Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Reflection: The Great Turning

Joy Morgenstern
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Palo Alto, CA

I’ve met a lot of people who’ve experienced racism and discrimination first-hand. Some of their stories are about blatant, destructive prejudice — making a phone appointment to see an apartment, only to be told “it’s already rented” when the landlord took a look at them. Being asked for 3 picture IDs to open a bank account at the same bank where other people are asked only for one.

But more of the anecdotes I’ve heard are about a perhaps more benign and sometimes laughable, form of prejudice. Like the time a black friend of mine coming home from work on the Metro in Washington reading in the newspaper about the tragic death of Ron Brown — you might remember he was the African-American man who was Secretary of Transportation [note: this is wrong; Brown was actually Secretary of Commerce] during the Clinton Administration who was killed in a plane crash. A stranger — a white woman — came up to my friend, put her hand on his arm, and said, “I’m so sorry about Ron Brown.”

Now, this woman is probably not someone you’d exactly call “racist.” She probably doesn’t dislike people who are different than her, or deny them jobs or housing, or treat them suspiciously. So, what was this woman thinking? That all black people know one another? It’s not exactly clear, but what is clear to me is that to her, black people are “others.” They’re different from her, so she generalizes about them, assumes they are all the same.

We’ve probably all experienced that attitude. I know I have; I’ve had people ask me, “What do the Jews think about (whatever)?” You’ll be glad to know that I’ve so far resisted the temptation to say, “The Jews think you’re an idiot.” Are they really thinking that my Jewish last name somehow makes me privy to some secret, Jew-only opinion polls?

At General Assembly this year, I went to a workshop where these sort of attitudes were discussed; people were asked to share an experience where they felt marginalized. A black woman stood up and told us about an incident that had occurred the day before. Standing in a large group of UUs in which she was the only African-American, one white woman asked, “Why don’t more black people attend GA?” Another white woman responded, “Black people can’t afford to come here.”

Well, ok, statistically speaking, a randomly selected black person is less likely to have the money to attend GA than the randomly selected white person. But is it right to use statistical realities to stereotype and generalize, to provide glib answers to what, instead, should be a soul-searching question for UUs: “Why aren’t there more black — and Latino, and Asian, and Native American — people in our church?” And why aren’t there more queer people — we say we welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, but they are a tiny proportion of our membership. And why are there so few working class people here? Most of our members are upper middle class, educated professionals. So many times, when we ask ourselves these questions, we blame the group in question:

Black people have their own churches.
Latinos are all Catholic.
Gay people don’t go to church.
Working people don’t live around here.
They prefer gospel music, or mariachi music, or country music — we have mostly classical music here, which is what we like the best.

The truth is, we human beings aren’t very good at reaching out to people who are different than us, people we perceive as “other.” People find this church largely by word of mouth, and our mouths talk mostly with the people in our communities, our neighborhoods, our worlds which consist largely of people like us. And since most of us are white, with lots of formal education and a high income, that means that's who is likely to learn about the church.

But aren’t there people in all communities who are in need of a faith based on science and reason? Why wouldn't there be black people who want to discover their own spiritual path? Aren't there Latinos who, no matter what church they grew up in, would prefer one which calls for justice, equity and compassion in human relations? Do only professors and lawyers want a faith that has no creed, but instead a free and responsible search for truth?

We’ve probably all experienced other people making assumptions about us, and we’ve probably all made assumptions about other people, based on characteristics like race and age and appearance. When we think of someone as a token, a stereotype, an “other,” we are far from respecting their inherent worth and dignity.

I’d like this church to be more a diverse place, and I’m hoping that together we can learn to truly welcome everybody to our faith, our communities, and our lives.

 

Sermon: Excavating History by Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern