SURFACING SESSION

Surfacing Session: AAFM and Racism: Where do we go from here? On Sunday, February 6, 12:45 – 2:15 pm, simultaneously on Zoom and at the Meetinghouse (unless Covid rates preclude an in-person meeting) a Surfacing Session will be held.
In recent years, many Friends in our Meeting have become more aware of the racism that permeates our society and our lives. We have met in groups large and small, seeking insight into personal, institutional and structural racism. For many of us, this has been an unsettling and challenging exploration as we face up to the history and ongoing reality of White supremacy, and then begin to vision a world beyond it.

Friends are in many different places in this journey, and will continue to be. There is a deep desire for action, both in our own AAFM community as well as in the larger society but what action remains unclear. How are we led to work for racial justice, both as individuals and as a community?

Committee on Ministry and Counsel (M&C) invites all Meeting members and attenders to participate in this on-going discussion with what we are calling a “surfacing” session, where each of us can bring forward ideas for how we are led. This session will be designed to generate and share lots of ideas without discussion of them. We welcome proposals for specific actions, kernels of new ideas, or the sharing of possibilities that may have been simmering for a while. It is our hope that this sharing of ideas will help us to vision together what the path forward might look like. We expect to provide additional opportunities to continue to develop this vision in the coming months.

If you are unable to take part in the Surfacing Session, please send your ideas in writing to the clerks of M&C (Sheila Johnson shejohnson49@gmail.com or Naomi Gilbert naomig@umich.edu).