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Rise up proud
In this month of Pride, during this time of Uprising, Catharine Clarenbach connects the messy, desperate power of the current protests with that of Stonewall.
It is because of Stonewall that I could kiss my lovers on the street. It is because of Stonewall that I could walk without shame or fear—with pride, in fact—in my leather jacket with cock ring and handcuffs on the epaulets, hair shorn, earrings that were sharp enough they should have been illegal under the Geneva convention, smoking those Marlboro reds out of a signature extender. And it is also because of Stonewall that I could . . . [be] legally married. . . . [We] learned that rebellions, uprisings, riots work.
The idea that you have to make yourself “acceptable” or “respectable” to get things done is horseshit. (The Way of the River, June 5)
Funding comprehensive public safety
Although he believes “funding comprehensive public safety” would be more effective messaging, Adam Dyer supports defunding and abolishing the police.
As I see it . . . “policing” can only result in societal failure: failures of trust, failures of agency and as we’ve seen all too tragically and all too often, failures of judgment and failures of racial bias. Why must we be treated with the equivalent of a lethal nanny cam, where we are taught to grow up paranoid and compliant out of a sense of fear for our lives and not out of a sense of connection to the rest of the human race? (spirituwellness, June 8)
Echoing Dyer’s concerns about “abolish the police” lending itself to easy caricature, Doug Muder puts the movement’s aims in blunt language.
[What] abolish-the-police advocates really want is something far more reasonable: Reduce to the absolute minimum the number of occasions when Americans come into contact with people who could kill them and get away with it. (The Weekly Sift, June 8)
Jake Morrill writes, “It’s hard to admit that my comfort with the current solutions and systems for public safety has blocked my ears to hearing other ways to achieve the same mission.”
But police officers aren’t social workers. Their training is to keep order, through violence, if need be. And, as American society has become more anxious and fearful, and less trusting of each other, instead of maintaining a well-stocked community toolbox of different options for our problems, America has often lost or discarded other tools and kept using our resources to buy bigger hammers. And, no matter how shiny and well-kept a hammer is, if it’s all we have, if we don’t have other tools, we’ll keep addressing problems as if they are only ever nails. (Facebook, June 5)
Joanna Fontaine Crawford addresses the mental toll of the past few months.
Already trying to make sense of a global pandemic and the new reality we're in, now the facts and the analysis of the antiracism Uprising are coming at us, many pieces at a time. . . .
But pause after reading or watching before diving into the next. . .Thinking takes some time. Make the time. (Boots and Blessings, June 8)
How to hold a bible
Kimberly Hampton asks pointed questions about UU services’ lack of ceremony.
I know that many UU congregations have traditions around things like Water Communion or Flower Communion, but tradition is different than ceremony. So what I think Black church life and practice brings into stark relief is that it’s not just the service itself (that’s a different conversation) that one has to be intentional about, it’s EVERYTHING around the service that must be thought of with intention too. (Facebook, June 10)
Eric Cherry offers helpful advice to anyone who might not know how to hold the bible. (Youtube, June 4)