Widening the Circle of Concern 
On Sunday, July 5, 2020, Ministerial Intern, Erien Babcock offered an intro to “Widening the Circle of Concern: Report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change.” Erien is Passamaquoddy and Inupiaq, and brings a deeply personal story to the materials developed by the UUA Commission on Institutional Change.
The worship service recording is here: https://youtu.be/UqTg-oWfQbw
Music from the service included:
To learn more, explore these resources:
Land Territory Acknowledgments – the how and why
https://native-land.ca/territory-acknowledgement/
Enter an address for the land where you stand, and learn who it was stolen from:
Doctrine of Discovery
A video created by a Mennonite church providing a history of the Doctrine of Discovery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvM4SJN76Yg
Whose Land Is It Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization
A book exploring de-colonization:
https://fpse.ca/decolonization_manual_whose_land_is_it_anyway
Erasure
“The false narratives, invisibility, and the erasure of Native peoples must end”
A book on history for adults and youth!
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
https://www.uuabookstore.org/An-Indigenous-Peoples-History-of-the-United-States-P17699.asp
HR-312 – Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act
The Bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/312
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109492/documents/BILLS-116hr312rh.pdf
An Outside look at HR-312
“Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s trust status threatened by Department of Interior”
The involved Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s website:
https://mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/
“Making Coastal Salish Territorial Acknowledgements Matter” video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tei5tGoQ4s
“A panel discussion targeting genuine reconciliation and making territorial acknowledgements matter.”
“Widening the Circle of Concern: Report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change”
In support of the important work that created this report, readers are encouraged to purchase the book from inSpirit, the UUA bookstore. A PDF is available for those with financial constraints.
The UUA Board of Trustees chartered the Commission on Institutional Change in 2017 to conduct an audit of the power structures and analyze systemic racism and white supremacy culture within the Unitarian Universalist Association. This culmination of three years of work is a tone and culture-shifting document — driven to ask us to look forward.
https://www.uuabookstore.org/Widening-the-Circle-of-Concern-P18686.aspx
https://www.uua.org/sites/live-new.uua.org/files/widening_the_circle-text_with_covers.pdf