Caleigh Grogan

Woullard, thank you so much for joining us.  Please tell me a little bit about how your spirituality or faith has influenced your interest and work toward reparations.

Woullard Lett:

For the record, let me say that I came to the Unitarian Universalist tradition as an adult. Like many adults who arrive at Unitarian Universalism on their spiritual journey, I came from a conservative faith tradition—missionary Baptist, you know, an African American tradition. And I found that the theology didn't feed my soul; it didn't match the reality that I was living.

I originally lived in Chicago, where I had been involved with the political and cultural Black nationalist communities. I moved here to New Hampshire to work as a school administrator at Southern New Hampshire University. I had previously attended a graduate program there. It was a non-traditional program, a combination of economic development theory, business development, and some political science, and I brought a community organizing background. The idea was that the community should control their local economies, which required us to understand several different areas.

About six months after I had returned to Chicago, the school contacted me and said, “Hey, would you be interested in being our administrator?” They ended up hiring me, so I moved to New Hampshire. Then, after I had been here about three years, I got word that the minister from the UU church wanted to talk to me. So, I went to meet the guy. He was an African American minister named John Gilmore.  As it turns out, he had gone to seminary in Chicago. I got to know him personally and was introduced to the theology of Unitarian Universalism through him.

Reparations is not about a broken labor contract.

It's about a broken human covenant.

 

Caleigh Grogan:

What about the theology was initially attractive to you?

Woullard Lett:

What resonated with me was the theological articulation that there's no separation between the sacred and the secular. You know? We can focus on one part or another, but it's all really the same, part of a whole.

For instance, we happen to live in a capitalist society, and we’re conditioned to respond to society in a certain way. And, not only are we capitalists but we’re living in an industrial, maybe even post-industrial society where we're conditioned to be consumers. And so many folks talking about reparations only look at the economic element of reparations and talk about money, recompense, land, and material assets. My feeling is that reparations is not about a broken labor contract. It's about a broken human covenant. And this human covenant forms the spiritual aspect of the reparations movement. You know, Pope John XXIII is quoted as saying, “Never give in charity what is owed in justice.”

Another problematic aspect is that people of European descent view reparations as a way people of African descent are asking them to do something for them: "Please give us justice, help us out because we've been mistreated.” The problem with this thinking is that it creates a transactional framework for the relationship: “You took something of mine. Give it back. You broke the labor contract.”

Reparationists are the new abolitionists

 

No, no, it's so much more than that, you know? And the role of spirituality is to define what that something more is. Reparations means repair. And what we are talking about repairing is a relationship. A broken human covenant that we are attempting to repair in a relational way rather than a broken labor contract that we are approaching through a transactional engagement.

The space for engagement must be broad enough and open enough so everyone can partner in this work rather than people of African descent taking on the role of victim and people of European descent taking on the role of perpetrator. While the history behind those roles is indisputable, there is more to it if we are talking about the spiritual element and the process of healing.

So, I came up with the idea that reparationists are the new abolitionists. When African chattel slavery was legal, people would say, “Oh, what can we do about it? You know, it's legal. It's the cornerstone of the economy.” Well, think about that - many of the same arguments that were used to uphold African chattel slavery are used today to challenge this idea that reparations are due for the harms endured by African Americans.

Caleigh Grogan:

Wow. So, what resources have served as spiritual inspiration in your reparations work?

Woullard Lett:

Sure. One film, "Race, The Power of Illusion,” aired on public television. There’s also a program called “Unnatural Causes,” which talks about the socioeconomic impact of racism on people's physical well-being.  This might seem tangential, but they're talking about epigenetics, the long-term, multigenerational effects of racism. Also, I came across a book called,” The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America,” by Gerald Horne.  He posits that the American experience has included two civil wars, but the difference between the two is that in the first Civil War, the enslavers won, and I thought it was an important insight.

When we are talking about this whole issue of the repair, African chattel enslavement relied on both the dehumanization of the African personality and the conditioning of the European imagination to suggest that people could be property, that people could be commodities. For Thomas Jefferson to be an enslaver yet write the Declaration of Independence, he had to have intellectually excluded African people from the human family. You know, so much of my work and inspiration comes from the realization, in Ephesians 6:12, where Paul was saying, “We don't struggle against flesh and blood, we struggle against powers and principalities,” and that's the struggle that we are in when we are talking about repair. And that's the relational part.

The Five Remedies: Restitution, Compensation, Rehabilitation, Satisfaction, Guarantees of Non-Repeat

 

As a modern example, when someone's in an abusive relationship, and they come out the room with a black eye and a broken arm, you don't just put a splint on their arm and makeup under the eye and send them back into the room for another beating. You deal with the abuse and the victim’s needs, but you also gotta deal with the abuser, and you gotta match the remedy to the injury. What the victim needs to be made whole is very different than what the abuser needs, but they both must be dealt with, or the cycle will continue.

So, I usually articulate the injuries that resulted from African chattel enslavement and its ongoing vestiges using the five injury areas that the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America identified. I also find it insightful and helpful to quote the five remedy areas for reparations that the United Nations puts forward.  Both talk about acknowledging the full humanity of the injured party but also dealing with the moral injury that allowed or caused the injurer to be blind to that injury.

Another resource - I saw a helpful essay about relational repair titled Turning Ghosts into Ancestors.

That's a lot of the work that Europeans have to do. Shame is a very toxic emotion, you know, and it can paralyze you. Even for folks who may recognize that there were injustices done, sometimes shame keeps them from being able to act. Again, when we’re talking about repair, we are not just talking about the injured party. We're also talking about the injurer. And a major element of the repair required for the injurer is for them to turn the ghosts that haunt them – and the injuries their predecessors have perpetrated - into ancestors who can help them live fully into the moment.

Caleigh Grogan:

I'm wondering if you can think of any specific resources or tools that are either unique to or more easily accessible to faith communities in engaging in reparations work as opposed to non-faith groups?

Charity asks, 'what's wrong, how can I help?' Justice asks, 'why is it happening and how can I change it?'

 

Woullard Lett:

Well, I talk about this with both audiences of African descent and those of European descent: We must decolonize our thinking. We have to recognize the cultural limitations in our view of the world. One place where that shows up is when we ask the question, “What is it unique about faith communities that could be helpful in reparations?”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said back in ‘68 that Sunday morning was the most segregated day of the week when people went to church. So, one of the things that I find hopeful, helpful, and useful in the Unitarian Universalist tradition is that it's actively engaged in social justice work; this faith is not separate from the world. This means that it's making the link between the ideals held in the religion and the ideas that we hold in our everyday lives.

Ultimately, the church does not have a unique position or opportunity to do the work needed because it must happen at all levels, and some of the damage occurs in our churches themselves. To think that the church does have a special place is part of the larger, siloed type of thinking where the church is over here, and business is over there. These realities are all connected.

Caleigh Grogan:

What have you seen, or what do you see as stumbling blocks for faith communities trying to engage in reparations and reparative work?

Woullard Lett:

Let me answer that question in another way. Another book that influenced my thinking is Yurugu by Marimba Ani. Yurugu is a character from a creation story. The people in West Africa, the Dogon, said that in the beginning, everything was made in pairs, but Yurugu was made without a twin. And so, Yurugu has these character deficits—he never learned to share or cooperate, and all the things you learn when you engage with other people. It’s like the epistemological framework we've been taught to utilize and experience in the world. Like what constitutes knowledge.

Generally, when white people talk about reparations, it's part of a subject-object orientation.

 

In the sphere of reparations, to the extent that there have been victories, they haven't been necessarily characterized as being about reparations. Some congregations do feel called to uphold the idea that what's owed in justice should never be given in charity.

There’s a quote from educator Marshall Ganz:

“Charity asks, 'What's wrong, how can I help?' Justice asks, 'Why is it happening, and how can I change it?'" And that's when people get uncomfortable. Because it is often the case that these people over here have less because these people over there have more. And when we try to change that, there's resistance & there's conflict and struggle.

So, for all those congregations and individuals who, seeing injustice, work towards addressing it, it moves us further towards the repair that's required for our society. But are our faith communities ready to solve the root problems?

Also, generally, when white people talk about reparations, it's part of a subject-object orientation. You know, the European community is the subject, and they're doing something for the injured party, the object, and that doesn't correct the relational problem that created and continues to propagate the problem all along.

For instance, the Seminary at Princeton announced, “Hey, we’re gonna start a fund because we were founded by money that was from the African chattel enslavement system.” The mere announcing and positioning themselves as “we're doing this for them” undercuts the impact because it ignores the underlying need for a repaired relationship.

Honestly, it has to be a way of life. The goal has to be to repair this broken human covenant.

So, giving land back, giving money, making declarations, passing laws—that’s all well and good, but if we don't repair the covenant, we'll miss one of the most important remedies that the United Nations identifies, which is the cessation of harm and a guarantee of non-repeat.

Caleigh Grogan:

You’ve spoken about the challenges that predominantly white congregations face in beginning down this path. What are the challenges that African American communities face in this process?

Woullard Lett:

Well, one of the major challenges is that communities require healing beyond receiving resources for repair.  Within the community of African descent, there are parts of the healing process that only our community can do, that must occur within that community. As long as that community is looking outside for the source of its repair, and viewing itself as a victim, that community will be unable to manifest this healing fully.

And back to congregations of primarily European descent, we ask the wrong question when we ask, “Who is doing a good job at reparations?” Because again, we are siloing off this requirement that we, as parts of the human family, take care of each other by engaging in a way that others people.

We're not responsible for what we can't do, but we are obligated to do what we can

 

So yeah, I see several places where people are beginning the journey, but it's a journey. I don't know anybody that's there yet, but we can count off the various faiths, the denominations, and the orders that have made declarations that they were going to engage in repair in some way. The diocese in Baltimore, the diocese in Maryland.  These efforts are admirable but insufficient since they don’t address the root causes. And as long as we do not view each other as fully human, as you are members of the same family, then we have problems.

Caleigh Grogan:

Absolutely. Thank you. My last question is, what is one piece of advice that you would give someone who is working to help their faith community take seriously the need for reparations?

Woullard Lett:

Patience. Patience turns grass into milk. It's a Chinese proverb (laughs)

I just told a couple of people today that we're not responsible for what we can't do, but we are obligated to do what we can. So, when we think about the issue of reparations and engagement, what can we do? What can be done? You know, how can I make a difference or a contribution? Well, think about what you can do. We can't change the past. Okay? You're not responsible for changing the past, but you are obligated to do what you can. We’ve got to repair this broken human covenant. And we’ve got to do it out of love, out of caring and compassion.

We’ve got to repair this broken human covenant. And we’ve got to do it out of love, out of caring and compassion.