"Sex education helps save the world" (UU World Magazine Article)

In the Fall 2005 Issue of UU World, there's an article titled "Sex education helps save the world" by Cynthia Kuhn (a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University, and co-author of Buzzed: The Straight Facts about the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy. Cynthia is also an Our Whole Lives Grades 7-9 facilitator in her congregation).

Here's a short passage from Cynthia's article:

This year one of my owl students brought to class a book the public school had passed out. One of its "top ten reasons" why teens have sex was participation in sex-education classes. Another section stated that condoms do not halt the spread of HIV/AIDS or even effectively prevent pregnancy! In fact, as I had just been teaching my medical students, condoms are 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and significantly decrease the transmission of HIV when they are used properly, according to well-designed, peer-reviewed research studies. A colleague and I tried to get the local newspaper to address these falsehoods being taught in our schools but failed to spark any interest. We live in frightening times when scientific truth is suppressed in our public schools and forums.

Abstinence-only programs do not accomplish their goal of delaying sexual intercourse until marriage, According to a review of such programs in eleven states conducted by Advocates for Youth. Eighty-eight percent of young people in such programs have sex by the time they leave high school. And when they do have sex, they are less likely to use contraception and more likely to engage in dangerous sexual practices than children in programs that teach about contraception. The majority of scientists who specialize in children's health, as well as the American Medical Association, Planned Parenthood, and the U.S. Surgeon General, have all endorsed comprehensive sexuality-education program -- programs that advocate abstinence for teens but also provide complete and accurate information about contraception and STDs. The OWL program epitomizes that approach.

UU parents should certainly feel proud that their kids, by participating in OWL, are the smartest kids on the block about these issues. But our responsibility doesn't stop at our church doors. Those of us with the expertise need to advocate for all kids, especially the ones who get only the little book about the ten reasons that teens have sex. We need to show up at school board meetings and talk to teachers, principals, and superintendents about curriculum, armed with facts. (Planned Parenthood, the National Institutes of Health, and Advocates for Youth all have excellent, up-to-date, and scientifically accurate information.) We need to bombard our state legislatures so that they can have the courage, as the state of California did, to turn down federal "abstinence-only" money and develop effective programs instead.

In our religious-education program we have a slogan: "Nothing less than saving the world." I believe that is exactly what we do with OWL. Our children can grow up to enjoy healthy relationships, have a sexual life without contracting disease, and bear their children when they are adults and not children themselves. Teaching our kids about safe, mutually respectful sexual behavior in the context of our value system, I believe, is indeed nothing less than saving the world.

And this is why Our Whole Lives and supporting other comprehensive sexuality education are so important in our congregations and our wider communities. We are offering salvation from those things that deny life or make life less whole. This is just one example of how Unitarian Universalism offers salvation to a world in need of salvation.

Closing Ceremony Incident Mentioned in Latest UU World Magazine

From the Fall 2005 issue of UU World magazine -- coverage of the closing ceremony incident at the 2005 Ft. Worth TX General Assembly:

While many of the injustices delegates considered this year could be thought to take place "out there," the Assembly ended in a way that reminded the UUA's Board of Trustees of unfinished business within the Association.

The morning after the Assembly adjourned, several youth leaders reported to the Board of Trustees that young people of color had experienced a series of demeaning and upsetting incidents throughout the week, including a heated confrontation with several white adults outside the arena during the closing ceremony. The Youth Caucus cancelled its intergenerational dance, which was scheduled to follow the closing ceremony, because many youth of color were meeting to discuss the incidents; Moderator Courter met with them.

In response to the youth report and other inquiries, the Board issued a letter on July 6 that said, "At General Assembly in Fort Worth, there were several incidents that reminded us that we have much work to do in our journey to becoming an antiracist, antioppressive, and multicultural association." The Board expressed "deep sadness and regret" for incidents involving "apparently disrespectful and racist treatment of our youth by Fort Worth officials," other incidents in which "white UUs assumed that UU youth of color were hotel service people and asked them to carry luggage or park cars," and an altercation during the Closing Ceremony in which "some UU youth of color were made to feel that they were not welcome."

The exact circumstances of some of the incidents are still unclear. The Board has formed a Special Review Commission, which expects to offer a more complete report on the incidents at its October meeting and a complete report in January. The Board vowed to provide "safe space to process issues and concerns around oppression and racism" at future General Assemblies.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

The competing theories of Intelligent Design and Evolution now have a competitor.

Check out the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Blogger Spam, Part II

This morning Jesus Reyes suggested turning on the "word verification" feature provided by Blogger. This sounds like a good compromise between keeping spammers out and allowing folks to easily post to Blogger sites. Thanks for the suggestion.

This should allow folks to post without creating a Blogger account and still keep the "machine spammers" out (until the someone figures out how to create software with pattern recognition abilities).

Blogger Spam

We are taking a brief break due to technical difficulties.

I just got my first Blogger Spam today ... and I've just changed my settings to require that folks replying to my posts must have a Blogger user identity (freely available).

I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Thank you.

Anti-Racism Sermon by Dr. James T. Brown

While googling for Unitarian Universalist anti-racism resources, I found this sermon on anti-racism that was written by Dr. Brown back in July 1999. Dr. Brown was the Southwest District Executive for the UUA before his retirement.

A large part of his sermon revolves around difficulties that many have with the word "racism" and the multiple definitions being used. Here's a short section of his sermon commenting on denial surrounding the topic of racism:

The UUA's definition of racism: "racial prejudice plus power and privilege" unnecessarily complicates our understanding of U.S. racism.

Simply put, racism is the unquestioned, deeply held group belief that one "race" - in the U.S. it is the White race - is superior to all other races, and (this is vitally important) all the People of Color "races" are inferior. The second part is vital to our understanding, because the belief in white superiority is more than egocentric chauvinism (we are the best), it is inextricably coupled with the deeply held belief that people of color, as a group, (not necessarily as individuals) are inferior (they are not up to acceptable standards). This (superiority/inferiority beliefs) definition of racism is used by most social scientists currently involved in these discussions. These beliefs are inculcated in the psychics and souls of Americans from the day they are born, and for immigrant Americans, from their first exposure to American culture and media of all types.

I have only found two reactions to the above definition from American Whites. The first group fully agrees with the definition - the great majority. The second agrees that it is true "for some white people" but they, themselves, "don't see skin color" - everybody is equal. The evidence of denial on the part of those holding the second position is easily discernible. Their neighborhood, their friends, their doctor/lawyer, their spouse or partner, their church, their heroes or role models, their favorite performers, etc, etc, are all white. Since all white people more or less agree, in words or deeds, that they, as a group, share the superior/inferior belief, and that belief according to most social scientists, defines racism, then it is not untrue or unfair to say all whites are racist (I will accept 99.9% if you simply cannot accept absolutes).

I must add that being a racist, that is, a believer in the white/POC superiority/inferiority dichotomy, is not a "sin"; original or otherwise. I call it an American cultural phenomenon. The "sins" of racism are the negative and oppressive behaviors and disparate acts perpetrated against people of color, by Whites, sometimes unwittingly, based upon their racism belief. It is the behaviors and acts committed that violate moral law and the UU's first principle, not just the existence of the belief. The evil of racism (the superior/inferior belief) is that it shapes all of America's institutions and their policies, and either consciously or unconsciously determines the behaviors of whites and POC's (POC internalized racism). The disparate treatment of POC's in the workplace, in financial institutions, in churches, in schools and colleges, in social and service organizations, in health care, in the insurance industry, and in retail establishments provide all the evidence one needs of institutional racism.

And here's one final comment from me about this ... I remember hearing Dr. Brown comment at the 2000 Spring District Meeting before his retirement. He commented on how troubling it was for him that it required the lynching of James Byrd for our district's ministers to engage in anti-racism work with their district colleagues. The more subtle types of racism including institutional racism existing both before and after James Byrd's death were not a sufficient reason for engaging in anti-racism work.

Cindy Sheehan on DVD

I received information on this video from the "yruusj" email list (the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists Social Justice email list). This may be a useful resource for youth and adult religious education discussions.

Here is the email announcement that was sent out by Margot Smith (filmmaker from Off Center Video):

We have a 21 minute video of Cindy Sheehan giving a speech at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarians on DVD, if anyone wants one, we charge $10 to cover costs. She is really remarkable!! ... Margot Smith

Cindy Sheehan - Military Families Speak Out Against the War in Iraq! Speech at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian/Universalists (November 2004)

"At this crucial moment in history we must support Americans like Cindy Sheehan who have stood up and are telling the truth. We support Gold Star Families for Peace and the movement which is turning the tide to end this illegal war based on lies and deception." -- Hal Carstad

Here is DVD of Cindy Sheehan made when she first was speaking out against the war. She reads her open letter to George Bush. This video has been shown in the Berkeley area and was enthusiastically received. It encourages discussion. In includes pictures of her family and protests.

The DVD is 21 minutes long and is available for $10.00 which includes shipping. All money above costs will go to support Gold Star Families for Peace campaign.

The video was made by Ralph Stein and Margot Smith.

Please send your name, address and check for $10 to:

Off Center Video
1300 A Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94709
510-486-8010
FAX 510-644-2139
OffCenterVideo@aol.com

Poem About Homophobia

I received a poem about homophobia a few days ago from Lara Campbell, the Director of Religious Education from the Community Unitarian Church of White Plains NY.

The author listed for this poem is "Unknown" (who is nearly as prolific as "Anonymous") ... and I googled looking for an author. The poem is popping up on tons of blogs and livejournals with the "Unknown" author attribution and the last line of the poem is a request to repost the poem.

Homophobia

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn't have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

Repost this, homophobia is wrong.

Author - Unknown

Does anyone know the name of the author for this poem?

"It's like deja-vu all over again." -- UU Youth Ministry History Resources

With the upcoming "Consultation on Ministry to and With Youth" happening within the UUA between Fall 2005 and Fall 2007, I thought it would be useful to review the history about where our youth ministry has been in the past and where we might find ourselves in the future.

The Yogi Berra quote seemed appropriate ... especially in light of the recurring issues that have come up in UU youth and young adult ministry since the early 20th century (e.g. how much autonomy is appropriate, non-congregational vs. congregational expressions of Unitarian Universalism, substance use and sexuality issues in conference settings, etc).

These issues predate Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) and even the earlier Liberal Religious Youth (LRY). It seems that UU adult and youth developmental needs keep bringing us back to a re-invention of youth ministry every 25 to 30 years.

Here are some suggested history resources for a starting point on a discussion of UU Youth Ministry:

From the UUA Youth Office: 7.20.2005 - All past issues of Synapse are now online!! Thanks to some new technology (and some help from our fabulous interns!) we have been able to scan and post on our website all of the back issues of the YRUU magazine / newspaper Synapse and it's predecessor, the Liberal Religious Youth publication People Soup. It's hours of history and browsing pleasure!

From Rick Roehlk's online collection of LRY and YRUU historical documents - UU Youth History

From Skinner House Books and the UUA Bookstore - We Would Be One: A History of Unitarian Universalist Youth Movements by Wayne Arnason and Rebecca Scott - Documents the challenges, triumphs and far-reaching effects of the UU youth movement. Compelling personal stories capture how important UU youth groups, conferences and organizations have been in peoples' lives from the late 19th-century to the present. Arnason was the UUA's director of youth programs from 1980 to 1984 during the creation of YRUU. Scott was a youth programs specialist in the UUA Youth Office from 1989 to 1990. Revised and updated from Follow the Gleam, published in 1980.

Unitarian Universalists Speak Out for Reality-Based Sexuality Education Legislation

From the UUA's web site ...

Unitarian Universalists Speak Out for Reality-Based Sexuality Education Legislation
(July 28, 2005) At a meeting held with Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) yesterday, the Rev. William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and Rob Keithan, director of the UUA's Washington Office for Advocacy, presented Senator Lautenberg with more than 2,000 affirmations of support signed by Unitarian Universalists from around the country in support of S.368, and H.R. 768, the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act.

The REAL Act is endorsed by Advocates for Youth, with whom the UUA is a partner, and would provide funding to states for medically accurate, age appropriate, comprehensive sexuality education in the schools—education that includes information about both abstinence and contraception, from both a values and public health perspective. The effort is consistent with the approach taken by Our Whole Lives (OWL), the UUA's reality-based sexuality education lifespan curriculum developed with the United Church of Christ and now in use in congregational and secular settings. More than 125 national and state and organizations are supporting the REAL Act, including medical, civil rights, family planning, educational, public health, reproductive rights, and HIV/AIDS organizations.

The UUA launched an effort to build support for the REAL Act as part of an outreach effort from the Rev. Sinkford to Unitarian Universalists across the country. Sinkford wrote to UUA members in late April, "The voices of the religious right have been largely successful in drowning out other people of faith. This has allowed them to dominate the current debate on moral values and assert themselves as the religious voice on crucial matters including civil rights, health and the family, international peace and justice, and religious liberty. You and I cannot allow the religious right to speak for us."

The rest of this article can be read online here.

Other Resources About This Issue

• UUA Washington Office Sexuality Education Resources
• Advocates for Youth Letter Writing Campaign in Support of REAL Act
• Our Whole Lives Lifespan Reality-Based Sexuality Education
• United Church of Christ Sexuality Education Resources

New Worship Planning Resource Online

The UUA Young Adult and Campus Ministry (YACM) Office has a new worship planning resource online. It's called "Unitarian Universalist Contemporary Worship" and can be found online here:

http://www.uua.org/ya-cm/resources/Worship/index.html

Here's a brief description about this resource copied from the YACM web site:

"This site is designed as a resource for congregations seeking to design more contemporary worship services to attract young adults and others who are largely absent from our communities of faith. It includes articles, resources and links for UU Contemporary Worship. Soon to come are pieces on the theology of contemporary worship (and why it fits better with Unitarian Universalism than more traditional worship styles) and more resources for designing and implementing contemporary worship."

This worship resource and other UUA worship resources can be found online in a previous post to my blog listing available UU worship resources (originally posted on 22 January 2005 - updated on 22 July 2005).

These worship planning resources are provided to our congregation through the generous financial contributions that our congregation and other UU congregations make to the UUA each year.

These worship resources reflect the cooperative and interdependent spirit of Unitarian Universalism. They are freely available to all who need them.

UUA Youth Office Response to the Concerns Raised About The Decision to Withdraw Support for Con Con

The following article was posted on fuuse.com:

March-July 2005
To: Young Religious Unitarian Universalists and their Allies and Supporters
From: The UUA Youth Office

Note: This response was originally drafted in March of 2005. Because of other issues taking up a considerable amount of staff time, we were not able to finalize and post this response until July. We are sorry for any inconvenience this delay may have caused.
Responses to the Con Con Decision

After the Youth Office's decision to withdraw support from Con Con, we invited feedback from the wider community about the decision. The response was noticeably positive; people echoed many of the same concerns about Con Con we had shared. To be specific, yruu@uua.org received 47 emails directly praising the decision, as well as 25 people who wrote simply "to support the Youth Office" without commenting either way on the decision. Positive comments primarily came from former Youth Office staff, youth advisors, and religious educators, though 7 youth also wrote to us agreeing with the decision. We sincerely appreciate that support. We also received email from 11 people criticizing the decision, 5 of whom were youth. We also learned of a number of conversations going on in online communities about the decision (though we could not possibly have followed all such conversations).

The rest of the response can be read here or here.

GeoURLs on Church Web Sites

Here's a geeky but cool web site feature that I learned about on the "Websters" UUA-sponsored email list for congregational webmasters:

"GeoURL is a location-to-URL reverse directory. This will allow you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location."

Using hand-held GPS coordinates in WGS-84 format that were recorded with a Garmin eTrex, I updated our church home page with the appropriate meta-tags, indexed our site on the GeoURL web database, and added a link to our congregation's GeoURL data on our home page.

From page that shows the GeoURL data, go to the Google Map page and view our congregation location using the "satellite" map feature.

The Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth

The following announcement comes from the UUA Youth Office Web Site:

7.13.2005 - The Consultation on Ministry to and With Youth -- The UUA Board of Trustees has approved the process recommendation of the Consultation on Ministry to and With Youth. This is an exciting process by which the UUA and its member districts and congregations will revision the way we do youth ministry over the next two years. Learn about the process here!

On the UUA Board of Trustees "Youth Consultation" web page, you will find a link to the following document:

UUA Consultation on Ministry to and with Youth: Process Recommendation (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other compatible software).

Different Religions Week Announcement - 15-22 July 2005

I received this in my email today from Nathan Black and I thought this idea might be a useful project for Unitarian Universalists to support ... either in the form of Different Religions Week celebrations in their communities or in cooperation with other existing multi-faith celebrations like World Religion Day. Nathan's email is posted below ...

Dear Steve,

I am a student at Rice University in Houston and the founder of Different Religions Week, a week during which people are encouraged to attend services of faiths different from their own. I read your blog this January and determined that, based on the blog's subject matter, you might be interested in posting a comment regarding the week -- either agreeing or disagreeing with its concept or simply announcing that it is taking place.

Different Religions Week 2005 is July 15-22. I started the movement in 2003 to help curb people's widespread ignorance of other faiths, which often leads to intolerance and which sometimes ultimately results in -- or is used to justify -- violence (consider, for example, 9/11 or the Bosnian conflict). More information about the how and why of the movement is available at http://www.differentreligionsweek.org.

There is no one "event" around which Different Religions Week is based; rather, people are simply encouraged to find and attend an unfamiliar religious service at their convenience during the week. (Atheist and agnostic meetings count too.) The movement's Web site has links under "World Religions" to directories where people can get started finding a service.

Please consider posting a comment on or announcement of Different Religions Week 2005 on your blog, and e-mail me if you do so I can keep track of the Web presence of the movement. Thank you for your consideration and your time.

Sincerely,
Nathan Black

School e-mail: nwblack@rice.edu
Movement e-mail: differentreligionsweek@yahoo.com

Another Apology ...

In regards to the recent discussion on my blog and other online communities such as fuuse.com about recent events at GA, I want to apologize.

If I hurt you, I'm sorry. Hurting others was not my intent.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to fix the mistakes I've made.

Rather than contacting me by blog for this, I would request email being sent to the following address:

stevecaldwell at bellsouth.net (replace the "at" with "@" or use the HTML link).

I've said too much already on my blog and fuuse.com on this subject and I will be taking a vacation from blogging.

If anyone is still interested in discussing this issue, there are two threads on fuuse.com ... one discussing the UUA Board letter and one proposing a possible action that may prevent or reduce future incidents at GA.

Thank you.

An Open Apology ...

... to anyone who feels that I called them a racist.

I'm sorry that I wrote anything that might have implied you were a "racist" as the term is commonly used (e.g. a person like David Duke and other overt white supremacists).

That was not my intent. I did not say anything remotely equivalent to stating "you are a racist."

But I did ask a question on my blog.

Is a tendency that I've observed in some online posts to minimize the role of race as a major factor in the GA incidents due to unconscious racism or ageism?

An unconscious response that comes in part from racist influences in North American culture could be happening here.

Suggesting this possibility arising out of involuntary and unconscious cultural influences isn't the same as calling a person a "racist." I just want to suggest that we need to be mindful of influences in our society that encourage us to discount racism.

Again ... my apologies for any misunderstanding my blog words have created here.

Dangers Inherent in Discounting Racism in Unitarian Universalist Communities

In case you're curious why I think any liberal religious and Unitarian Universalist tendency to discount racism as a current-day problem that exists in our UU communities, here's a brief snippet from the UUA's Lifespan Faith Development resource archives that addresses how discounting of racism can cause racism to thrive:

"Racism is a particularly sensitive topic for religious liberals because we pride ourselves on our perceived lack of racism. However, we often fail to differentiate between traditional or overt racism and neo-racism. Traditional racism is direct, institutionalized racial discrimination/oppression, using strategies of direct even legal exclusion and/or hierarchical domination. Slave laws and Jim Crow are examples.

Neo-racism is indirect, institutionalized racial discrimination such as calls to eliminate affirmative action, redlining of neighborhoods, denial of small business loans to persons of color, immigration policies that exclude Africans and other persons of color, and the social and economic abandonment of inner city schools. Because neo-racism thrives on the denial of the existence of racism, it is a particularly perplexing problem for religious liberals who deny their own role in a racist society and therefore so easily succumb to neo racism's insulating effects."

This may seem like a harsh message, but it's one that I think we need to seriously consider in how we react to incidents like the recent one at General Assembly.

Racism and Racial Profiling of UU Youth of Color at GA -- Summary of Events

Here's a summary of the recent racist events at the 2005 Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) General Assembly (GA) in Ft. Worth TX. I've collected this information from the following sources:

UUA Board of Trustees Open Letter (uua.org web site)
UUA Board of Trustees Open Letter and Reader Commentary (fuuse.com web site)
Reader Comments on the "Boy in the Bands" Blog

And here's what I found out:

1. Some white Unitarian Universalists (UUs) assumed that UU youth of color were hotel service people and asked them to carry luggage or park cars.
2. There was a "racial profiling" incident outside the hall where the GA Closing Ceremony was happening. A group of UU youth of color were stopped from entering because they were not wearing nametags. White adult UUs without their nametags were not stopped even though they were violating the same requirement on page 3 of the GA Program Book.
   
3. The initial verbal dispute involved several UU youth of color and a UU adult who questioned their right to be there. This questioning provoked an angry response.
   
4. This verbal dispute caused a UU minister to intervene in support of the UU adult.
5. Another white UU youth intervened in support of the UU youth of color and verbally attacked the minister and she responded in kind -- escalating this conflict.
6. During the GA Youth Caucus discussions after the Closing Ceremony incident, the Youth Caucus staff met and decided through consensus process to cancel the Monday night dance they had sponsored.

Canceling the dance was apparently a controversial decision for some GA attendees. Here's a bit of blog commentary from a young adult worked on the Youth Caucus staff:

" ... and i'm not sure what the sway the 'institutional youth of the UUA' means, but i'll guess is has to do with the canceling of the YOUTH sponsored dance. and the youth (and adults who were there in support, including myself) who cancelled it were white volunteer GA youth caucus staff, not youth office staff. it was a hard decision for the youth, but consensus was reached, we did not want to be a bunch of white people partying it up while all of their friends of color were spilling their guts about the crappy thing that had happened to them over the course of GA. that would be adding insult to injury."

And ... as you may have noticed in my earlier post, there's also a lot of denial that racism could be an issue for Unitarian Univeraslists. Denial won't make this problem any easier.

Racism and Racist Incidents at 2005 UUA General Assembly

In case you haven't heard about this yet, some disturbing things happened at the 2005 General Assembly in Ft. Worth TX.

The UUA Board of Trustees has published an open letter to UU youth of color and UU people of color who attended Fort Worth General Assembly and to the broader UU community.

Rev. Eric Posa was an on-scene Chaplain for the event and his very useful analysis can be found online here.

Commentary from fuuse.com can be found online here.

The surprising thing about this incident is the tendency of some to minimize the impact of what has happened. I don't know if this comes from unconscious racism, ageism, or a combination of the two. Examples of this tendency for some Unitarian Universalists to dismiss racism as a possible cause for some incidents at GA can be found online here, here, and here.