(Click the link to view David Mosenkis's video on racial bias in PA public education funding.)
My congregation (Zion Lutheran, Akron, PA) is on this journey toward antiracism and has joined the fight against racial injustices that plague our institutions, governing systems and policies, local economies and housing markets. We are a 100% white congregation in the whitest denomination in the U.S. Our lack of racial diversity is symptomatic. But my little, aging white congregation has been on a journey toward antiracism for almost two years and we are not alone. We are part of something that keeps us moving toward becoming allies in the fight for racial justice.
Primarily we are working with POWER Interfaith, a statewide antiracism organization based in Philly. To learn more about POWER click here: https://powerinterfaith.org/.
We are forming an interfaith coalition in partnership with POWER in Lancaster County. Over twelve congregations are currently participating, many for more than two years now, in the formation of a faith-rooted antiracism organization. Eventually, we will become Lancaster POWER Interfaith. In the meantime, we are participating in a statewide education campaign to end education apartheid and the gross funding inequity that exists in PA. (See the video above.) We attend rallies, call and write our elected officials, and seek out additional congregations to join us in this work. We also continue to learn the history of racism, to analyze current events and policies, and become aware of implicit biases and prejudices that prevent us from building a changed community of justice for all the children of God.
We have realized that the invisible hand of white privilege has isolated us from the struggles of black and brown neighbors. We have not acknowledged our silence, our complicity, our acceptance of white privilege that perpetuates a racialized culture and systems that do harm every day. Four hundred years ago, the seeds of racial division were sown in the Virginia colony. The U.S. was organized racially as a mechanism to divide and hold power in the hands of wealthy, landowning, white elites. The U.S. constitution codifies racial segregation in the 3/5 clause. Even the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery, opens the way to criminalize blackness, setting the stage for Jim Crowe, lynchings, and mass incarcerations. (At the bottom of this entry, I have named 6 books worth reading in the next 6 months.)
Yesterday POWER joined the Save our Schools Rally at the Capitol to call attention to the devastating impacts of the broken public school funding system in PA. We heard heartbreaking testimony from teachers and parents and students about toxic schools, full of asbestos and lead paint. These deadly neurotoxins are in public schools. In PA, we willingly send our kids to dangerous, old, toxic school buildings. And the most impacted are children of color. We heard more evidence of a crisis, an emergency in education funding that has long term consequences, even health consequences. Parents whose kids became sick were there. Whole classes of students who attend schools that are like construction zones were there. We heard from a teacher and mom from Philly whose baby became sick because she worked in a toxic school environment. I was again shocked that this is the state of public education in 2019 PA.
There is a bill in the PA house to create an emergency fund to assist those schools that need to address antiquated infrastructure and unsafe physical plants. It is a bandaid bill on the larger problem---our kids are NOT a priority for the people in Harrisburg. Until there is fair and adequate funding to address the historical racial and economic inequities, we will have children going to toxic, underfunded schools. Sadly, education committee leaders were not present at the rally to hear the witnesses.
After the rally, I lead about 30 POWER people to Rep.Sonney's office. He is the house education chairman. 6 months ago he promised us public hearings on HB 961, a bill in the house to distribute 100% of basic education funds fairly, through the fair funding formula (passed in 2016, but inadequately applied to less than 10% of the distributed basic education funds). He has held no hearings. So, we created a disruption and occupied his office for about 30 minutes. We intended to ask him why he has not held public hearings on HB 961. Why is the bill stalled in committee? The Rep. was not in the office, but on the house floor. So we asked that he be made aware of our presence and summoned at once. He was allegedly contacted. We wanted to remain as a disruptive presence until he returned, but were eventually ushered out by capitol police. We were not prepared to be arrested yesterday, though I came very close. I had an argument with a police officer, demanding that we have a right to bring our business into that office space. (Afterward he spoke to a few of us and told us that getting arrested won't help our cause. We beg to differ. Civil disobedience and social change require arrest of nonviolent citizen protesters. Rosa Parks, etc... Its the only way social change happens in the U.S.)
In 2020, there will be monthly occupations and some of us will be arrested. It is clear that more civil disobedience will be necessary to move the PA assembly leadership. They do not believe that fair funding matters. There is no urgency about this. Unless we make it an emergency, they will not do the rightg thing. "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed." MLK, Jr. In order for our kids to go to schools free of toxins, free from violence, free from inadequate funds for needed staff, technology, etc..we must demand action. To do so takes courage, faith, and hope. It takes People Organizing to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild. It takes POWER.
I encourage you, dear reader, to free your mind and learn the truth about racism.
6 Books to Read in the next 6 months:
Ibram X. Kendi, "Stamped from the Beginning", 2016.
Isabel Wilkerson, "The Warmth of Other Suns", 2010.
Michelle Alexander, "The New Jim Crow", 2010
Carol Anderson, "White Rage", 2016
Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Between the World and Me", 2015
Beverly Daniel Tatum, "Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria", 1997
and for kids check out: https://www.charisbooksandmore.com/books-teach-white-children-and-teens-how-undo-racism-and-white-supremacy.
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