 On Tuesday, June 9, approximately one hundred people gathered at the Free Speech Wall in Charlottesville's downtown mall for a peaceful prayer vigil organized by Don Gathers and the Charlotttesville Clergy Collective. Below are pictures courtesy of Mike Kropf and Richard Lord. (Photo credit above: Eze Amos) Credit for above photos: Mike Kropf Credit for above photos: Richard Lord
Read our Statement on the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor
Last Week Tonight (June 7, 2020)- As nationwide protests over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are met with police brutality, John Oliver discusses how the histories of policing and white supremacy are intertwined, the roadblocks to fixing things, and some potential paths forward. TAKE ACTION The following links are taken from Claire Lampen’s article “How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality.” Direct aid for victims’ families:
Tangible Ways to Support Black Lives
Ways to Engage Right Now – Each One Counts Note: Below is an excerpt of an email from Collective Impact Forum. If you’re wondering what steps to take, here are some things that can help. Listen. Learn. Give. Center. Listen: Listen to communities of color. Understanding what Black, Brown, or Indigenous people need to thrive is crucial right now. Please don’t assume.
Learn: If you are struggling with what is said above or what is going on right now in our world, a good step is to visit some resources to support your own learning. Everyone is learning at their own pace. Remember to not expect or task your Black colleagues and community members to teach you right now. They do not have the time or energy to lay things out again. If you are feeling challenged and wondering where to start, seek out resources like the ones listed below. Books: These books are available in print, ebook, and audio.
Give: It’s become a pandemic cliché to say “Now more than ever,” but it’s still true. Now, more than ever, giving is essential. Whether it’s giving money, time, or compassion.
See “Listen” above. If your communities are asking for something to be given, if you can, please give. Give compassion. “Now more than ever” is the time to spread your compassion and empathy. So many are feeling pain, exhaustion, fear, and grief. Your compassion and love can be a real gift. Center: It’s very necessary to center the stories and experiences of Black lives and other people of color, and what they are going through. Center their narratives and what they are experiencing. Use those experiences as a light to guide your actions. Be wary of “easy” narratives that pin blame on communities of color. Like using a stereotype to quickly code someone, narratives are also tools to quickly divide and understand. Parse your media intake - who is being centered? Whose experiences are “the protagonist”? At this time of heightened racial violence and inequity, if the story “protagonist” is not Black or Brown, use that as an indicator to reassess that media source and what narrative they are trying to give you. Our own media literacy (including social media) is a key learning area right now. Following media outlets and sources that are authored by and for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities is a crucial step to improve one's own media literacy, especially if you want to unlearn harmful narratives that you may be unknowingly carrying with you. #BlackLivesMatter For people of color in the Collective Impact Forum community, we see you. We see your pain and grief. We see the injustices you have and are experiencing. You do not deserve to feel this way. No one should. This burden should not be yours. It should not be anyone’s. For our Forum community - Let us all do what we can to overcome anti-blackness and racism in our systems and communities. Listen. Learn. Give. Center. And Support each other. Robert Albright, Director, Collective Impact Forum Sheri Brady, Associate Director, Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions Jennifer Splansky Juster, Executive Director, Collective Impact Forum Tracy Timmons-Gray, Associate Director, Collective Impact Forum LEARN - Articles
TAKE ACTION
SupportCville.com SupportCville.com has the most comprehensive list of support (financial, supplies, housing, food, etc.) in our community. Below are a few organizations where you can donate to support our community:
LEARN “Shepherding Through a Pandemic” Informational Session on COVID-19 for Faith Leaders On May 27, Dr. Jeanita Richardson (Professor of Public Health Sciences at UVa's School of Medicine) gave a presentation on “Shepherding Through a Pandemic,” focusing on what faith leaders need to know about the COVID-19 pandemic and how to prepare for the reopening of their congregations. Below you will find supporting information from the presentation.
PDF Handouts mentioned by Dr. Richardson
Links:
ARTICLES: COVID-19 and Race
Above is a recording of “A Service of Mourning the Deaths from COVID-19 and Racism” held on Sunday, June 7, 2020 at 7 pm. This service names the dual diseases of COVID-19 and racism that are ravaging our country and our world. We especially mourn the black lives that have been lost due to both diseases. Please visit our blog post for ways to support the struggle against COVID-19 and racism and police brutality. “First They Came . . .”
In our Service of Mourning (around the 11:18 minute mark in the video), we stated Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous quote and offered our own version, with “they” referring to COVID-19 and racism:
 What do we tell our children?
What do we tell ourselves? What do we tell GOD? We, the members of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective, came together to figure out how to react to and support each other through the deaths of the brothers and sisters of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, at the hands of a white supremacist. We forged our deepest bonds over the horror of August 11 and 12 of 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today we grieve anew, at the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, George Floyd in Minneapolis, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, by the hands of current and former police officers. We are Christian and Jewish and Muslim and Baháʼí and Sufi and Buddhist and Unitarian Universalists; male and female; Black, White, Red, and Yellow spiritual leaders at a time of disinformation, pandemic, and destructive partisan politics. The question that echoes through the corridors of time is now ours to answer: “What is truth?” How do we tell our children about our species’ penchant for othering and murdering GOD’S children who are not like us? What meaning do we tell ourselves when murder keeps happening in plain sight with cameras recording, and we do nothing about it? What do we say to GOD, Whom we say we trust, when asked to give an account of ourselves? We need to say the truth, as all Holy Books teach, that we are ALL GOD'S children. We know there is no excuse to treat others as less than ourselves. We need to acknowledge that our own need to be “exceptional” has led to a pernicious greed and lack of empathy for those who are less well off -- socially, economically, and politically. Further, this same greed and lack of empathy have created and continue to perpetuate systems -- woven through our interpretation of Scripture, and our social and judicial principles -- that visit evil upon those not favored by the systems. We need to admit that the inequalities made glaringly clear by the COVID-19 pandemic are not new, just uncovered. We need to acknowledge that these instances of police and “neighborhood watch” brutality aren’t happening more, we are just able to capture them more, because of phone cameras. We need to believe those who tell us about their mistreatment at the hands of our systems that protect some and kill others. We need to ally ourselves with those whose stories are not our own, but whose scars are evident. We need to work for justice with those whose sufferings are so long-standing that all seems normal to those who don’t know the stories, who don’t see the scars, who don’t bear the sorrow. We need to tell our children that Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor were murdered because some people thought they were disposable. Their deaths, and so many others, are a result of systemic and cultural racism deeply embedded in America. We need to be honest and tell ourselves whether we are all right with “officers of the law” having a free pass to murder with impunity. And, we need to explain to GOD how we can love and trust GOD, and yet still let this evil keep happening. It is not enough that the police officer who held his knee on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes, and three other officers who did nothing, are fired. They all must be arrested and prosecuted. It is not enough that Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend had charges dropped after wounding a drug SWAT team officer whom he perceived to be breaking and entering into what was, in fact, the wrong apartment. As a result of a no-knock warrant into the wrong home, Breonna Taylor was shot eight times and was killed in her own bed. Wrong must be righted. If not, what do we tell our children? What do we tell ourselves? What do we tell GOD? Signed, Rev. Dr. Alvin Edwards, President, Charlottesville Clergy Collective Pastor, Mt. Zion First African Baptist 105 Lankford Ave, Charlottesville, VA 22903
This morning, Dr. Jeanita Richardson (Professor of Public Health Sciences at UVa's School of Medicine) gave a presentation on “Shepherding Through a Pandemic,” focusing on what faith leaders need to know about COVID-19 pandemic and how to prepare for the re-opening of their congregations.
Below you will find supporting information from the presentation. Zoom link to the Video of the Presentation. Password: 4M.@2nyl Slide Deck of the Presentation Rough Notes of the Presentation “We’re Going to be OK” - Tips and advice book for children PDF Handouts mentioned by Dr. Richardson
Links:
To Governor Ralph Northam,
Greetings from the Charlottesville Clergy Collective. We are a group of interfaith leaders working together to address racial injustice and inequity in the Charlottesville and Albemarle region of Virginia. First and foremost, we want to express our appreciation for your leadership during this COVID-19 pandemic. We appreciate the work that your office and the Office of Health Equity have done to implement and communicate the best science-based guidelines for the sake of the health of the citizens of Virginia. It is because of our concern for the health of our commonwealth that we now express our grave reservations over the start of Phase 1 of “Forward Virginia” today. We appreciate the guidelines on how we can reopen our houses of worship. However, we have received no support on how to implement those guidelines. Many congregations do not have the resources to compete with richer congregations and businesses in purchasing masks, disinfectants, sanitation stations, and thermometers needed to meet Phase 1 guidelines. Many faith leaders will also experience great pressure to reopen for worship, hold funeral services, and other physical gatherings despite having less than one week to meet Phase I guidelines. In the beginning months of this pandemic, religious gatherings contributed greatly to the spread of COVID-19. We’re fearful a premature reopening will only exacerbate this problem. We want to be part of the solution, even if it means sacrificing our preference for in-person gatherings a little longer for the sake of others. Furthermore, this reopening affects much more than our congregations. We feel it is our moral duty to express our deep concern about the negative impact this reopening will have on the most vulnerable populations of our society. A premature reopening will only worsen the racial inequity that currently exists, and increase the morbidity rates within black and brown communities in Virginia. Without more testing, robust contact tracing, and PPE’s, they -- as well as low-wage essential workers, poultry and meat processors, imprisoned people, immunocompromised individuals, and health care professionals, among others -- will bear the brunt of the risks, the deaths, and the cost of this reopening. We seek to schedule a virtual meeting with you to talk more about how an early opening will impact houses of faith. We will continue to keep you and all the state’s leadership in our prayers. We too, are eager for the state to fully reopen and for Virginians to return to work. However, we want to work for a reopening that shares its benefits to ALL Virginians in an equitable and just manner. Signed,
Below are a few organizations where you can donate to support our community:
 Last Saturday morning (April 3), over 450 people from as far away as Madison, Buckingham, and Louisa counties received free food at a distribution at New Beginnings Christian Community.
Thanks to the generous donations by Walmart and Food Lion, Associate Minister Rev. Dr. Greg Moyer of New Beginnings and three volunteers handed out bags of food to recipients. The street and church parking lot was marked by chalk lines to help separate people and cars to maintain social distance. As news spread about the food give-away, Co-Pastor Rev. Liz Emrey received over forty-five phone calls Friday afternoon and ten calls Saturday morning. Due to the overwhelming demand, all the food was given out within ninety minutes. About four hundred people who didn’t receive food were told to call and arrange for a food box pick up on Wednesday afternoon. Pastor Emrey said that this Saturday’s food giveaway came about because of a last-minute donation of fresh meats, produce, and fruit by Walmart and Food Lion. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church also donated a lot of meat. She didn’t want the food to spoil over the weekend, so she reached out over social media to announce the give-away. What did Pastor Emrey learn this weekend? “Social media works! It worked too well in our situation, and we will limit the channels of communication in the future in order to prevent people coming out needlessly,” Emrey says. Emrey also was struck by the depths of food insecurity in our region. “I couldn’t believe how far people came in order to get food.” New Beginnings Christian Community is committed to continue their feeding ministry. Please call or text the church at (434) 249-5691 to reserve a food box at their weekly food distribution on Wednesdays, 1 to 4 pm, and Saturdays, 10 to 11 am, now through June 10. The church also needs volunteers to help them continue this work! Volunteers are needed Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, 9 am to 1 pm to pick up food from Walmart and Food Lion, and to shelve and pack food boxes. Please use this SignUp Genius to help with packing food boxes on Mondays, Tuesday, and Fridays. Volunteers are also needed on Wednesdays, 1 to 4:30 pm, and on Saturdays, 9 am to 12 noon to pack and distribute food boxes. Please use this SignUp Genius to help with the Wednesday and Saturday food distribution. “Jesus tells us to feed the hungry,” says Pastor Emrey. “And we want to do our part to relieve food insecurity, especially during this pandemic.” Posted by Michael Cheuk, Secretary, Charlottesville Clergy Collective This devotion, distributed by Richard Rohr, recalls the words of Dr. Barbara Holmes in her reflection called "Crisis Contemplation." |
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