Handout 2: Cummings' Identity Map

This workshop presents three issues in Unitarian Universalism that have provided teachable moments and learning opportunities for transforming our community. Because these issues have been accompanied by pain and loss, participants with first-hand knowledge of or direct experience with them may harbor feelings of anxiety, hurt, or anger. Encourage participants to use the tools and knowledge they are gaining in these workshops to identify lessons they can draw from their experiences to help move the congregation and Unitarian Universalism toward Beloved Community. Pay special attention to the issues that arise, especially those that have an impact on your congregation and community. This information may suggest future actions the congregation might take.

Before leading this workshop, review the accessibility guidelines in the program Introduction under Integrating All Participants.

Goals

This workshop will:

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  Present information about three concerns involving issues of race, ethnicity, and culture that reverberate in Unitarian Universalism today
  
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  Invite participants to increase their multicultural competence by applying what they have learned to analyze the issues.
  

Participants will:

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  Gain knowledge of three issues involving race, ethnicity, and culture that reverberate in Unitarian Universalism today
  
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  Apply knowledge about multicultural competency, identity, and privilege to an analysis of the issues.
  

Take some time to consider what you are learning in the process of facilitating this program. What pieces are falling into place for you? What are you still curious about? What challenges you still? Journal or share your thoughts with your co-facilitator(s) or a trusted conversation partner.

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  Sign-in sheet and pen or pencil
  
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  Name tags for participants (durable or single-use) and bold markers
  
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  Optional: Music and player
  
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  Optional: Snacks and beverages
  

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  Arrange chairs in a circle and set out name tags and markers on a table.
  
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  Optional: Play music softly in the background.
  
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  Optional: Set out snacks and beverages.
  

Greet participants as they arrive.

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  Worship table or designated space
  
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  Chalice, candle, and lighter or LED/battery-operated candle
  
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  Leader Resource 1, We May Have It (included in this document)
  
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  Participant evaluations from previous workshop
  
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  List of this workshop's Goals
  
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  Covenant established in Workshop 1
  

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  Practice reading Leader Resource 1 aloud.
  
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  Review participant evaluations from the previous workshop. Discuss with your co-facilitators any patterns or concerns that have emerged. Prepare to briefly share feedback with the group, while keeping confidentiality.
  

Light the chalice or invite a participant to light it while you read Leader Resource 1 aloud.

Share feedback from the previous workshop evaluations. Acknowledge shared patterns and observations to give participants a sense of how people in the group are thinking and feeling about the program. Be conscientious about maintaining confidentiality. One technique is to say, "Some people felt... ," rather than saying, "One of you felt... ." If time allows, invite participants to share one-minute observations or new insights they may have gained since the last workshop.

Remind participants of the spirit of their covenant.

Share the goals of this workshop.

Introduce the workshop with these or similar words:

In this workshop, we will examine three issues involving race and culture that reverberate in Unitarian Universalism today. We will not only look at the issues in each case, but also use the tools we are developing to explore when and how multicultural competence (or lack of it) played a role in the situation.

Activity 1: Drinking From Our Own Wells (30 minutes)

Materials for Activity

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  Video clip from Drinking from Our Own Wells (at www.uua.org/videos/index.php?movie=tapestry/11062005_btwwda_drinkwells_movingbeyond.mp4 ), computer and projector or monitor
  
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  Workshop 14, Handout 3, Multicultural Competence Worksheet (included in this document)
  

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  Copy Workshop 14, Handout 3 for all participants.
  
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  Set up the computer and projector.
  
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  Preview the video clip and fill in a copy of the Multicultural Competence Worksheet with your own observations.
  

Introduce the video clip with these or similar words:

In November 2005, the Unitarian Universalist Association Hispanic Ministry Caucus met at Meadville Lombard Theological School (Chicago, Illinois) for a conference called Drinking from Our Own Wells. Some of the conversations were recorded. We are going to watch an overview of the conversations, as well as the closing comments.

Invite participants to watch the clip from Drinking from Our Own Wells. Then, distribute Workshop 14, Handout 3 and have participants use it as a lens to observe how the conversations in the video clip reflect multicultural competence, or lack of it.

Invite the large group to share their comments, insights, and observations after watching the video clip. As part of this conversation, demonstrate how to use the worksheet and identity map to analyze multicultural competence (or lack thereof) in Unitarian Universalism.

Activity 2: Cultural Misappropriation in Worship and Congregational Life (30 minutes)

Materials for Activity

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  Handout 1, Perspective on Music and Cultural Appropriation (included in this document)
  
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  Workshop 14, Handout 3, Multicultural Competence Worksheet (included in this document) (from Activity 1)
  

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  Copy Handout 1 for all participants.
  

Distribute handouts. Invite participants to read Handout 1 and to use Workshop 14, Handout 3 as a lens to help examine the issues and to observe how multicultural competence (and lack of it) is reflected in congregational conversations about cultural misappropriation. After 15 minutes, invite participants to move into groups of three or four to discuss their observations and insights.

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  Handout 2, The Fort Worth Incident (included in this document)
  
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  Workshop 14, Handout 3, Multicultural Competence Worksheet (included in this document) (from Activity 1)
  

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  Copy Handout 2 for all participants.
  

Distribute the handouts. Invite participants to read Handout 2 and to use Workshop 14, Handout 3 as a lens to help examine the issues and to observe how multicultural competence (and lack of it) is reflected in the way situations developed in Fort Worth. After 15 minutes, invite participants to move into groups of three or four to discuss their observations and insights.

Gather the large group for a general discussion, using these questions as a guide:

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  What are we learning as a result of examining these controversies?
  
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  What patterns are emerging?
  
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  Are any of these issues surfacing or reflected in the life of your congregation today?
  
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  What are we curious about as a group? As individuals? As a congregation?
  

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  Lined paper and pens/pencils
  
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  Taking It Home
  
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  Leader Resource 2, The Singing of Angels (included in this document)
  

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  Write on newsprint, and post:
  
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    What are you learning
    
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    What are you curious about?
    
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  Copy Taking It Home for all participants.
  

Invite participants to spend five minutes writing feedback in response to the question you have posted on newsprint.

Distribute Taking It Home and invite participants to do the suggested activities before the next meeting. Read the instructions aloud and invite participants to ask questions.

Offer Leader Resource 2 as a closing and extinguish the chalice.

Gather participants' written feedback.

Including All Participants

Prepare a large-print version of Taking It Home.

Take a few moments right after the workshop to ask each other:

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  What went well?
  
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  What didn't? Why?
  
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  What do you think was the best moment of the workshop? Why?
  
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  Did anything surprise you?
  
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  Do we need to make changes in the way we work together?
  

What are you curious about? What practical things can you do to develop your personal cultural awareness of groups/people unlike you? Make a plan and journal about your intention, or find a trusted conversation partner to help you be accountable, over time, for your own good intentions.

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  Handout 3, The Empowerment Controversy (included in this document)
  
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  Workshop 14, Handout 3, Multicultural Competence Worksheet
  

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  Copy Handout 3 and Workshop 14, Handout 3 for all participants.
  

Distribute the handouts. Invite participants to read Handout 3 and to use Workshop 14, Handout 3 as a lens to examine what happened and to observe how multicultural competence (and lack of it) was an issue as the situation developed. After 15 minutes, invite participants to move into groups of three or four to discuss their observations and insights.

By Rev. Jason Shelton. Originally published on the UUA website. Used with permission.

The question of cultural appropriation (sometimes called misappropriation) is a hot topic among ministers and other worship leaders in our time. I first remember hearing about it couched in a story of worship leaders who had adapted certain First Nations rituals for use in Unitarian Universalist worship without the permission of the tribe or nation with whom the ritual had been associated. The story raises complicated questions about ownership and rights, about race and race relations, and about who can legitimately participate in rites and rituals which have their origin in a cultural "other."

As our congregations have begun moving into new musical directions in recent years, the question of cultural appropriation seems to be taking on a new shape. Namely, should people be making use of musical traditions that have a cultural heritage other than that of the musicians (or congregations) involved? It is a question that needs to be addressed carefully, especially as we welcome the wealth of diverse music found in our new hymn supplement, Singing the Journey, into our congregational worship experiences.

I would like to begin by questioning the idea that the rituals or musical traditions of any culture can ever really be "owned" by any person or group, no matter what their cultural background might be. Cultural anthropologists have pointed out for many years that all cultures are profoundly affected and necessarily changed by interaction with the "other." Cultural exchange happens under both positive and negative circumstances, in peaceful trade relations as well as in situations of oppression and theft.

This is not to say that rituals and musical traditions cannot be traced back to particular peoples or cultures. Rather, I am saying that the possibility that any one ritual or custom can be claimed by a people or culture as solely their own invention, without any influence from the cultural other, is remote at best. True, there are moments when peoples express their particular genius in a truly unique and unaffected manner, but these moments are rare indeed. More often, cultural traditions evolve over long periods of time through experiences of contact and exchange with others.

I want to make this point very clear not because I somehow wish to devalue the qualities that make our cultural traditions special, but because I believe that our tendency to guard those traditions with references to cultural appropriation or even accusations of racism (or at the very least insensitivity) cut off the possibility of dialogue and real learning that can come from the sharing and exchange of ideas and traditions that is possible in our world today as never before.

Who owns a particular musical or cultural tradition? Who has the right to invite others to participate? Once invited, must a person seek permission again and again in order to bring that tradition into her or his own life?

I once participated in a retreat that was focused on earth-centered spirituality and led by a Catholic nun. She had ministered among a group of First Nations people in North Dakota for many years, and as she had gained the trust of the tribe she was, with time, invited to participate in some of their most sacred rituals. After nearly twenty years she was reassigned to another ministry, and when she left, the leaders of the tribe gave her permission to build, use, and invite others to participate in their traditional sweat lodge ritual. What's more, she was given permission to adapt their ritual so that it fit within a more traditional Catholic framework. I had the privilege of participating in a sweat under her leadership, and it was a deeply transformative, life-changing spiritual experience.

However, when I have spoken of this experience with other persons of First Nations descent, I have been told that what the nun had done was totally inappropriate, that she had no right to build and use a sweat lodge, much less to adapt the ritual in any way. Further, the tribe that had given her permission to do so, they said, had betrayed their heritage by their actions.

I have also participated in various workshops on singing in the African American traditions. And I have seen non-African American participants in these workshops go forth from them and try to put into practice what they have learned—what they, by all accounts, have been given permission to use by the workshop leaders—and been reviled by some African Americans in their congregations who claim that the person had no right to lead or sing those songs.

Again, I recognize that these are extraordinarily complex issues. They bring up questions related to personal cultural heritage, and our differing levels of comfort in sharing these traditions with others. But we, as people of faith who claim to celebrate our diversity in all its forms, cannot afford to make assumptions about the legitimacy of a person's participation in what seems on the surface to be a ritual or tradition that comes from a cultural tradition that is not his or her own. We cannot know whether a person making use of a particular musical tradition or religious rite has come to that usage through respectful, disciplined study or through haphazard, careless conscription, simply by looking at the color of their skin.

So how can we approach this issue in a way that is both respectful and invites full participation from the whole community of faith? I would first look at the history of a truly great American musical art form—jazz.

III. What is Appropriate?

The popularly accepted theory that Jazz stemmed from a simple combination of African rhythms and European harmony is in need of a little revision. Both African and European rhythms were employed. African music supplied the strong underlying beat (absent in most European music), the use of polyrhythms, and the idea of playing the melody separate from or above the beat. European music provided formal dance rhythms. Combined, these rhythms give Jazz its characteristic swing. Likewise, the harmonies and musical ideas of both continents are present, the blue notes derived from the pentatonic scale, "call and response" and unconventional instrumental timbres of African music together with "conventional" harmonies and, most important, the formal structure of European music. The multiplicity of ethnic, cultural, and musical conditions needed to spawn Jazz was thus unique to the United States, and specifically to New Orleans. The necessary philosophical impetus for Jazz, i.e., democracy and freedom of individual expression supported by group interaction, are also American institutions. — from "The Origins of Jazz" by Len Weinstock, Red Hot Jazz Archive (at www.redhotjazz.com)

What's more, the history of jazz is rife with stories of ways in which racial barriers were broken down long before the Civil Rights movements made national headlines. Integrated bands toured the country and confronted segregationist policies both directly and indirectly, often making dining or lodging decisions based on the maxim, "if we're not all welcome, then none of us is staying here." Yes, racism is a part of jazz history, and that cannot be overlooked. But there has also been an underlying sense among many jazz musicians—especially bandleaders—that the important thing was not the color of the musician's skin, but whether or not he or she could play. In jazz, if you can play, you'll get the gig (until someone comes along who does it better than you—so you'd better practice!).

As jazz has spread throughout the world, it is impossible to know the ethnic or cultural heritage of the players one might hear on the local jazz radio station just by listening to them. The music itself has transcended its particular cultural origins to become something in which dedicated musicians the world over can participate, regardless of cultural heritage. To be sure, there are some who consider themselves "purists" who might say that persons of non-African American descent should not play jazz, and so we find ourselves revisiting the question of permission giving and who has the right to speak authoritatively on behalf of all persons of a particular ethnic heritage. But the cultural norm that seems to be taking hold at this time is to say that the people who should be playing jazz are those who are dedicated enough to invest the time and effort to learn to play it well.

What if we were to apply this norm to our situation regarding what is appropriate when using the traditions of the cultural "other" in worship?