Response to NEYM’s Minute 2016-64

Response to New England Yearly Meeting’s Minute 2016-64¹

from Concord (NH) Monthly Meeting of Friends

In 2012 and 2015, Concord Friends considered our response to racism and white supremacy, and minuted our considerations².

Our most recent considerations regarding white supremacy began with a proposal to place a “Black Lives Matter” sign in front of our meetinghouse³.  Subsequently, we asked our Peace, Social, and Earthcare Concerns Committee (PSECC) to lead a “search for creative ways in which the Meeting can expand God’s work in this area.”⁴  After two informal meetings of Friends, PSECC reported the considerations of those meetings.⁵  In our State of Society 2016⁶, we reported that “[a]lthough the Meeting as a whole still lacks clarity with regard to displaying a “Black Lives Matter” sign in front of our meetinghouse, our discussion has led to ongoing discernment.  We have started to explore the issue of white privilege and what we can do as a meeting.”

Since mid-2016, several Friends from Concord and Hanover Monthly Meetings have been active in a local Reparations Working Group. In February 2017, after creating a Social Justice Fund⁷ using a generous donation from a New England Friend, we, as a Meeting, agreed to co-sponsor a ‘train-the-trainer’ program on “Closing the Racial Wealth Divide”⁸.

In the spring and summer of 2017, a number of Friends organized to meet regularly as a group to read and discuss Debby Irving’s Waking Up White.⁹  On our website, we have also added links to relevant resources on racism and white supremacy¹⁰.

We remain deeply aware that we have much more to do.