As you can imagine, this has been in a hot topic in our Faith Development meetings the past few weeks. We are working together develop ideas for how to make Religious Education at UUCA even more focused on Justice in the coming year. This is our work and we are dedicated to taking it on, but we need your help! As parents and caregivers, you are your child’s primary religious educator. If you’ve been to an OWL orientation, this probably sounds familiar as I have emphatically told many of you over the years that you are your child’s primary sexuality educator. It’s just as true when we are talking about race, justice, and equity. Your kids are learning explicit and implicit lessons from you every day.
Talking about race with your kids, especially if your family is white, can be very uncomfortable. It is our job as UUs to lean into that discomfort and do the work of justice. Our job as church staff is to give you some tools to get started and to continue the conversation. If you are anything like me, it can be really anxiety inducing to even consider having these conversations with your families. Here are the tools I want to share with you this week.
Feeling anxious? Check out this guide to overcoming anxiety so you can talk to kids about race effectively: https://www.rebekahgienapp.com/anxiety-race/
Wondering if your kids are too young to start the conversation? Check out this podcast from NPR about talking to about race with young children:
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716700866/talking-race-with-young-children
We will also be transitioning our bi-weekly parent check in Zoom group to an Anti Racist Parenting Discussion group. We will meet on Tuesday, June 23rd at 9 pm to discuss this action guide for talking to your children about racial injustice. The link for the Zoom will be in our weekly RE email. Looking for more resources or something more specific? Email me at lrec@uuasheville.org and I will do my best to help you find what you’re looking for.
https://www.embracerace.org/assets/young_kids_racial_injustice.pdf