As I've said before, some of my favorite people in Unitarian Universalism are religious educators. So I think about them when I read stories about children; children of color in particular.
If you follow me on Facebook, you can see I recently posted a series of articles about racist things happening in schools. (You can read the stories here, here, here, and here). And in one case, how the racist action is being completely denied.
I think we need to face a fundamental truth, liberal friends; children are not as innocent as the liberal church wants to believe. This does not mean they are "totally depraved" in the Calvinist sense, but they are also not the "blank slates" talked about in philosophy-just not innocent.
So what does that mean for liberal religious education? How do majority white churches help children of color heal and become resilient in the face of the ongoing trauma they will encounter in the rest of their life (and, if we're really going to be honest, in their church life too)? What is liberal religious education in the face of continuing trauma? How do we support religious educators of color who are also dealing with continuing trauma? [I could ask the same question for religious professionals of color in general, but I think religious educators are in a unique position]
What does trauma ministry look like in places of continuing trauma? I am not criticising the work of the UU Trauma Response Ministry-they are wonderful people who do important and necessary crisis support/ministry work; this is a different question. We are seeing news stories almost everyday of children of color in communities around the country being in situations where they will face trauma over and over again.
So what does ministry and care look like once the "heat" of the moment wears off, but the feelings the moment created are still there?
What does it mean for UU congregations to take the work of the White Supremacy Teach-In seriously?
