Richmond (VA) Friends Meeting

A Query from the RFM Ad Hoc Committee on Race and Racism

by WebPost | May 28, 2023 | Clerk’s Business, Current

What are we at Richmond Friends Meeting led to do around race and racism? At our business meeting in December of 2022, we approved the formation of the Ad Hoc Committee on Race and Racism. The committee’s charge is to 1) develop and engage the Meeting in an inclusive and open discernment process to learn what our meeting is led to do around race and racism; and 2) using the learning gained from the discernment process, develop an action/implementation plan that engages committees and individuals within the meeting.
The ad hoc committee will begin the first phase of our discernment process in June. Subsequent phases may include one-on-one sharing, listening circles, threshing sessions, and other forms of reflection. For the first step, we will invite all members and attenders of RFM to anonymously contribute a written response to the following query:

“Please think about your own experiences and actions regarding race and racism and those of RFM and the wider society. Then, please answer this query: What should RFM do regarding race and racism?”
Here’s how it will work: On June 1, the committee will send an e-mail to the RFM mailing list (list serv) with a link to a website where a written response can be anonymously submitted through June 30. We will also install a drop box below the bulletin board at the meetinghouse, so members and attenders who prefer can submit a hard copy of their response. Beginning on July 15, all query responses will be made available for the entire RFM community to read on the password-protected portion of the RFM web site. If you need access, the committee can supply you with the password.
Sometime in August, the committee will embark on subsequent phases of the discernment and make available additional ways that RFM members and attenders can reflect on the query. Thanks in advance to our Meeting community for taking on this good, hard work. May we embrace this as an authentic exploration, begun out of curiosity and openness to what the way forward might be – not out of a sense of having all the answers, but knowing that all of us are on different places along the spectrum of understanding how race affects each of us and the society we live in. May we encourage one another to embrace vulnerability, and listen with humility and acceptance of our varied experiences and understandings of the impact of race and racism.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact any of the committee members: Allen Lee (co-clerk), Kathleen Morgan (co-clerk), Margaret Edds, Ruth Morrison, Michael Pierce, Lynda Perry, Monica Shaw and Rita Willett.