Bold underlining indicate insertion ; [brackets indicate deletion.]
31 Justice. We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all thrive.
32 We covenant to dismantle [racism and all forms of systemic oppression.] all forms of cultural and systemic oppression, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, gender, etc. We support the use of
33 inclusive democratic processes to make decisions.
Im glad to see this made an amendment priority. The amendment is meant to reflect more inclusive support of Justice for all by being less devisive
against oppressed groups.
Just a comment: The Commission took away a list of specific Sources, then added one specific systemic oppression. I suspect your list of specific systemic oppressions would be just as difficult to agree on as the list of specific Sources. But I do like your language of “including but not limited to”!
Also, I see Amendment #64 by Chris Reid appears to be identical.
I hope that the work to bring the value of justice to a finished form will be something we can work with to covenant to end all oppression.
Until black and brown people stop experiencing the highest rates of opression, of all forms, calling out racism as part of justice is justice. I will abide by the delegates and, for myself, will not be for amendments 64, 20, 16 and 17, because they remove “racism” ahead of the call to end oppression. I appreciate the intent to not single out a form of oppression.
I understand that a further listing of addtional categories under Justice would not be favored by the UU , but I support the change from covenant to pledge to work , and list to reorder" all forms of systemic oppression including racism* ; as listing all forms of systemic oppression first recognizes that other categories such as ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation , reproductive freedom etc are as important as they too are oppressions on the rise in this country and around the world. and yes disability and class issues are considered revise further . The attack on Separation of church and state is a strong consideration in this matter also.
Second that. Let’s not get back into the business of enumerating oppressions. “Racism and” strikes me as both wise and prudent.
To presenters or promoters of amendments that weren’t prioritized or presented: This forum is closing for comment tomorrow, but our lay-led public Facebook group, Blue Boat Passengers, will remain open for another few weeks for commenting (and still be viewable after that).
If you want to find people to coordinate with for the 15-congregation amendment process, you may use the group to do so while it remains open. There’s now a specific post for this in the group (“A post for those wishing to do the 15-congregation amendment process to coordinate”). Please read both the rules and the pinned post about the pending suspension of the group before posting or commenting there.