We, Unitarian Universalists, are called to build the Beloved Community.  To do that, UUs must attend to the unfinished business of dismantling racism and oppression in our congregations and Association and with our community partners.  How do we stand in solidarity with the social movements of our times and how do they change us?

ADORE: A Dialogue On Race and Ethnicity is a dialogue group designed to create an environment for building community and multicultural competencies through a constructive dialogue on race, ethnicity, identity development and institutional change.  It will encourage listening, sharing stories, and learning how race has and continues to have an impact on individuals, institutions, and communities.

We are socialized to learn how to see race.  Everyone has a story.  In the larger society people are usually too guarded to deal effectively with matters of race.  These dialogue sessions will set the tone for people to participate in sharing and exploring feelings and experiences regarding race and ethnicity in a public forum.  The participants will also engage in ongoing learning and will be exposed to a range of resources, and each other’s experiences, which helps to build competency in a multicultural world.

Using a facilitated dialogue creates a safe space for:

1. Challenging unexamined norms and assumptions about one’s own or other ethnic groups.
2. Examining the complexity of identity, the intersection of identities and the impact of systemic oppression.
3. Identifying a core group that can initiate or support opportunities to organize for change.

Dialogues are co-facilitated by Linda Ressler and Alyssa Zasada.  All are welcome to attend – members, non-members, UUs, & non-UUs!

Schedule

Dialogues are hosted as interest arises and are announced in the congregational newsletter. Each session is a stand-alone topic – you can choose to participate in one or more.

If you have a topic idea, feel free to share with Linda or Alyssa!

Past Topics

• Grounding Today’s Dialogue in UU History: the UUA 1997 Resolution “Toward an Anti-Racist Unitarian Universalist Association“
• 8th Principle
  • Background Information (First Unitarian Portland)
  • Ministry and The 8th Principle
• Widening the Circle of Concern
• Community of Communities
• Racism & Voting Rights
  • Systematic Inequality and American Democracy
  • The Electoral College’s Racist Origins
  • Timeline: Voter suppression in the US from the Civil War to today.
• The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture
• Community
• Voter Suppression: All In: The Fight for Democracy
• UUA Common Read Breath: A Letter To My Son by Imani Perry

Zoom Details

• Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86547270875
• Password: 4321
• Phone: 1-312-626-6799; Meeting ID: 865 4727 0875

Consultant

Paula Cole Jones founded ADORE ™, A Dialogue on Race & Ethnicity, in 1999, and helped start the UUFD ADORE group in the fall of 2020.  Paula is a Management Consultant/Diversity Strategist with over twenty years of experience in designing and facilitating workshops and dialogues for leaders and organizations. She is an innovator of institutional change.  She has conducted hundreds of group discussions and workshops across the country for faith organizations, community groups and government agencies.  Paula Cole Jones is the author of a UU World Magazine cover story, Reconciliation as a Spiritual Discipline and she is the editor of a Skinner House book, Encounters: Poems about Race, Ethnicity and Identity.  Paula is a co-leader for adoption of the 8^th Principle.  She was recently named as a member of the UUA Article II Commission.