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Sara Morrison Neil: Steering Committee Member
I recently joined the UU Class Conversations Steering Committee. I am currently the Church Administrator and Membership Coordinator at First Parish in Framingham UU. My career has been in nonprofit administration, starting back in 1992 at the AIDS Action Committee in Boston. I also facilitate the Diversity and Equity Exploration Team at the congregation, which grew out of years of regular discussion groups, and I felt was long overdue. The group successfully led a campaign for the congregation to adopt the 8th Principle and have struggled figuring out how to meet people where they are at and move them further in their understanding of racism and systemic oppression. We’ve led book discussions, movie discussions, article discussions and trained ourselves for a Listening Project, and became trainers for active bystanders.
I attended two UU Class Conversation workshops at First Parish in Framingham. I had already been wrestling with understanding how class functions in the country and where I fall in the class hierarchy, so I found it tremendously helpful to have a way to get a handle on it. The first workshop helped me figure out where I fell in the class hierarchy.
I started out thinking class was primarily about money but knew that wasn’t all of it. I have a master’s degree in public administration but have never had a high salary. My husband, on the other hand, did not graduate from college and earns twice what I do. I was raised with middle class values and expectations, and had privileged grandparents and great grandparents. My family background includes people in poverty, working class, middle class and even some very wealthy.
Because some family members started out their life working class and then worked their way up, I was confused as to what class they were. I was surprised to find that I have had a lot of class privileges, even though my immediate family has never been wealthy. My father’s side of the family had several generations of college graduates and professionals, my father’s mother came from what would be called the owning class. Both my parents are college graduates, and high expectation for education.
My mother’s foster family is working class and poor and were on welfare when they took my mother and I in when my parents split up. I learned what it felt like to go to the school bus stop and have people think less of you because the house you live in is not in great shape. I learned about people whose lives were suddenly upended because they were laid off. I learned about people who were focusing on enjoying the present rather than always living for the future. It was a short period of my life but it made an impression.
Later on, I got a scholarship to go to a private high school. Then I saw people with much more privilege, who laughed at me for walking to school, who dressed in ways I could never keep up with and I developed a deep sense of resentment. My stepfather’s family was in the working class, and my grandmother did not approve of him exactly because of his farm background, even though her family had modest beginnings. My husband’s family is working class. I quickly learned that at family gatherings people did not talk about their work, they talk about sports, food, hobbies and they play games. And if they talked about work, it was usually just to vent.
When I started attending First Parish in Framingham around 2010, I read that the average pledge was $1,200. That was way beyond what I expected or could afford. I interpreted that to mean I could not become a member. Eventually—actually during my job interview—I was told that you didn’t have to give that much. In my role as Membership Coordinator, I made sure never to scare anyone away because of their financial circumstances.
The Canvass Committee can get into great detail about it all, but I always say that while we expect members share their time, talent and treasure, that the amount of any those is different for different people, or at different stages of their life. As I have been learning from UU conversations in the second workshop and on the website and book, there are many other areas that congregations need to take stock of and change what is exclusionary.
When Denise asked me to join the Steering Committee, I wanted to be able to use my skills and knowledge to help make some real change in the world, beyond the small pond I am in. I offer my curiosity and empathy, along with my knowledge of a UU congregation.
Voting Is Radical
If you have not already voted – you are undecided, disillusioned, resentful or just plain tired of it all – realize that people like you who care about class justice must vote. It is an act of resistance. Why?
When the U.S. Constitution was adopted on June 21, 1788, voting was left to the states. With rare exception, only white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males, who own property and were older than 21 were allowed to vote.* So, only those with extreme class advantage were given this right, one that many of us have taken for granted for decades now.
But most of us also know that the right to vote was doled out to those of us with limited class advantage slowly and painfully. Black men were “allowed” to vote in 1870 but racist AND classist obstacles like poll taxes and literacy tests (even in states like Connecticut) kept most from doing so for generations. Of course, henchmen for the owning classes meted out violence on Black men with some class advantage who tried to vote.
It took until 1920 for women to “earn” the opportunity to vote, but Black women in many southern states were not able to vote until many years later. According to History.com:
“Native Americans—both men and women—did not gain the right to vote until the Snyder Act of 1924, four years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment and more than 50 years after the passage of the 15th Amendment. Even then, some Western states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, didn’t grant Native Americans the right to vote until the 1940s and ‘50s. It wasn’t until the Cable Act of 1922 that women were allowed to keep their citizenship – and gain the right to vote – if they were married to an immigrant (who had to be eligible to become a U.S. citizen).
In Puerto Rico, literate women won the right to vote in 1929, but it wasn’t until 1935 that all women were given that right. Realize that literacy tests were extremely difficult to pass.**
And Asian American immigrant women were denied the right to vote until 1952 when the Immigration and Nationality Act allowed them to become citizens.”
If this does not convince you that voting is radical, you know that there are those with great class privilege in the United States who are using every advantage they have right now, money, access to media and social media, connections and more, to keep the rest of us from voting. According to the Brennan Center, states have added almost 100 laws restricting voting since the Voting Rights Act was rendered nearly toothless a decade ago.
I know you share UU Class Conversations’ passion for class justice and an end to classism. So, voting is something you must do, right? Happy voting. And thank you for ensuring that this right continues with people who care about it as much as you do
* A few states allowed free Black men to vote, and New Jersey also included unmarried and widowed women who owned property.
** https://www.history.com/news/19th-amendment-voter-suppression
Special Youth Blog
ICE, Refugees and Justice
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Emma Lazurus, 1883
A refugee by definition is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster. These are typically people with no homes, no money, no tangible evidence of their past life, because they had to move often without any advanced warning for their survival. These are people who despite their former social class advantage are left with very little.
There are 26.4 million of these people in the world right now. According to Amnesty International, all refugees have the right to receive assistance, the right to protection from abuse and the freedom to seek asylum, regardless of who they are or where they come from. What does the United States have in order to help refugees? Well, one of the most notable and feared agencies is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, famously known as ICE. ICE has one thing they are especially good at doing; sending many refugees back home. These refugees get sent back because they don’t have proper documentation, money or identification. Things I would assume that a refugee would have trouble attaining just based on the definition of a refugee.
We have to protect the values of our United States, the values our founding fathers used to create the constitution. The values that throughout United States history were exemplified by hope, refuge and new beginnings. For we are truly the land of second chances. The Statue of Liberty offers a beacon of hope to those around the world that the United States is the home of freedom and liberty. ICE contradicts these values. ICE. isn’t patriotic. The agency seems to be interested in preventing some people from getting to experience these patriotic values.
I have a question for each of you. Are your family members or ancestors immigrants? If so, they likely moved to the United States for freedom and hope or whatever reason that was important to them. Aren’t you glad that they did that so you can have the life you have? Aren’t you glad that the family your ancestors started is here? Aren’t you proud of your heritage, whatever it may be? So why do we want to restrict other people from doing the same? Do we not want to give them the chance to build a family and a life, just like yours did?
This past summer Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. Now, there are more than five million Afghan refugees, many of which are trying to flee to the United States for safety. The U.S. response has been to send most of these refugees to holding centers or other places outside of the United States. They denied these people safety. Will they do the same to Ukrainians fleeing the war?
I work in a restaurant and many of the Immigrants I work with are afraid. One of my friends is constantly afraid of getting deported to Mexico, even though he is legally here and not even from Mexico. My friend works every day to support his family. He is 17 and goes to high school and has two jobs. He is the father figure to his younger brothers and he supports his mom financially. Why would ICE deport him, an honest kid just trying to give a better life to his mother and brothers? Why does he live in fear when he has not done anything wrong?
When I read about these people, they aren’t just statistics but mothers, fathers and my friends who are scared, scared for their future and their children’s future. They are not wealthy or influential, but they work hard and are decent and honest people just trying to live.
“Refugee Admissions – United States Department of State.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 8 Oct. 2021, www.state.gov/refugee-admissions/.
It’s Hard Right Now, but Keep Moving Forward
Denise Moorehead, UU Class Conversations
I sat in a staff meeting on Wednesday morning, May 25, 2022, listening to my colleagues share their reactions to a gunman’s rampage that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, the day before. We are administrators for private schools serving students from 2 to 20 years old. The head of our team said his first response was to scream, “NO MORE.” Another — the most buttoned-down one among us — said she was so #!!*ing tired of the carnage followed by nothing from those at the highest levels elected to make change.
When we talked about the steps we’d taken/needed to take to support our students and parents, the remarks by one school director broke my heart. She said with a deep sigh, “We sent an email to parents last night. We updated a message that was first written to families 10 years ago after the Newtown, Conn., massacre.” She added that she had updated that letter countless times for the many mass shootings since Newtown as well as for state-instituted killings like that of George Floyd.
In the past decade, our schools have made a substantial investment in improving security and in preparing students and staff to react quickly in cases of a dangerous intruder. So, why are we stuck in the same place 10 years after Newtown? As one politically-active colleague said of her own social justice efforts, “Why even bother anymore?”
Why? Because we must.
But It’s Hard
I have been involved in social justice work since I was a child. My mom took me to community-building activities while I was still in grade school. These are hard times for people who believe in social justice, equity, and addressing classism and racism.
The expected overturning of Roe v. Wade will most severely impact women and families with less class advantage. According to a May 2022 NPR report on the landmark Turnaway Study, women denied an abortion were four times more likely to be living in poverty years later than those who had one. Their children were less likely to attain higher education were more likely to be involved in crime and had lower adult earnings.
According to a recent study by Columbia University researchers, more than 3.7 million children in the U.S. slipped into poverty when conservative members of Congress refused to extend the expanded Child Tax Credit beyond December 2021. States across the nation have outlawed telling the truth about racism and the racial wealth gap, allowing transgender children to become themselves or even providing water to people waiting in line to vote (in under-resourced primarily black and brown areas). The proliferation of new voter suppression laws is meant to keep people of color and those with less class advantage from participating in American democracy. And this is the tip of the iceberg when we look at the backpedaling of policies that have advanced social justice, equity and equality.
The effects of these policy reversals have not and will not directly touch the lives of people in the sphere of our elected officials. Over half of the members of Congress are well-educated millionaires from safe neighborhoods with “good schools.” According to FundHero December 2020 research, even in local elections the average cost for each vote received is $1.00. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $5,000 to be elected to the local Library Board.
It’s no surprise then, that most federal and local policies support those with more class advantage. This is true of gun laws also. According to Mark S. Kaplan, professor of Social Welfare at UCLA, there is a strong relationship between poverty, inequality and firearm violence*.
It’s Up to Us
It is hard to keep up the fight for justice right now, whether it is for social class, race, gender, LQBTQ+, disability rights and/or other forms of equity. But oppression can only fester and grow when people give up hope for a future that holds promise for each person. We can pause for a few moments to feel sad, overwhelmed and discouraged. We are human. But then we have to take a breath, regroup and keep pushing forward.
Here are just some of the lesser-known social justice pioneers I appreciate:
- Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve as a member of a U.S. president’s Cabinet and a champion of those with less class advantage.
- South African students who mobilized and led the 2015-17 #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements that fundamentally changed the landscape of higher education in South Africa.
- U.S. racial justice heroes like John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, Callie House and Fred Korematsu, Lupe Anguiano and Chrystos (Menominee)
- Frank Bowe who worked to help people with disabilities
- Modern-day and historical women’s rights activists like Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul and Emmeline Pankhurst
- Environmentalists like Nnimmo Bassey
Who are the modern-day and historical (s)heroes who inspire you to stay the course when you feel like giving up? Share yours in the comments below.
