Take an Active Stand Against Racism

Next Steps For You

Self-Education

• Seek out information about race relations in your community and in the country. Check the facts. What do you know about the racial makeup of your community? Do your perceptions match the facts?
  
• Listen actively to viewpoints different from your own. Probe to understand other perspectives, especially as they differ from yours.
  
• Trace your family history to awaken to new truths of who you are.
  
• Enroll in a class on race or on the history of race relations in the United States. Check out reading and video resources in your library and watch television programs such as those found on the History Channel and public television.
  
• Attend concerts, plays, and museum exhibits that relate to the themes of race relations.
  
• Subscribe to minority-oriented publications to gain a perspective on issues and concerns in minority communities.

Intercultural Connection

• Welcome new neighbors, and seek opportunities to meet newcomers in the community. Reach out to them, especially if they are from a racial or ethnic background different from your own.
  
• Participate in or join a church community whose cultural background is different from your own.
  
• Learn about and experience art forms from a variety of ethnic tradition.
  
• Encourage and find ways for your children to develop friendships with children from other backgrounds.
  
• Be a mentor to young people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Justice Action

• Initiate a Neighborhood Conversation on Race
  
• Become involved in an event recognizing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in your community.
  
• Learn about METCO (a voluntary busing program that brings students from Boston to suburban schools), and support a METCO program in your community.
  
• Become a legal or medical advocate for a person or group from a culture or class other than your own.
  
• Use services of minority professionals and patronize businesses that are owned by minorities and employ diverse staff.
  
• Speak up when people take positions that work against racial understanding and communication.
  
• Suggest to your employer that conversations on race be started at your workplace.
  
• Find out about your representatives in government. Where do they stand on racial issues?

Next Steps For Your Church

• Encourage members of your congregation to participate in Neighborhood Conversations on Race.
  
• Study the issue of reparations for slavery (Reparations: A Process for Repairing the Breach, a church-based study guide, available from the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries (216-736-3726 or clementf@ucc.org.)
  
• Explore and take action on contemporary racial justice issues such as affirmative action, affordable housing, and civil rights.
  
• Form a partnership with a congregation that is racially and culturally different from your church. (Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries is an organization which facilitates such partnerships. 617-244-3650 or www.coopmet.org.)
  
• Learn more about the Racial Justice commitments of the whole United Church of Christ at the national setting: www.ucc.org (See especially 2003 Briefing Book of the Justice and Peace Action network: www.UCCtakeACTION.org.)