Opinion Articles on Social Justice topics
Although much has occurred in the past three weeks and there are ongoing issues, it’s worth celebrating some important democracy successes. More people voted in the 2020 elections than have ever voted before. This was the direct result of tireless efforts by many, many different and diverse groups around the country, including UU churches and … Continue reading Fred Van Deusen – Reflections on 2020
UUSJ’s Immigration Task Group is analyzing priorities for the next two years under the incoming Biden Administration. It will call for immediate steps to reverse and/or rescind the many anti-immigrant executive actions and rule changes of the past four years. These include reinstating the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and the TPS (Temporary Protected … Continue reading Immigration Task Group Sees Opportunities for Effective Advocacy
You and your passion for social justice, systems change, and dismantling the interlocking injustices of federal policy has kept me going. Especially when the tragedy of this pandemic and the travesty of police violence and racial injustice have put me on my back, psychically, spiritually. Thank you. Just this week I had another one of … Continue reading Throughout 2020, you have buoyed my spirits when life and politics got me low.
Our fundamental UU principles of acceptance of one another; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; and the use of the democratic process in our society, are under attack, and we must defend them. In doing so we UUs, working together with the assistance of UUSJ and many other groups, can help address the intolerable … Continue reading Our Most Basic UU Principles Are Under Attack
At the heart of UUSJ’s economic justice work are three values–inclusion, equity, and opportunity–that interact closely with our UU principles. These values dovetail what early thinkers in the field such as Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, identified as “three essential and interdependent principles: Participative Justice (the input principle), Distributive Justice (the out-take principle), and Social … Continue reading Pablo DeJesus on Our Principles Inform Our Economic Justice Work
Keep breathing. Keep breathing, everyone. In my memory, I’ve never known so much public anxiety and fear as I see right now. The coronavirus is still running rampant, and still killing people off. It’s worse because it’s been weaponized. The virus in the U.S. has been turned into one more force of political power waging … Continue reading Keep Breathing, Everyone. A Justice-Focused Life is a Spiritual Life – Pastoral Comment by Chaplain Eleanor Piez
Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to fully examine the painful legacy of Christopher Columbus that displaced and disseminated generations of Native Americans and their rich cultures and societies. Our Principles require us to respect and learn from Indigenous Peoples and support their struggles for social justice and religious freedom. This year, many Unitarian Universalists … Continue reading Indigenous Peoples’ Day
By Bennett Minton A series of textbooks written for the fourth, seventh, and 11th grades taught a generation of Virginians our state’s history. Chapter 29 of the seventh-grade edition, titled “How the Negroes Lived Under Slavery,” included these sentences: “A feeling of strong affection existed between masters and slaves in a majority of Virginia homes.” … Continue reading Lies our textbooks told my generation of Virginians about slavery
“One discovers the light in the darkness, that is what darkness is for, but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light.” James Baldwin As Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (UUSJ), we are called by our principles to promote social justice and to vehemently oppose unjust, inhumane public policies everywhere. The recent murders … Continue reading Juneteenth 2020: Racial Justice Cannot Wait
And now we add Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta Georgia to the list… The moving protests–in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought together young and old, working and retired, every ethnicity and racial background in the past weeks since the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade. This defining moment … Continue reading Systemic Racism & Poverty
