Black Lives of UU answers Mijente’s Call to Action
By now we have all seen the girl crying, alone, scared with her Mother’s hands cuffed behind her back. If you are like us and millions across the country, you’re heart is broken more than just a little by this startling image. First the sadness comes and then the rage ensues. How is this happening? And how can we stop it?
As Black people we know, in our flesh, in our hearts, and in every part of our being what it means to have families ripped apart. Whether it was by slavery, or now by the prison system, our children have been stripped away from our arms, our families separated, like what is happening right now to Siwatu. We know this isn’t right, and as we continue to fight for our own lives, families and communities, our colleagues and comrades at Mijente, who have been fighting for years against the deportation machine and mass atrocities against immigrants are calling us now. We will answer the call. We have been cautioned away from alarmist language, but if you are not alarmed in this moment of heightened and targeted state violence than you are not paying attention.
As Black people, we are answering this call. As Unitarian Universalists, we are answering this call. As Black UUs, we are answering this call. We believe every child is holy, that families fleeing violence and seeking asylum are people. Where their human dignity is stripped, where their worth is not honored, we must find our moral courage to say no. And more than our words, our resources, our actions and our time must be put in the service to stop these atrocities. These wounds will scar generations. We resist together. Just as our ancestors knew the pain of rupture and distance, they knew, as we do the strength of resilience, of standing in our full humanity and stopping those that would seek to cast any child as anything but holy.
As an organizing collective we have responded with a clear and decisive YES to our comrades at Mijente who have issued an immediate and direct call to action to join them in fighting the crisis at the border. We urge all Unitarian Universalists not only as individuals, but at the congregational, institutional and organizational level to join Black Lives of UU by signing on to this call to action right away.
Sign up now to #ShutDownSessions, #AbolishICE and #FreeOurFuture: http://bit.ly/MijenteCallToAction.
