Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, Oregon
"Bridging the Class Divide"READING
from Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing by Linda Stout, founder of the Piedmont Peace Project
. . . Living in a middle-class and academic community for a year, I have come to see more clearly than ever before that each of us – low income, middle-class, and wealthy, women and men, people of color and white, heterosexual, gay, and lesbian, academics and non-formally educated folks – has resources that are important for breaking down barriers and building a movement for social change.
When I first began knowing that I wanted to be an organizer, I would keep going back to a passage in a Quaker guide-book. The passage said that social change has always happened because one person or a few people had a vision and set about to make a difference. I did have a strong feeling that I wanted to do something, and I also had a vision. My vision was to live in a world where everyone’s basic needs would be met – housing, health care, food, clothing, and all levels of education. People would be respected and honored for their differences. Disagreements and violations would be dealt with in fair and nonviolent ways. It would be a world without the threat of self-destruction from nuclear weapons. It would be a world where the environment was preserved. A world where all voices would be heard. (Stout, p. 183.)
SERMON
"Bridging the Class Divide"
When I was a child, my mother had a habit of developing what we later came to call "Mother’s instant traditions." If we did something once, and Mother thought it bore repeating, it became a tradition, and nothing would stop her from repeating it year after year. This included having a birthday cake and singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus on Christmas Eve, receiving a bag of strange and sometimes indecipherable gifts for birthdays or Christmas, and, the one that sometimes really made me uncomfortable: sharing Christmas Eve. My Mother would find someone whom she determined "might not otherwise have a Christmas Eve," and bring them home for dinner and the following festivities with our family, which, with six children and various hangers-on, was already quite a group. Needless to say, mother was an extreme extravert.
The "sharing Christmas Eve" tradition began comfortably enough when Mom invited the family of my best friend, Susan Yvette Kaufki, who happened to be Jewish. A good time was had by all - except possibly my father, who was an extreme introvert. We had Shinto, Buddhist, and atheist families over the years, which also seemed to go relatively well. But the year Mother invited the town drunk caused more than a little consternation, not only for us children, but also from her own mother, who was far from introverted. Gammy, as I named her, thought Mother ought to be a bit more careful about inviting such folk to our home. I now see that class differences were at play, although, at the time, I just thought he usually smelled badly. He came on his best behavior (I think he had even had a bath.), and proved to be a very interesting character. He had worked as a roust-a-bout in circuses and was, we learned, a Native-American with considerable pride in his heritage. I did not get completely comfortable that night, but I did have my eyes opened to my own classism. I certainly became aware that my mother genuinely followed Jesus’ example of bridging the class divide as he brought diverse classes together in his ministry.
Bridging the class divide is the topic of concern today, not in small part because a number of the folks who attend here have felt a sting of classism that keeps them from feeling entirely comfortable with us. I have heard from folks who experience out-spoken assumptions regarding education and wealth that simply do not reflect their reality. These folks are every bit as much Unitarian Universalists as the more – or less -financially solvent, graduate degreed folks. They share our values and our concerns for quality of life, even if they do not have advanced college degrees or receive decent pay for their hours worked. One example: If my daughter is any example, our social workers struggle at pay near the poverty line.
So, today, in the time we have together, I offer some historical background, a few suggestions for crossing class boundaries, and a vision of deeper connections amongst all people. Because we, as citizens of the United States, find it as hard – maybe harder - to talk about class as we do about race, I suspect some of you will find yourself as uncomfortable as I was during that Christmas Eve. Please do let the discomfort make space for some insight into your own life views.
It appears that there have been classes of people for all of human history. When we were hunters and gatherers, we noted who was best at what, even if we realized that we all needed each other to survive. With the rise of agrarian societies and cities, some controlled resources, others created resources, and some were just exploited as slaves, peasants, or serfs. Education became a mark of greater class, except within religious institutions, which held different kinds of power. With the rise of commerce and the "middle-class," the deep discrepancies between rich and poor were moderated, and we developed a belief in "classless society." Like the notion of "being color-blind," this mystification of reality has been well-preserved throughout western culture, though far from the reality that most people actually experience.
To expand this broad and brief history, let us turn to Thandeka, a Unitarian Universalist theologian and professor who offer specifics in her book, Learning to Be White: Money, Race, and Class in America. Thandeka defines classism thus: ". . . racial strategies devised to hide and thereby to promote or to protect economic class interests." (Thandeka, p. 42.) She lists laws passed in colonial Virginia that systematically separated poor whites from Negroes and Native-Americans. "By means of such acts, social historian Edmund Morgan argues, the tobacco planters and ruling elite of Virginia raised the legal status of lower-class whites relative to that of Negroes and Indians, whether free, servant, or slave." (Ibid. p. 43.)She goes on to assert, "The legislators also raised the status of white servants, white workers, and the white poor in relation to their masters and other white superiors." (Ibid.) This advantage was given despite the reality that the ruling elite found poor whites disgusting, and "the ‘rabble’ of Virginia." (Ibid.)
Before those laws were passed, poor indentured whites worked in the fields with black slaves and shared "their predicament." (Ibid, p. 44.) They held common cause, not only in work, but also in running away, drinking, and mating with each other. They also rebelled against the white rulers on more than one occasion, beginning with "Bacon’s Rebellion" in 1676, during which Jamestown was burned to the ground. That had to be stopped, hence the laws. The elites’ race strategy decreased the probability of such intra-class rebellions. (Ibid. pp. 45-46.) It gave poor whites no more pay or benefits, but a flimsy racial superiority:
Racial contempt would function as a wall between poor whites and blacks protecting masters and their slave-produced wealth from both lower-class whites and slaves. At the same time, the new laws led the poor whites to identify with the ruling elite, an identification with an objective basis in fact – otherwise this divide-and-conquer class strategy would not have worked. (Ibid. p. 46.)
This cynical strategy was well-thought out. It served those in power and gave a false sense of power to poor whites, who, by law, were allowed to whip slaves and protected from being whipped while naked. They did not benefit financially, however, as slave productivity actually kept the wages of white servants low. "Thus, the sense that poor whites now shared status and dignity with their social betters was largely illusory." (Ibid. p. 47.) Illusory – but effective.
So we see how class distinctions were used against the poor and the disenfranchised to separate one from another so that they might not work for common cause. This is certainly not the only example, it is simply vivid and telling.
How do we cross the class divide, build bridges that connect? How do we move beyond the status quo to something more productive for all?
Linda Stout, author of Bridging the Class Divide . . . and Spirit in Action Director, will be speaking about this at the 2006 General Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri. She started poor in the South and could not imagine herself as a leader, much less organizing upper-middle-class folks to create a better world for all, but that is exactly what she is doing now. She is quite clear about how classism works: "Institutionalized oppression is when a prejudice is supported by all the systems of society with all the power to back up that prejudice, so that it becomes the canon – the accepted way." (Stout, Bridging the Class Divide . . . p. 87.) We certainly see that in Thandeka’s examples.
Stout focuses upon a set of principles that she has developed over years of working with the Piedmont Peace Project. They can certainly inform us: (the following comes from pp. 105 – 116.)
*1¾ Focus on social change: Do not confuse social service with true social change. "It’s the difference between helping poor people by giving them money or giving poor people the power to help themselves and believing that they are capable of helping themselves." (Stout, p. 106.) She notes that the former causes an unequal relationship to develop, while the latter assumes equality and equity.
*2¾ Work across race and class lines: Low income people bring the ability to meet folks like themselves as equals and to make appropriate connections from local to national issues, eg., the link between military spending and government waste and local loss of services. (Iraq War)
*3¾ Include indigenous organizers and leaders: They are needed as interpreters of the local culture.
*4¾ Encourage diversity with ongoing outreach and training: Deal with the internalized and linked oppressions. Linda found that Southern poor folks had to spend a good deal of time learning to accept gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people, even though they too had personally experienced meaningful oppression. She asserts:
. . . no organizing group will achieve long-term success unless it makes an ongoing commitment to learn how we all participate in a social system that sets us against one another, and how women, people of color, and low-income folks have all been conditioned by this system to give up their power. (Ibid. p. 111.)
*5¾ Focus on the connections between local and national issues: Educate the group on the connections among economic justice, peace, environmental, and women’s issues, and learn to translate that information into practical, present issues. PPP did this by creating a video for peace with families of soldiers serving in the Gulf War, thus giving folk in the peace movement a different and important perspective.
*6¾ Develop and maintain personal empowerment while working for organizational power: "If individuals don’t have a secure sense of their own personal power, the power they gain through the organization will not hold up under pressure or opposition." (Ibid. p. 113.) Listen to the people’s discomforts with power and help them see themselves as powerful.
*7¾ Be flexible and ready to create new models to adapt to needs and leadership styles of participants: Evaluate. . . be open to new ideas as (you) bring more and more people into the organization, and be willing to find ways to accommodate their ideas. (Ibid. p. 116.) Don’t insist on following a packaged program. One size fits no one.
What strikes me about Stout’s work is that she truly understands that people must meet : truly listen, hear, and respect that each person’s experience is valid to the process, despite class differences. Then, in the process of actually working together, they must interact so that true exchange goes both ways: give and take. If we do that, we can create a shared vision that will meet far more varied needs than those seen by the middle-class people.
Finally, we must find some way to experience and convey the reality that we are truly all in this together. This is a spiritual statement: we are all connected in a web of mutuality. We share this journey of life. Even if we live in gated communities, we are still dependent upon people of other classes to have the things we want from life. If we could recognize that this mutuality works far better when we are not all trying to consume far beyond what is possible for our beautiful small planet to provide, we might actually create a world that is less stressed and more satisfying. Our shared journey would ring with songs of hope, rather than wails of despair.
If we are to bridge the class divide, we must step beyond our comfort zones, listen to people who are not as educated as we, hear the reality of their lives and needs, and hear how very much alike we truly are. I close with words from the Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed:
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength to limited to so all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
With respect, responsibility, and relish for the process. So Be It! Blessed Be!
Order of Service
"Bridging the Class Divide"
Sunday, March 12, 2006
9:30 & 11:00 a.m.
Welcome
Choral Introit
"As I Went Down to the River"
Corvallis Community Choir
Chalice Lighting
Opening Words
Opening Song
#113 "Where Is Our Holy Church?"
Candles of Joy and Sorrow/ Offering
"Follow the Flame"
Follow our flame to search for truth and meaning,
Treasure our values found within or from above.
Join with our friends who also see the gleaming,
Singing our song, we come now in love.
(Students and teachers go to Religious Exploration program)
Announcements
Reading
from Bridging the Class Divide by Linda Stout
Celebrating with Music
"I Am One Voice"
Solo by Sarah Eckert
Corvallis Community Choir
Sermon
"Bridging the Class Divide"
Sung Response
#125 "From the Crush of Wealth and Power"
Spoken Response
Meditation
Closing Song
#134 "Our World Is One World" (verses 1,2, &3)
Closing Words
Closing Song
#134 (verse 4)