‘It became apparent that considerable preparation would be needed.’ Photo: by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
Labour of love: Helen Meads on more Friends beginning the work on reparations
‘There was a wealth of material available to support discernment.’
Racial justice and reparations are not uncontroversial in Local Meetings (LM). Some Friends are not as aware of the issues as those who were particularly affected by, or who have begun to educate themselves since, the murder of George Floyd. We have much work to do.
Brighouse West Yorkshire Area Meeting has a Quaker Roots group, which ran online reading study sessions during the pandemic. It was initially focused (as is Roots generally) on activism in the face of the arms trade, and we first studied George Lakey’s How We Win: A guide to nonviolent direct action campaigning. But then, feeling the need for light in the darkness of our pandemic separation, we moved on to Rebecca Solnit’s Hope In the Dark and eventually to David Olusoga’s Black & British: A forgotten history. At the same time, Friends from around Yorkshire were following an online racial justice course from Quaker Peace & Social Witness. These Friends were instrumental in bringing the matter of racial justice before Quakers in Yorkshire quarterly Meetings, where it remains a standing item.
After Yearly Meeting (YM) in May this year, our Area Meeting (AM) decided to set aside time for discernment following the YM minutes on reparations and epistle. Our pastoral care group suggested the Roots book group might help. LMs were asked to begin discernment. In Huddersfield, elders asked two members of the Roots book group to facilitate its discernment, and a special Meeting for Worship for Business was arranged for October, clerked by those two Roots Friends.
It became apparent that considerable preparation would be needed, not least because some Friends seemed to believe that it would be impossible to make reparations. This was an indication of how helpless they felt in approaching what YM had asked us to do.
There was, however, a wealth of material available to support discernment. The Friends facilitating the October Meeting had taken a couple of years to absorb their learning; they knew that this learning would not easily be communicated in a short timeframe. They decided to ask the correspondence clerk to send a weekly email with resources.
One Friend raised a question after the third email, which led to a link being made between slavery and asylum in the fourth. Another Friend responded to the fourth email (which included Stevie Krayer’s letter to the Friend from 30 September) by saying that she at last understood white privilege, so it became clear that the emails were working to some degree. A fifth email recapped all the previous resources. We were also inspired by John Lampen’s ‘Making amends’ article in the Friend (13 October), published after the last email.
The Meeting for Worship on the morning of the special Business Meeting was very still and deep. The vocal ministry was very moving. The first contribution was: ‘We can’t possibly make reparations for all past wrongs; what matters is how we live our lives now.’ It was a very helpful start: it was clear that reparations would not be only financial. Without highlighting specifically what was said, it is difficult to convey how passionate and personal the ministry was. Contributions to the discernment ran for about forty minutes in a spirit of deep worship; they were wide-ranging. While the Meeting upheld them, the clerks took half an hour to gather the discernment into a minute to go back to AM. The deep listening and Friends’ patience was impressive. We offer the minute here, in the hope that it helps others.
We have made a beginning. It is likely that Huddersfield Meeting will take several ongoing actions, focused on racial justice.
Huddersfield Meeting for Worship for Business
Sunday 16 October 2022
Reparations for slavery
Yearly Meeting minutes 27 and 33 from earlier this year ask us to ‘begin, or continue, to work to understand how Quakers and Quaker structures benefited from the transatlantic slave trade.’ Area Meeting asked us to ‘explore it in an open-hearted way.’
We have prepared our discernment over the last five weeks. The issues are deep. And the answers are not simple. This will be an ongoing process.
Slavery and resultant racism have grown out of our excessive exploitation. We must recognise that our human exploitation of nature and of our fellow human beings has led to the climate crisis which we now face. These issues are linked.
We need to have relationships in order to make reparations. Reparation is a process, not a payment. It will require change, which will not be comfortable. We need to decolonise ourselves. There can be no justice without change. We need to be careful that this is not about making ourselves feel better. We also need to be aware that we do not place the burden of speaking up on exploited communities; at the same time, however, we must listen so that we do not impose our imagined solutions.
We are already working in partnership with DASH (Destitute Asylum Seekers Huddersfield), which rents part of our Meeting house. Friends can help by volunteering in DASH’s work and as a Meeting we will consider a rent reduction.
We can make reparations by how we live our lives now. We shall continue to explore opportunities to do more, not least by remaining informed of the causes of further exploitation. We note that two Friends from Meeting will be attending interfaith events. We ask our Clerks to keep this issue on each future Business Meeting agenda.
