origin, traces its roots to two ancient Christian theological positions.
Unitarianism simply refers to the unity or oneness of God, which brings Christianity into closer alignment with its Jewish roots.
Universalism to Gods all inclusive, or universal love for all creation, and of the reconciling nature of that love that embraces everyone.
The 21st Century Unitarian Universalist Theologian, Forrest Church in his book, The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Theology wrote:
God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself.
While having our origin in Christian and Western thought, we are not limited in that regard, again ours is a living tradition that draws from many sources.
The beauty of our tradition, its ability to draw on the best, to take and reformulate religious language to serve a higher purpose.
Our experiences today allow us to expand our conception of the holy, not just to speak of things that are supernatural, or wholly “other” but to recognize the unseen threads that link us to each other. The things that bind us together, and awaken us are holy.
Our tradition invites us to discover the intricate unity or Oneness in our common origin as Humans. Out of Africa we all came.
Universalism for us today can be seen as the will to not just love, but to expand our circle of concern, to the point that bursts open to include everyone. A universalist today, as in the past, is one who actively shows love of God in the world.
This all pervading commitment to the good, shows up in all we do.
We do this in our interactions, in our politics, in our purchases, in our commitments to the highest good and in the highest good of lifelong learning and growing.
If we can do this, we can break the chains that keep all of us enslaved knowingly and unconsciously to racist systems and ideologies of today. These ideologies are often so subtle and so cleverly disguised, but the outcomes, and the impacts that they cause reveal them for what they really are. Just look!
I am not advocating a colorbind point of view, while race is a myth, created by those with the desire to control, exploit and oppress, the outcomes of racism are very real today, we can see them.
Let us instead hold as a guiding vision, one where each person is given the freedom to connect across differences, mindful of the fact that differences are illusions that we come into this world to interrogate and transcend.
This is an invitation to life long learning and growing, crossing all of the boundaries that exist in our heads, which is what our faith calls us to do!
This is what we must remember:
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season.
It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year.
It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow.
Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime. - W.E.B DuBois.
A Sermon
By Rev. Daniel Gregoire
Unitarian Universalist Society of Grafton and Upton
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Reading:
“If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, ‘yes, the victim. How terrible it’s been for black people.’ I’m not a victim. I refuse to be one... if you can only be tall because somebody else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.”
Toni Morrison, in an excerpt taken from a 1993 interview with Charlie Rose on the Public Broadcasting Service, featured in Esquire magazine
Sermon:
The solution to any problem begins with asking the right questions. The answer is the question in many cases.
Unitarian Universalism encourages us to ask questions of ourselves and others, it encourages us to question our faith.
We are invited to search for truth, with the knowledge that the truth (lowercase truth) is on the move, searching us out too, and the truth will set us free from the binds that bind us.
Freedom our spiritual theme for February, which is also Black History Month, a time where we celebrate the often overlooked contributions and experiences of those of African descent in the larger unfolding of the American story. When we say Black History we are talking about American history and I think it is important to remember that. Moreover, freedom when looked at through the lens of the African American experience takes on a deeper, richer meaning, due in large part to the Trans Altantic Slave trade, and obvious contradiction that exists between the presence of enslaved people in a country founded on the principles of freedom and equality.
I remember, when I was a High School student, taking the elective class of Black History, and suppose since it was an elective, I should not have been surprised that there were mostly black students in the class. But I was surprised. The teacher was white, and most of the students in the school were white. So this class was different from any other class in the school, other than the more vocational track classes offered by the school. I really enjoyed that class and there were lessons on struggle, triumph and empowerment that I still remember. There were surprising Firsts that always were a delight to discover. That Black History class, together with some unique learning opportunities from my early childhood in New York really shaped my understanding of myself and others. As I think back to that experience, I also remember the overwhelming sense of disappointment I had that others were not there in that class. Why didn’t this class better reflect the ethnic makeup of the school? It didn’t feel right that this class was an elective, in other words, one had to choose this class, but it was not required. So it could be avoided.
The idea that one could graduate into adulthood, and then take on their role as American citizen and not know about Black History, not just the suffering and oppression of African Americans, which is altogether impossible to avoid, and is sometimes almost fetishized. But the real loss, is not knowing the spirit, the joy and triumph, the firsts and the gifts of the Black experience. It seemed to me like an awfully big “Missed Opportunity” in the 21st century, in our interconnected and interdependent world.
Of course one can begin to make up for the missing out on that experience by visiting the new Smithsonian museum of the African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. or the African American History museum in Boston, or taking advantage of the opportunities that come up from time to time to explore local Black history in Worcester and the surrounding areas. Now is the time that we must begin to take that important part of our education seriously and connect with African American history, and the people.
Some in this room will recall our Kwanzaa Service from a few weeks back where there were slips of paper inserted in the order of service with the names and short biographies of historic African Americans, that we shared in the service, that was also an opportunity to begin to think, and connect and reconnect with the people and stories that remind us that we are all one. What I didn’t share then, was the fact that the slips of paper were prompted by the fact that the year prior, in a similar service, it seemed that the congregation struggled to come up with names of famous African Americans, as we poured libations, which is to say we struggled to name famous Americans who are also black. I was surprised then.
One could say, well, Daniel, the vast majority of your congregation is white. But, of course that isn’t reason enough. We are not so separate, we are not so different.
The Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, says that:
We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.
And, that is where we will find our freedom, which is the extraordinary power to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The empowerment to Be.
We are alive to get free, to regain our freedom by awakening from the illusion of our separateness. And that is perhaps best illustrated in the Black experience, in the will to become free. But as we, even with a very limited vantage point, can see that the will to be free has been long restrained by racism in general and White Supremacy in particular.
Toni Morrison, who died last year at the age of 88, you might recall was the author several iconic, and award winning works of American literature, including the Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved, Beloved was quickly adapted to a film in 1998.
Toni Morrison was a chronicler of the American experience through the lens Black Folk. She beautifully, magically and hauntingly describes the experience of racism in our country; both the internalized racism of a young black girl who desperately wishes to have blue eyes and the broader systemic impacts of oppressive systems on African Americans and European Americans alike, in the trauma of slavery and post-civil war America. Morrison courageously examined the blight and ugliness of racism on the very soul of our nation. Racism distorts everything, even one’s perception of self.
In an interview from 1993, where our reading from this morning comes from.
Charlie Rose asks Morrison: “How do you feel about racism?”
Morrison responds by saying “That’s the wrong question,” and she goes on to ask rhetorically “How do you feel?”
Then she replies:
“Don’t you understand that the people who do this thing, who practice racism, are bereft? There is something distorted about the psyche. It’s a huge waste, and it’s a corruption, and it’s a distortion. It’s a profound neurosis that nobody examines for what it is,”
I believe this is the clearest construction and definition of racism: its is a waste, a corruption a distortion of the human spirit, a neurosis (or obsessive behavior) of individuals and societies.
Morrison goes on to say:
“If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, ‘yes, the victim. How terrible it’s been for black people.’ I’m not a victim. I refuse to be one... if you can only be tall because somebody else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.”
The takeaway for me, is that the right questions will help us to arrive at the right answers.
When asked about Racism Morrison, who is Black, asks for interviewer, Charlie Rose, who is white:
“How do you feel?”
This is a question we must ourselves from time to time:
How are we feeling?
In this moment.
How do we feel when we encounter differences?
How do we feel, when we hear a joke clearly meant to demean a group of people, and their experience?
How do we feel when families are torn apart?
How do we feel when so many images of suffering show people with faces that look like ours?
How do we feel when so many images of suffering show people with faces and features that look, unlike our own?
How do we feel?
This is a good place to begin, a truly courageous starting point.
Another question we might consider is what is race?
Especially, what is race? that it should be the cause of so much suffering, both here and around the world?
It is another illusion of our separateness.
Race is a myth!
Dorothy Roberts a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says in a recent interview in Spirit of Change Magazine, explains that race is a myth, confirming what I think many people believe in their hearts to be true.
From Dorothy Roberts:
“The biological concept of race has been refuted by evolutionary biologist and geneticists and genomicists for decades. The scientist who led the Human Genome Project made a point of saying human genetic variation isn’t divided into races. There’s no such thing as black genes or white genes.”
She goes onto say:
“You might have genes that can be traced to a certain population somewhere on the globe, but there is point at which you can draw a boundary line and identify one race on one side and a different race on the other ...All humans originated in Africa and then migrated outwards in groups, each carrying a subset of the genetic variations found in Africa.” (page 34)
Our living tradition Unitarian Universalism, religious in origin, traces its roots to two ancient Christian theological positions.
Unitarianism simply refers to the unity or oneness of God, which brings Christianity into closer alignment with its Jewish roots.
Universalism to Gods all inclusive, or universal love for all creation, and of the reconciling nature of that love that embraces everyone.
The 21st Century Unitarian Universalist Theologian, Forrest Church in his book, The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Theology wrote:
God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself.
While having our origin in Christian and Western thought, we are not limited in that regard, again ours is a living tradition that draws from many sources.
The beauty of our tradition, its ability to draw on the best, to take and reformulate religious language to serve a higher purpose.
Our experiences today allow us to expand our conception of the holy, not just to speak of things that are supernatural, or wholly “other” but to recognize the unseen threads that link us to each other. The things that bind us together, and awaken us are holy.
Our tradition invites us to discover the intricate unity or Oneness in our common origin as Humans. Out of Africa we all came.
Universalism for us today can be seen as the will to not just love, but to expand our circle of concern, to the point that bursts open to include everyone. A universalist today, as in the past, is one who actively shows love of God in the world.
This all pervading commitment to the good, shows up in all we do.
We do this in our interactions, in our politics, in our purchases, in our commitments to the highest good and in the highest good of lifelong learning and growing.
If we can do this, we can break the chains that keep all of us enslaved knowingly and unconsciously to racist systems and ideologies of today. These ideologies are often so subtle and so cleverly disguised, but the outcomes, and the impacts that they cause reveal them for what they really are. Just look!
I am not advocating a colorbind point of view, while race is a myth, created by those with the desire to control, exploit and oppress, the outcomes of racism are very real today, we can see them.
Let us instead hold as a guiding vision, one where each person is given the freedom to connect across differences, mindful of the fact that differences are illusions that we come into this world to interrogate and transcend.
This is an invitation to life long learning and growing, crossing all of the boundaries that exist in our heads, which is what our faith calls us to do!
This is what we must remember:
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season.
It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year.
It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow.
Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime. - W.E.B DuBois.