Mr. Crankypants has been watching with interest and amusement as some Unitarian Universalists demand that the 2012 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Assocaition be moved from Phoenix, Arizona, to — somewhere else. Because, you see, those who are politically naive believe that if the Unitarian Universalists don’t meet in Phoenix in June of 2012, Arizona politicians will actually notice their absence.
Mr. Crankypants agrees that Arizona SB 1070 is a silly, stupid, racist law, enacted by political demagogues who are more interested in pandering to the baser side of the electorate than in actually providing humane and just leadership. But why on earth will those politicians, or any part of the electorate, pay the least bit attention to a small, little-known religious group which doesn’t show up in their state? And then there’s the media attention, or lack thereof:– of the following two scenarios, pick the one which you think could possibly wind up on television news shows in Phoenix: (1) Unitarian Universalists don’t show up; (2) Unitarian Universalists show up and participate in a well-organized and colorful demonstration in front of the Arizona capitol building.
Mr. Crankypants rests his case. However, given that the cancelation fees for moving General Assembly will amount to $650,000, given that other costs could mean that moving General Assembly in 2012 cost upwards of one million dollars, Mr. Crankypants makes the following offer:– if you still support moving General Assembly out of Phoenix, he will not mock you for your political naivete, provided you write a personal check for ten thousand dollars to the Unitarian Universalist Association to help pay for the move. (Strident and stubborn people should double that amount.)
Follow-up post on how to pay for moving General Assembly.
The resolution to move GA should be passed ONLY when it is fully funded by the association, not before.
The worst case scenario would be for the delegates to move GA only for the UUA to scramble for the next two years begging and scraping for money to pay the bills for the next two+ years.
Make the delegates and loud voices put their money where their mouth is and fully support the vote with their wallet not just their voices.
I love Mr. Crankypants. Thought he might enjoy this post I did a while ago about the boycott and going to Arizona for meditation retreats:
http://www.rosegardenyoga.com/?s=boycott
Who are you boycotting and why? Etc.
I get the feeling Dan, those most strident, are those who think they can build the Church with immigrants. Much as the Democrats think amnesty will give them a slew of new Democratic Voters.
Spend a little time with Mexican-Americans (and you know Illinois’s Fox Valley has a large, long established community, and you’ll wonder about this strategy on both counts. They’re an entrepreneurial and socially conservative bunch, often flag waving sending their sons and daughters into the Military.
There’s potential for UU outreach among them, but this is issue isn’t going to persuade. It looks way too opportunistic to me.
This reminds me of a dear friend and colleague of mine who got miffed at her local bank for announcing that it was buying a piece of local land, would be clearing the land, and putting up another branch office. My friend demanded that the bank not do this or she would withdraw all her money and go elsewhere. She objected most to the cutting down of trees (um, really scrub and spindly things). The bank shrugged at her “demands” and said do what you like with your money, we’re moving forward. My friend sent more letters, to the bank, the local paper, the bank president, etc., etc. The bank kept ignoring her. She finally withdrew her money (at quite a loss), and lo and behold, the bank cleared the land as it said it would, built the building, and quickly forgot all about my well-meaning friend.
Protests only work if the entity being protested against stands to lose something large: money, reputation, workflow. The UUs strike me as possessed of an incredibly over-inflated sense of their own influence in this particular instance. Silly UUs. I’m with Mr. Crankypants on this one.
I experienced your post as not looking at the full picture of the call to boycott. The UUA has not called the boycott itself, it was the organizations doing the social justice work on the ground that called for the boycott, for example The National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest latino/latina advocacy group. The groups standing in solidarity are, the Asian American Justice Center, the Center for Community Change, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Puerto Rican Coalition, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the American Educational Research Assn-just to name a few.
The issue of whether or not to boycott is not about us, and whether or not “we” make the news and are noticed. It is whether or not we are allies in social action.
As a person of color, and an immigrant myself, reading your post, I found myself uncomfortable with the idea that I am “politically naive” to think supporting the boycott would make a difference. DRUMM and LUUNA have both asked to support the boycott, do you think every single one of the people in those groups are naive?
Are boycotts in general naive? What about the Montgomery Bus Boycott? Or the boycotting of South Africa during apartheid? I see us showing up differently than you do. I think it will make less difference if we show up. It will make more difference if we stand in solidarity with people asking us to do so. I am asking that Unitarian Universalists step back and let other organizations take the lead. We need to be in solidarity. We can take action by organizing at our 1,000 member congregations to petition the federal government for immigration reform. We can take action locally and in each state now until immigration reform is a reality.
This is not about us. It is about learning what it means to be an ally.
We are being asked to boycott. If we are being allies, that is what we need to do.
Peace.
The link to the DRUMM statement : http://druumm.onefireplace.org/Arizonasb1070
LUUNA statement, is referenced on the UUWorld Blog, here is that link:
http://www.uuworld.org/news/articles/165916.shtml?f
Aisha @ 4 — Thank you for your thoughtful response, and thanks above all for laying out who is calling for the boycott! — especially the links to the DRUMM statement and the LUUNA statement.
You deserve a far more thoughtful response from me than can fit into a comment, so I’ll write another, more thoughtful, post based in part on our off-blog email correspondence.
Aisha, being “allies in social action” is a relatively recent definition of Unitarian Universalism. In our founding eras in this country, Uus agreed to agree on the basic principles — to which all of us still more or less subscribe — and accept that individuals would come up with different political interpretations for ethical reasons. Anti-racism was not considered a congregational mission, even in the era before the Civil War, because 1) there were secular, trans-sectarian organizations for that work and 2) congregations had the two primary missions of promoting parishioners’ religious knowledge and reflections, and assisting member families when their own resources fell short in transient but important ways.
To believe in that definition of the church is not to be racist, not even to be uncaring about anti-racism and ethnic cleansing (which yes, seems to be underway in Arizona) in our personal lives elsewhere.