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Dear Justice-Seeker,

This issue of MFSAVoices is jam-packed with resources and information. So much so that it won't all fit in your email message so be sure to click view entire message at the bottom of this email to view the entire issue. Our newsletters are designed to be used all month long. So take a quick glance and take note of important dates to add to your calendar but also come back in the following weeks to work your way through the action items. 

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We continue to see the urgency of our work to make broad systemic change. Change that honors the dignity and worth of all people, puts people over money, and honors the earth and all her inhabitants. COVID-19 continues to highlight the inequities in our society that has literal life or death consequences. Since 1907, MFSA has been shining a light on injustice and organizing to change it. 

You make our collective work possible by your witness for justice every day in your church, community, and Annual Conference. MFSA does not receive any financial support from the United Methodist Church's giving channels. 100% of our budget is funded through your membership dues and your generosity in giving.

Racial Audit Team Reflection

The Racial Audit Task Force has been working for a long time. Since November 2019 when we were named by the MFSA Board. We last saw one another face to face in St. Petersburg, Florida, Feb. 15-16, 2020. Since that time we have met at least every month via zoom. I have come to treasure the little boxes which frame a small window into task force members’ homes or offices. Even in the midst of a pandemic, task force members have moved across the country and around the corner, have changed jobs or appointments, have had good days and hard days, have faced home disasters, and marked milestone life events. We have had little glimpses into such big events, though maybe not in the same way as if we could have met in person for a day or two at a time.

I have mixed feelings about the Racial Audit Task Force. I am incredibly grateful to have engaged in this vitally important work with this amazing team of people. I would encourage other organizations to engage in this work, examination, and reflection. And I hope I am not called upon to be a part of another racial audit task force. As invaluable as this work is, it is hard and discomforting. When the work of this task force began, I thought I understood racism. I thought I understood how to dismantle racism. I looked at the ministry I had done in recent appointments and believed that I was anti-racist. How little I knew... how little I understood... how feeble were my previous efforts... how performative those efforts were.

Before being a part of the Racial Audit Task Force, I might have on occasion noticed that I was at an event that was all white people, or I might not have noticed. And certainly did not ask, "Why were there no people of color?" Nor did I ask, "What is it about this event and how it came to be that it hinders people of color from being a part of this?" If this is important or enjoyable for me, then would it not also be important or enjoyable for people of color? For most of my life, I never noticed people of color were missing from my church, from my classmates, from my affinity groups. Such is the power of white privilege, such is the insidiousness of racism in our society today.

There is hope. There is hope. A white friend shared with me that several years ago when their family moved from a very diverse community in one part of the country to a very homogenous community in another part of the country, their teenager asked after a couple of weeks, “Where are the other people?” The teenager had noticed that people of color were missing from their new community and asked about it. This gives me hope, a younger generation is starting to take notice in ways that we older generations need to learn to do.

Who is missing? Why are they missing? What is it about how this organization I am a part of, discourages or hinders people of color from being a part? These are some of the questions that people holding privilege
need to start asking. 

This is one of many examples of how I became aware through working with the Racial Audit Task Force that I am a product of a racist system, in a racist society, working for a racist institution. Kyrie Eleison.
People of white privilege, we must do better. We must do better.

Grace, peace, Rev. Dr. Mary Kay Totty
                    Seward UMC, Seward, Nebraska

Register: Stealing the Earth Part 4

Register for part four in Stealing the Earth webinar series: “'Centering and Othering:' Elevating white normativity, suppressing racial and indigenous identities" February 9, 2022 at 1PM ET. 

Speakers:

Kimberlee Medicine Horn Jackson, Ihanktonwan (e-hank-tow-wan) Nation (Yankton Sioux), MFA, MA in Intercultural Studies with a focus on Native Americans. Jackson is currently a full-time contract researcher with the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. She teaches an Indigenous Research and Writing Course she created for NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community. Jackson is Co-Editor for the Journal of NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community. She is writing a dissertation for her Ph.D. Study with NAIITS and Whitley College at University of Divinity Australia.
 

Religion & Repro Learning Center

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has just launched a new Religion & Repro Learning Center, and courses are free through February 2022. The Religion & Repro Learning Center is an online collection of courses and resources that "equips activists, scholars, and religious leaders in support of reproductive freedom." A couple of the courses available NOW include: Religious Ethics of Reproductive Dignity, Fetal Life and Personhood, Spiritual Care in Different Contexts. Judaism & Reproduction, Islam & Reproduction, and Reproductive Racism. In addition to the online courses, there is an extensive Religion & Repro Resource Library that provides web articles, books, academic journal articles, video & films and podcasts in the following categories: Political Ecosystem, Community Organizing, Religious Literacy, Compassionate Care, Reproductive Ethics, and Sermons and Rituals. You can also access all past webinar series through the learning center. The Religion & Repro Learning Center hopes that through these resources you will: 

1. "Educate yourself about historical, religiously-framed, oppressive anti-choice tactics."
2. "Prepare to engage in effective allyships, partnerships, and collaborations needed for social     transformation." 
3. "Develop skills needed to cultivate a more just and compassionate society." 

Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly and Moral March on Washington

Save the Date for the Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly & Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18, 2022. This day is intended to be "a generationally transformative and disruptive gathering of poor and low-wealth people, state leaders, faith communities, moral allies, unions and partnering organizations." Organizers hope that "it is NOT just a day of action. It is a declaration of an ongoing, committed moral movement to 1) build power, 2) shift the political narrative and 3) make real policies to fully address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up." 

Labels & Laws: Silencing the Voices of Justice

Watch the recording and access the resources for the latest webinar sponsored by Methodist Federation of Social Action (MFSA) and United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) titled "Labels & Laws: Silencing the Voices of Injustice." 

Now's the Time for Action

Here are a few ways you can seek justice and work for broad systemic change:

1. Join a National Nonviolent Moral Direct Action Call-In in calling the offices of Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, Senator McConnell, and Senator Schumer. 
2. Write your Representative to join Representative Susan Wild and urge the Administration to hold officials responsible for grave human rights violations in the Philippines accountable through targeted sanctions.
3. Sign up for Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food mailing list to learn more about what you can do to advocate for farmworker rights. 
4. Contact your members of Congress and tell them to stop the use of Title 42 policy to deny Haitian migrants' rights to seek asylum, restore asylum protections, and stop all deportation flights and expulsions to Haiti.
5. Urge your members of Congress to co-sponsor HR 2590: Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. 
6. Call your representatives and Senators and tell them to pass the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act. 
7. Join the #WelcomeWithDignity movement by signing the pledge to reimagine the way our country and our communities treat people seeking safety.
8. Contact your Senators and Representatives to pass common sense legislation that saves the lives of farm workers like the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act.
9. In solidarity, join workers demanding $15/hr and tell McDonald’s to raise wages now.
10. Check out what military acquired by your local law enforcement, and sign the petition to demanding more police transparency.
11. Contact your elected officials and demand Congress cut funding for ICE and CBP and defund hate.
12. Tell your Member of Congress to support the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All (AAIA) Act, an act that can help bridge the digital divide that disproportionately impacts Black, Latinx, Indigenous, rural, or low-income people.
13. Write to the leadership of the township of Fairfield, CT to contact Sturm Ruger, the largest firearm manufacturer in the United States with headquarters in Fairfield, and demand the company suspend weapon and bullet sales to Israel.
14. Tell President Biden and Vice President Harris to hold Israel accountable to its obligations as an occupying power and insist that Israel provide COVID-19 vaccines equally and fairly to Palestinians living under its occupation.
15. Contact your elected officials to take an intersectional response to the incidents of AAPI hate and to center the needs of those most impacted, Asian American women and elders.
16. Check the State Voting Bills Tracker to find out if your state lawmakers have introduced one of the 253 bills aimed at suppressing voting rights, and contact your state lawmakers to demand they support voting rights.
17. Sign the petition and tell Congress to abolish the federal death penalty.
18. Has your country signed on to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?  Contact your elected officials to support the end of nuclear weapons in the world.
19. Check out the BDS Toolkit and learn what economic actions you can take to fight along the side of Palestinians and their struggle.
20. Manufacturing in an illegal Israeli settlement is a war crime.  Tell General Mills to stop making Pillsbury products on stolen Palestinian land by signing the petition, sending an email to the CEO, and #BoycottPillsbury.
21. Write a letter and join the grassroots organizing for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants.
22. Sign the petition and join Palestinian Cry for Hope: a Call to Decisive Action, a global movement set by Kairos Response that "rouses churches to action and awakens civil society to the reality of Palestinian suffering."
23. Take free online university courses on systemic racism.
24. Host a virtual Card Writing Party to write and mail letters to immigrants in detention via The Casa Mariposa Detention Visitation Program.
25. Call your legislators (202-224-3121) and advocate for permanent federal paid sick leave, expanded unemployment benefits, SNAP increases, and a moratorium on evictions, utility shut-offs, and payments. 

In Case You Missed It

1. Access the latest webinar and resources from MFSA and UMKR's webinar "Labels & Laws: Silencing the Voices of Injustice."
2. Watch the third webinar in the Stealing the Earth series: "Pervasive and Self Perpetuating: The continuous falsifying of narratives." 
3. Access the webinar and resources from MFSA and UMKR's webinar "Sister Cities with Palestine: Activism That Challenges the Narrative."