By BLUU Executive Director, Lena K. Gardner

To our BLUU Beloveds and to our Black kindred across the diaspora:

Beautiful Black people on this day, remember the evergreen and always relevant words of Toni Morrison from her novel “Beloved” about loving ourselves. If you can, in ways big and small, find ways to love on yourself, your children — all your living family both chosen and otherwise. Nap and rest, if you can — and if you can’t rest, pause and take a deep breath whenever and wherever you can. If that doesn’t feel right go scream into a pillow or up to the heavens. The point is to feel, to care for and to love on yourself in kind ways to yourself — however that looks for you.

Know that whatever else we are a part of, we are part of a legacy of love. Despite the trauma, despite the challenge, we can always choose to come back to love.

Toni Morrison wrote:

In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver — love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.

The conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of Geroge Floyd was important. The settlement George Floyd’s family was awarded was important. Minneapolis City Councillors pledging to defund the police and the people’s petition to change the city charter to allow for the full divestment from policing are important.

We cannot pretend that these things don’t matter. They do. And the fight for justice must continue because the systems that created the conditions for George Floyd’s murder remain fundamentally unchanged.

We must continue to work to create a system of public safety so deeply honoring of each and every person’s inherent worth and dignity that the possibility of murder by the police no longer exists.

This is especially necessary work for the liberation of Black and Indigenous people in particular, who have been disproportionately impacted by state and police violence.

The system of policing that holds police officers as super human, above the law and above consequences, must come to an end. We know that true justice doesn’t come from incarceration. True liberation won’t come without completely transforming our understanding of policing and public safety.

We can honor George Floyd’s memory best by not forgetting the immensity of what we felt last year and by continuing to give to Black organizations fighting for abolition. (If you aren’t ready to call yourself an abolitionist quite yet, you can pick up a book and start reading. There are many to choose from. I suggest Mariame Kaba’s “We Do This ’Til We Free Us”.)

Whatever you do, don’t go back to complacency or frozen inaction because “you don’t know what to do”.

Be brave, find your courage to confront your own oppressive beliefs and start the unraveling. When we become unraveled, we can choose with intention, purpose and love how we re-ravel — how we rebuild our corner of the world.

There are thousands and more paths to liberation. Get started on one if you haven’t, continue on yours if you have, and know that we can and must create a more loving world. The other options are there, but they are destroying us and the world around us. Each day we can choose a new, different, and more loving way. From that path we will understand more clearly what a just world can be. And the best news is, we can go about making it.

Recommended Reading:

The Movement for Black Lives Policy Platforms

Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness

Resource list from MPD150

If You Want to Donate to Organizations in the Twin Cities Today:

Check out this list of organizations recommended by Reclaim the Block.

Dear Beloveds:

We know your hearts are tender. We know you’re holding so many complex feelings in this moment. You are not alone.

In a just world, George Floyd would still be alive. While the Chauvin verdict brings so many of us collective relief, we can’t say it is justice. We know that a carceral system can’t truly hold accountability in transformative ways. And yet, we also know that in a country that so often treats Black people as disposable, it is meaningful to witness consequences for police brutality. We hold all these complexities and contradictions with care.

Shortly after many of us learned of the Chauvin verdict, we also learned of the police killing of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio after she called the police for help. There is no justice when police kill our children.

So in these times, we remember that our hope is not in the judicial system but in the strength and love of our communities. Through it all, we’ve held each other tenderly, and we will continue to do that in the days and weeks to come.

In this moment, know you are not alone. We are thinking of you and praying for all that you are holding.

Remember, Black folks, UU or otherwise, requesting pastoral and/or spiritual care can reach our Community Minister and folks from the Black Lives of UU Ministerial Network by calling or texting 984–219–8711. This is a Google Voice number that we check daily. We will respond to any calls or text messages within 24 hours.

May this prayer be a balm for your spirit in the days to come.

A Prayer in Real Time

by Rev. Mykal Slack, BLUU Community Minister for Worship & Spiritual Care

Dear Ones. Ancestors, gods and goddesses of many names and of no name. Sources of Love known and unknowable…

I come before you weary with grief and disgust, teetering somewhere between about done and well past it.

Hold me.

I don’t know if I can hold what has been passed down to me and mine, much less what lies ahead. No body, no mind, no heart, no spirit should have to carry this much.

Help me.

And yet… “Here I am.

Send me.”

I do what I can to show up as my whole self with full-bodied questions about community accountability, commitment, and care.

Show me.

My deepest hopes and prayers lie in justice and liberation for our people, of which we’ve only just caught a fleeting glimpse of this week.

Direct me.

May I move with love, clarity, vision, and commitment, share what I know, and listen with intention.

Embolden me.

We deserve so much more life and love and beauty and fullness than there is right now.

Please. Please fill me up with a Holy Breath that will live on, shine on, and thrive on.

…until it is time for that Breath to live on, shine on, and thrive on in the ones who are to be Held, Helped, Sent, Shown, Directed, Emboldened, and Filled after me.

May it be so in real time and for all time.

Amen. Ashe. Blessed Be.

Community Connection

Please join us for either of these events below for connection in the coming days if you need a place to be held in community.

Join BLUU on April 21 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern as we gather with the UUA, Side with Love, and DRUUMM for a virtual vigil in response to the guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin. (The vigil will be broadcast live on the UUA’s and Side with Loves’s Facebook pages.)

How is your heart and how is your spirit? How are you processing the trauma we’re experiencing in our communities and in our news feed? How is the racist police violence against Black people (and the constant discussion about it) impacting you and how can we keep showing up for each other without burning out?

Join Team Sankofa Friday, April 23 at 2 p.m. for a Lunch ‘N Vibe community check-in. Pastoral care will also be available.

Feel free to bring a snack or meal as we share how we’re doing in these times.

(Please note: This is Black sacred space.)

About BLUU:

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism is committed to expanding the power and capacity of Black UUs within Unitarian Universalism; providing support, information, and resources for Black Unitarian Universalists; and justice-making and liberation for Black people through our faith. Subscribe to our email list to learn more about our worship events, organizing opportunities, and youth ministry.

Lately, many people are discussing what it means to “get back to normal.”

And we get it. For the past year, many of us have been in survival mode. We’ve navigated immense fatigue, worry, and stress.

We also know that a hyperfocus on returning back to normal ignores that what was normal before the pandemic was still difficult for so many, including Black communities.

As Black people, we know seeking liberation is an embodied practice of remembering the past while dreaming of more expansive, freer futures.

The sixth principle of our “7 Principles of Black Lives” is “Thriving Instead of Surviving.” It says: “Our vision is based on the world we want, and not the world we are currently in. We seek to transform, not simply to react. We want our people to thrive, not just exist — and to think beyond the possible.”

We know that BLUU thriving in the future requires us making an intentional shift right now — away from doing business as usual because it’s always been that way, away from imagining a “return to normal,” and toward imagining who we can be in the future and what this moment can teach us about what’s possible.

That’s why we’re asking Black people in community with us (Black UUs, Black folks who attend worship, Black members of our Facebook group, Black folks who work in partnership with BLUU but aren’t UU, etc.) to take a survey about how you hope to be in community with BLUU in the future and what hopes you have for the future of BLUU’s work. We’re imagining what’s possible, gauging what our community needs, and preparing for ministry required in these times.

If you are not Black but want to support this effort, please make sure that Black UUs or Black folks in alignment with UU values in your community know about the survey.

The survey is open now and will close June 1, 2021. If you have any questions about the survey, please email BlackLivesofUU@gmail.com

We’re so grateful that you’re on this journey with us. We look forward to dreaming with you.

In hopes of a thriving future,

The BLUU Organizing Collective Board

Lena K. Gardner- Executive Director

Rev. Mykal Slack- Community Minister for Worship and Spiritual Care

Marchaé Grair- Communications Director

Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin- Board Member

Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson- Board Member

About BLUU:

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism is committed to expanding the power and capacity of Black UUs within Unitarian Universalism; providing support, information, and resources for Black Unitarian Universalists; and justice-making and liberation for Black people through our faith. Subscribe to our email list to learn more about our worship events, organizing opportunities, and youth ministry.

At the end of this project, 32 Black and Indigenous families will be empowered as homeowners in Minneapolis, something that will fundamentally transform access to resources and wealth for generations.

St. Paul, Minnesota —

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) is excited to announce The BLUU Northside Housing Cooperative Initiative, a BLUU initiative that embodies our commitment to improve the material conditions of Black lives as an act of our faith.

BLUU purchased eight vacant lots in North Minneapolis and will transform those lots into multi-unit housing that will create generational wealth for Black and Indigenous families in the area.

At the end of this project, 32 Black and Indigenous families will be empowered as homeowners.

BLUU believes in building power through connection. BLUU will help the homeowners form cooperative entities so each homeowner has connection with and support from their neighbors. BLUU will also support families who move into the units we build with resources and training related to finance, land ownership, and cooperative decision-making.

Creating truly affordable housing in North Minneapolis will have real impacts in a rapidly gentrifying area. By selling the developed units to a land trust entity, BLUU will ensure that the cost of the units stays truly affordable.

BLUU is accepting donations for the Housing Initiative. Every dollar helps support the creation of truly affordable housing for Black and Indigenous.

For more information about the housing initiative, visit BlackLivesUU.org.

About BLUU:

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism is committed to expanding the power and capacity of Black UUs within Unitarian Universalism; providing support, information, and resources for Black Unitarian Universalists; and justice-making and liberation for Black people through our faith. Subscribe to our email list to learn more about our worship events, organizing opportunities, and youth ministry.

As Black people, we have endured immense loss in 2020. We want our community to know we’re in this with you and more resilient than ever.

Black people have survived generations of violent oppression. And yet, our responses to that violence are not what make us resilient. Gauging Black resilience by our response to violent whiteness is racist.

You’re not talking about Black resilience if you’re only talking about how Black people respond to trauma. On an episode of the La Cura podcast, somatics practitioner Prentis Hemphill says, “Resilience is not an acclimation to conditions but a commitment to life.”

That’s why our invitation to Black folks going into election day is to join us in reclaiming the meaning of Black resilience. One of our 7 Principles of Black Lives says spiritual growth is directly tied to our ability to embrace our whole selves. Today, we proclaim that Black Lives Matter separate from the dangers of whiteness that threaten them. We are resilient just because we exist. Living while Black is rigorous on its own terms.

When we talked about what we wanted to say to Black folks leading up to the election, we agreed that we’re tired of being told that we are resilient without that resilience being located outside of our trauma responses. And we guessed other Black folks might be feeling that way too.

We are resilient because our ancestors believed in our lives when there was no reason to even believe they’d survive. They dreamed us into existence. They prayed us into being. They organized for themselves so that we could carry the mantle. And they didn’t just believe we’d survive. They believed we could thrive.

We are resilient going into this election because we believe there will be Black people in the future, and their lives will be better than we could ever imagine.

We believe in centering community care and self-care after the election because a commitment to Black life demands that we rest and demands that we make sure we all have enough. We are more than our labor and productivity, and no one among us is disposable. We must commit to anti-capitalism and abolition like never before to ground ourselves in the imaginations of our ancestors and the futures of our descendants.

There is much work to do no matter who wins the election, and we will do that work together as we always have. With joy, with determination, and with each other. And with a belief in Black resilience.

BLUU creates and amplifies spaces and work that center Black life, and in doing so, we are performing a radical act. We will continue to support Black people by organizing for our liberation and worshipping in our wholeness. If you’re a Black person not connected with BLUU, this is a great week to get connected. Find out how to join us in the events below.

In faith, solidarity, and Black love,

The BLUU Organizing Collective Board

— — — —

BLUU Sacred Space for Black Folks During Election Week:

(These events are explicitly Black space. We invite folks who aren’t Black to share these connection opportunities with Black loved ones, colleagues, and congregants in solidarity with our work for Black liberation and healing.)

• We Got Us- Tuesday, Nov. 3., 7–11 p.m. Eastern | 4–8 p.m. Pacific

Team Sankofa, BLUU’s community organizing team, is offering an opportunity for Black people to spend the evening in shared, virtual space. All Black folks who share our values of radical inclusivity are welcome. BLUU’s Election Night Gathering will include entertainment in the form of community-building games, offerings from our esteemed Elders, and an after-hours Lunch + Vibe discussion! (Registration required)

• Root Work- Navigating Troubled Waters (Herbalism Workshop)- Nov. 4, 7 p.m. Eastern | 4 p.m. Pacific

We are in a collective time of grieving and experiencing a considerable amount of loss. The Root Work- Navigating Troubled Waters Herbalism workshop session will focus on strengthening your relationship with your body to hold space for grief. Herbalist India Harris will guide us as we engage in somatic centering practices and discuss plant medicine for heart healing. (Registration required)

• A Song, A Vision & The Desire to Be Free (Worship)- Thursday, Nov. 5, 9 p.m. Eastern | 6 p.m. Pacific

In one of the most consequential elections of our time, we may struggle to find the certainty and grounding to know what’s next. How do we move through a time of deep rupture, but also one of deep possibility? We are grateful to welcome Nicole Pressley, National Organizer for UU the Vote, who will be reflecting with us on our ancestors’ (and our own) ability to find purpose and claim victory in times of trouble. (Registration required)

Keep Organizing After the Election:

We will continue to share information from trusted sources about how you can support and organize for Black liberation after the election ends because the work continues. If you don’t know what to do after the election, we suggest connecting with The Frontline as a starting place. The Frontline is a new powerful campaign by The Movement for Black Lives, Working Families Party, and United We Dream. The Frontline will be leading work *after* the election.

About BLUU:

Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism is committed to expanding the power and capacity of Black UUs within Unitarian Universalism; providing support, information, and resources for Black Unitarian Universalists; and justice-making and liberation for Black people through our faith. Subscribe to our email list to learn more about our worship events, organizing opportunities, and youth ministry.