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 SEEKING PEACE & JUSTICE

Many of us are saying, "I've seen the videos. Maybe I've even attended a protest or two. I'm angry. I'm sad. What can I do?"  


After worship on Sunday we brainstormed a short list: 

  1. Grieve together. Rage together. Love on one another. This is not a black problem-- it is a human problem. Regardless of the color of your skin, the black boys who have been killed and those most vulnerable to murder by the police are our children. The black and indigenous grandparents dying en masse from COVID-19 are our elders. Part of building a better world is recognizing that we belong to one another, the Beloved Community, one in the body of Christ. As such, while honoring the particular pain of black people, we must all grieve together and protect one another. 

  2. Fight for justice. 

    1. Let's start with demilitarizing the police in our own community. Liberate, Don't Incarcerate- Washtenaw County has an excellent set of infographics to help us imagine what that might look like here. You should also check out the candidates for Washtenaw County Prosecutor, as this person has quite a bit of power in determining how justice for different crimes is pursued locally.

    2. Donate to bail funds and mutual aid funds. Organizing money matters. Donating to bail funds and COVID-19 mutual aid funds is short term--but the issue of white supremacy and its effects are long term, tracing back hundreds years, impossible to solve overnight. Continue to contemplate your ‘resources’ and what it means to desegregate and share them, now, two months from now, and ten years from now. Check out organizations like Resource Generation, the organization that is helping our partner, Peace House, Ypsi, secure funding, and is made of up of people with wealth and/or class privilege who are committed to the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power. Wrestle with questions like: How can I start making donations in a way that assumes the people/org I donate to know best what to do with that money?

  3. Participate in the Week of Action led by The Movement for Black Lives, info here. In our worship service, we heard Phil Agnew's blessing of sorts of the organizers of this work.

  4. Do your homework. Especially if you are white, learn the history of white-supremacy and anti-blackness in our country and in our church. Consider how this impacts our current political and economic system and your life, even and especially in insidious and hidden ways. Read material by black authors, like this 1967 speech of MLK's or this book, written to the church. Check out black news outlets, like The Root or one of these (and especially notice the diversity of opinions and analysis).


Connect and Act in Washtenaw County

Got started on all that and want to do more to further justice locally? The panelists of this weekend's ICPJ Connect and Act forum put together a large list of actions and organizations you can support now. (Scroll down past the bios to find the good stuff.) 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KTB9gy6IVNZvcKKTanEJqj6i4lmX-ZjePNZVHVbkAQg/edit

 

“Help us be your people, loving God, living in love, peace and justice and affection for one another. Amen.”