A Call for Racial Justice Among Friends
Paul Ricketts, Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting

As I prepared to attend my fourth Friends General Conference Gathering in Hamilton, Ontario, in July of 1996, I was full of excitement. Just thinking about building new friendships and rekindling old ones and worshipping with the lesbian/gay/bisexual community and allies brought a joy to my soul. I remembered past Gatherings-late night discussions and Friends sharing their stories with each other and singing songs of faith.

I experienced joy in being in community with Friends at previous Gatherings but also pain when Friends did not have a clue that their behavior was often hurtful and racist. Many times Friends' behavior was not a reflection of the values they held so deeply in their hearts.

Let me share some of my experiences at past Gatherings.

• Many times at Gatherings, white Friends have explained to me why African Americans need music, music, music-and lots of emotion-in "their" worship. When I asked them what color I was, they looked puzzled and mumbled, "But, Paul, you're different." At that moment I became invisible to them as a person of color.

• I feel frustrated when I must justify the Friends of Color Center each year to white Quakers who believe that separatism for any reason is wrong, and when I must explain that Friends of Color Center provides safe space for us. The goal of having a safe space for people of color is not to exclude white Quakers, but it is where our souls as people of color can find rest, which will enable us to go back into the Gathering with spirits renewed.

• The most painful experience yet for me happened in 1996 when I had to explain to young children-mostly white children-why the Underground Railroad is not a game to be played but was a life and death struggle for thousands of Africans who sought freedom from slavery.

I realize that by sharing my experiences among white Quakers I am doing something that women, gays and lesbians, and people of color must do often. That is, not only do we assert our pride in our identities, but we also have to justify the oppression in communities that are supposed to affirm us.

My experiences at Gatherings have become threads of stories that other people of color have shared, and we have woven these threads into a quilt. Like the AIDS quilt, it represents both pain and healing.

In sharing our stories, people of color have found that we are not alone-that this Quaker faith is our faith, too. Coming into our own power is important because it calls us to speak truth about who we are. When that truth is marginalized and devalued, we turn to our Inner Teacher to give us strength and grace and to help us speak our truth a little louder.

Jesus witnessed his own truth by staying centered when he was pushed to the edge. He listened to the Inner Teacher, where he too found strength and grace to carry out his work.

I think this has been the faith of Friends of color: to stay centered in the Light and then move forward and speak our truth on issues of racism within the Religious Society of Friends.

But the work toward racial justice in the Religious Society of Friends is not the work of Friends of color only. White Quakers have to come out of their own guilt and shame of our history around issues of racism in the Religious Society of Friends. The racism that existed at the time of George Fox, Margaret Fell, Levi Coffin, Lucretia Mott and Rufus Jones exists today. White Friends should not allow that history to paralyze them. They should use that history as a springboard to move forward on issues of racism.

The work for racial justice among Friends should be spirit-led and begin in our monthly meetings. I led a workshop focusing on outreach to people of color in 1995. As I stated then, I believe that central to our faith as Quakers is the belief that inward life will call us to outward actions.

I believe monthly meetings should focus their work toward healing racism and becoming a multiracial meeting in two areas: pastoral work and prophetic work.

The pastoral work is to help meetings begin defining and exposing racism in the lives of Friends and in our meetings. It simply means cleansing our temples so that the Spirit can move us and guide us in creating inclusive communities of faith. I suggest that pastoral work can be done in "Friendly Eights," peace and social concerns committees, or other small groups in the meeting.

I also suggest queries to help Friends' meetings in their discernment on building a multiracial community of faith. Sample queries could include (but are not limited to):

1. What is your relationship to people of color as Quakers and as members of the dominant culture? For example, where do you live, where do you work, and where do your children go to school?

2. What is the relationship of your meeting to communities of color now?

3. Why do you want to be a multicultural and multiracial meeting?

4. What is your history as a meeting with communities of color?

5. What has been your meeting's experience with diversity on spirituality, classism, and homophobia?

Each meeting can continue to add to this list of queries to help Friends find guidance as we move forward on issues of racial diversity.

The prophetic work builds on the pastoral work, as it calls white Friends out of their meetings to start building partnerships with communities of color. Examples of partnerships:

1. Locating your meetinghouse in a community of color.

2. Developing a working relationship with the neighborhood association of the community you are in.

3. Creating a racially diverse First-day school curriculum.

4. Building low-income housing in collaboration with another minority congregation.

5. Volunteering with a minority AIDS project.

Meetings can add to this list as they gain experience in building partnerships with communities of color.

In my experience it is not about the number of people of color in our meetings or how much good work white Quakers are doing, but about trust and building healthy relationships among Quakers and people of color.

Our work toward diversity cannot just happen at Friends General Conference Gatherings or a workshop at Yearly Meeting; it has to be at the core of everything we do as Friends.

I hope that someday Friends will acknowledge that in worship everybody has different needs-not because of their race but because some people just need silence-or music-or holy communion-to experience the spirit.

I believe that if white Quakers commit themselves to continue working on issues of racism and building partnerships with communities of color, then the Quaker faith will take root and grow and provide all of us with the tools and resources to speak our truth and celebrate the good work that God has begun in us.

- This article has been reprinted from Friends Journal, July, 1997

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