First Parish Unitarian Universalist"Introduction to Weaving the Fabric of Diversity"
Sermon by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
May 6, 2001
Last night over dinner, I was telling my family about our first Diversity Days events here at First Parish yesterday. I told them how much fun the Tribal Rhythms performance was—warmth, charm, good story-telling, so many different kinds of instruments, and how we all participated and really enjoyed ourselves as well as the performers.. I told them about the transformation of our Parish Hall into a visually and musically delightful global food-market selling delicious home-made dishes representing cuisines from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. I told them about how six or seven young people in wheelchairs and three staff people from the Mass Hospital School came over for the events, and how when they were leaving one of the young men asked if he could come to our service some Sunday. Since I had the group of them in my mind's eye and half were white and half weren't, I went on to tell my family, "He seemed to be African-American and the friend he invited to come to church with him was either a light-skinned African American or Latino." At which point, my daughter said pointedly, "not all Hispanics are black, Mom."
"You're right, and it gets crazy to be making all these distinctions," I said. What I should have added was, "The point is, they weren't all white and if I hadn't tried to describe them, wouldn't you have pictured them as six or seven white people in wheelchairs? Just out of habit, given that whites are the majority around here?"
One longs for a time in this country when these distinctions based on skin color really and truly don't mean anything. But, until that is the case, until we've seriously diminished individual racial prejudice and institutionalized racism in the education, finance, employment, media and other sectors of our society, and until everybody feels free to affirm their cultural heritage as they so desire, we need language that helps us make distinctions. We need language that helps us build bridges. We also need a common language that helps us understand, and empowers us to change, racial bias and other kinds of prejudices.
Learning to use such naming and empowering language was one of the goals of the class offered here at First Parish this past winter called "Weaving the Fabric of Diversity" based on a curriculum by that name available from the Unitarian Universalist Association. About fifteen people participated, meeting weekly for eight weeks. First Parish members Diana King, Jean Beebe, and I were the co-leaders.
In this class, we explored the dynamics of four kinds of oppression: that based on race, sexual identity, mental/physical ability, and class/economic status. The program is based on the belief that all oppressions are linked in important ways.
"For example, they have similar origins in bias, fear, ignorance, and the desire to preserve power. They all also confer unearned advantages on some and impose disadvantages on others. They limit and deprive people through roughly the same means, such as demeaning names, physical violence or the threat of violence, job discrimination, political under-representation, and unequal access to education and economic opportunity. They divide us against each other, implying that our differences are more important than our similarities and commonalties, suggesting that our interests are better served by competing rather than cooperating with one another. And, finally, they reinforce each other by promulgating the myth that one minority in the human population is the norm, and the other minorities (that together may comprise a majority) are deviant. For example, if "heterosexual male" is the norm, both :"female" and "gay male" are deviant, and sexism and heterosexism reinforce each other. Or, if the norm for female beauty is young, slim, and Caucasian, then ageism, ableism and racism reinforce each other." (p. 11)
When we understand the way oppressions are linked, it becomes clear that all of us-even heterosexual white men!-suffer the effects of an unjust society.
At the last session, the group came up with a list of things it wanted to do next, the first of which was find ways to share our learnings with the rest of the congregation. We agreed that the Sunday of Diversity Days would be a perfect opportunity. A group of five met and chose certain elements of the class content to include in the service today, and some of them are participating in the service. We realized that the most upsetting or controversial readings and activities were not appropriate to use in a worship setting in which there isn't the opportunity for de-briefing and small group conversation, like we had in the class setting. And it was really difficult to choose twenty or thirty minutes of material from what we covered in sixteen hours of class-time. But, we did it! And we are hoping it will be at least a little provocative! So, if you want to talk about it afterwards, as many of the class participants as possible will be sitting at the card tables in the Parlor after the service, ready to converse with you during the Global Food Fest fabulous "left-overs brunch" available today instead of our usual coffee/fellowship hour.
We hope today's service will be provocative enough that it helps you realize two things: something new about yourself and something you can do to make the world a better place for all.
Conclusion after the Participatory Reading "Being Privileged"
Many of us here today are privileged in one way or another-being heterosexual, being white, being financially fairly secure, being male, being physically and/or mentally able. It doesn't necessarily feel good to recognize the privileges we have. Most of us also believe we have gotten to where we are in life because of our own individual abilities, not because of our privilege. It doesn't necessarily feel good to recognize this, either!
It helps to see how this privilege hurts us all. Homophobia, racism, classism, sexism, and ableism hurt us all. They compromise our integrity by pressuring us to treat others badly. They divert energy from more constructive endeavors. They restrict our friendships and inhibit the contributions to our society of many people. Because each of us, whoever we are, has unique traits not considered the norm, we are each diminished when any one of us is demeaned.
When we recognize that the privileges of some hurt everybody, even the privileged, it becomes clear that everyone will benefit from extending those privileges to everybody, examining our own personal prejudices, and challenging the patterns of injustice or complacency in the institutions which effect our lives. This is the hard work of embracing diversity, but the reward will be "liberty and justice for all."