To become an anti-racist faith community, the key question for a white/white majority community is not “How do we get people of color to join our faith community?” It is, instead, “How can we make a prolonged, spiritually-rooted, engaged commitment to uprooting white supremacy within our community and take ongoing collective action to challenge it in society?”
Our goal is not to have white people sit alongside a person of color so as to affirm that those white people aren’t racist. Our goal is to build and be part of beloved community, united to end structural oppression and unleash collective liberation in our faith communities, schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and throughout society. Our goal is to join hands across the divisions of racism in our faith and in our communities, and affirm the humanity in each other.
Our goal is to join our hearts and minds to the task of destroying white supremacy in every worldview, policy, law, institution, and governing body of our society. For our faith communities to be places of healing from the nightmare of racism that haunts people of color and white people. For our faith communities to be places of nourishment, sustaining the multiracial struggles of our people to advance economic, racial and gender justice. For our faith communities to be part of the continual process of working within the movement as part of the journey to end oppression in society. For our faith communities to raise our children of all backgrounds to be freedom fighters and practitioners of liberation values.
Our goal is for our faith communities to be spiritually alive, learning from and contributing to liberation cultures and legacies. For our faith communities to be welcoming homes for people of all colors, sexualities, classes, ages, abilities, genders and citizenship statuses. For our faith communities to regularly invite us into and prepare us for courageous action for collective liberation, held in loving community for the long haul.
May our faith communities be active agents in the world, to help us all get free together.