We encourage you to join us in our work to dismantle the legacy of white supremacy that gives white people privilege in all aspects of life. This work calls us to educate ourselves about racism and to challenge the powerful structures in our society that perpetuate it. Our church is committed to examining everything we do through the lenses of racial and economic justice. We strive to build Beloved Community one determined step, one beloved person at a time.
Facing Race Stirring Committee
WBUUC’s Facing Race Stirring Committee (FRSC) is dedicated to dismantling racism and other oppressions by helping the WBUUC community view all of our work through the lenses of racial and economic justice. FRSC keeps white supremacy in the minds of the congregation and challenges white supremacy by owning our part in it, naming it when we see it, and practicing how to talk about it with each other.
FRSC facilitates and supports this agenda by reaching out to committee and program leaders, offering opportunities for members and friends to learn about white supremacy and its effects, and empowering the congregation to talk, hold and articulate their questions about race.
FRSC is an outgrowth of the Undoing Racism workshop that our lead minister Rev. Victoria Safford and several WBUUC members attended in the spring of 2018. The group met during summer of 2018 to begin planning a program of church and community events and activities that go deeper into the issues of racial justice, privilege and equity.
In the years since Trayvon Martin was killed by a community member in Florida in 2012, an appalling number of black and brown people have died at the hands of police and civilian white supremacists — including Eric Garner,Michael Brown Jr. &Tamir Rice [2014]; Walter Scott, Sandra Bland &Freddie Gray [2015]; Alton Sterling [2016]; among too, too many others.
These horrors came home to us in the Twin Cities in November 2013 when Jamar Clark was killed by Minneapolis police officers, and in July 2016 when Philando Castile was killed by an officer as he sat in his car in Falcon Heights.
See a timeline of WBUUC’s Engagement in Anti-Racist Work