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| Join in this sampling of great anti-racism and diversity work being done by YOU in your congregations and communities! Share YOUR Stories! Email them to: EW4AR@aol.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * Huntington Training Workshop a Success! There was a recent training of trainers, followed by a wonderful interfaith/inter-organizational gathering of some seventy-plus persons who came to gether to watch the Lee Mun Wah film, The Color of Fear. The event was hosted by ARDC member Helen Boxwill on behalf of ICHAN, an interfaith group that focuses on housing and works with the Huntington Fellowship. The Rev. Hope Johnson, ARDC Co-Chair, was one of the two facilitators. The event was hosted at the UU Fellowship in Hungtington where UU Minister Paul Ratzlaff and several congregants participated in the workshop. Both Garden City and Freeport UU congregations were represented by workshop participants. Similar ARDC programming is available to all UU congregations. Simply check out ARDC's Programming Resources section for details. * * * * * * * * * * * * * Teens Talk about Racism By Maryann Woods-Murphy “White boys cannot play basketball!” A chorus of teenagers drowns out the comment with counter examples. Some sparks fly and a few giggle. “Yeah, but Jews sure are cheap, I know because I’m Jewish.” Rolling eyes around the room with audible groans from peers. “How can you say that? – Nah – I mean, how can you think that?” When racist words are thought, but not spoken, they become a deadly virus, threatening to take over the immune system, destroying the functioning of all major social organs. Or, worse yet, they become part of the system itself, like an invisible parasite which moves and works within, without any visible signs of illness. When the words come forth and are challenged by the foolish and unscientific reality they represent, they almost always die a natural death. But how can we speak the taboo words we are taught to shun? What space can be safe enough for anyone, much less teens, to take such a risk? Teens Talk about Racism, a leadership conference for Bergen County, New Jersey teens, makes it happen every May. In its fifth year, the conference promotes open dialog among teenagers who need to explore and understand the stereotypes which have become part of the world we live in. Words, which left unchallenged, will limit their ability to connect with people who look, worship and act different from the people they grow up with. Theadora Lacey, the co-founder of the conference has seen it all. Raised in the south, during segregation, she and her late husband Archie, the first African-American professor tenured at Hunter College, were on the front lines of justice making. They worked with Rev. Martin Luther King jr. to fight the good fight. They dared to cross over the racial divide to fight for equality for all humankind. The reward? After moving to Teaneck, New Jersey, in1961, white neighbors fled the tree-lined street where they had bought their lovely home. Today, Theadora continues to fight for justice, by keeping the conversation alive with her students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Teaneck, where she teaches. Her friend Rori Kanter is a life-long justice seeker. Years ago, she was active in the fight against the common real estate practice of steering black families, buying homes in Teaneck, to the northeast. Rori commands respect and nothing gets her more charged up than anti-racism work. A recipient of the 2005 Winifred Latimer Norman Award, which is given for extraordinary commitment and service in the area of social and racial justice, Rori never stops. She and Theo cooked up the Teens Talk about Racism conference over coffee six years ago. How can we empower kids to talk about the unspeakable, to find the skills needed to encounter the racial injustice they see and hear? Money from the Archie Lacey Endowment, administrative support from The Central Unitarian Church in Paramus, facilities volunteered by the CORE Studies program at Fairleigh Dickenson University, hundreds of volunteer hours of the TTAR planning team, the hard work of multicultural club advisors in schools and over a hundred and twenty youth participants make the day come together. This year, Dr. Joseph Graves, CORE studies director, renowned biologist and author of The Myth of Race spoke to the kids in a powerful key note address. His formidable presence and no-nonsense, yet passionate talk made the point. The kids learned that, biologically speaking, their racial differences were minimal. We are all part of the human race, according to Dr. Graves. Sounds reasonable, but why do we have all of these stereotypes? To find out, teens went to youth-led workshops which explored ways they could learn to understand our preconceptions about race and to learn how to form bridges with their peers. Teaneck Teen Idol, Kaleel Daniels and second place winner, Felicia Temple sang their hearts out to the teens between sessions. Kaleel set the tone of the day with Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground and ended with He and Felicia singing, Marvin Gae’s What’s goin on? Jae Sung Kim, a student from Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale, sang “A dios le pido” in flawless Spanish. The day ended with the whole auditorium singing Lean on me. Kids were on their feet, swaying back and forth, were pouring onto the stage dancing. Adults were clapping and singing freely next to their students. Everybody was smiling. It kind of makes you think. It makes you think about how much freer we all would feel if we lost a little baggage and opened up our world to different kinds of people. So many of us, as adults, have been taught to be quiet, while the hateful words we’ve grown up hearing, do their work unchallenged in our minds. We shut ourselves up and shut other people out. But maybe it’s not too late for our kids. Maybe, they won’t carry the poison of racism into the next generation. Maybe, just maybe, if teens talk about racism, there will be a little less of it to go around. The author of this profile, Maryann Woods-Murphy, is Chair of the Teens Talk About Racism Conference , a Spanish teacher and a tolerance educator at Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale, as well as a poet & free lance writer. You can contact her at: woodsmurphy@yahoo.com |
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