In this episode of Quakers Today, co-hosts Sweet Miche (they/them) and Peterson Toscano (he/him) explore the impact of affinity groups and how they provide a space for community and spiritual nourishment.

Affinity Spaces: A Sacred Necessity

African American Friends Vanessa Julye and Curtis Spence speak from the heart about why affinity spaces are sacred. Vanessa, Associate Secretary for Organizational Cultural Transformation at Friends General Conference, and Curtis, a writer and minister, share how these groups offer “soul rest,” a place to breathe, and an opportunity to be fully seen without constantly centering polite white supremacy (PWS). Vanessa credits Yawo Brown as the originator of the phrase, “polite white supremacy.”

“I didn’t join a BIPOC Quaker affinity group because I had something to teach. I joined because I needed to breathe.” — Curtis Spence

“If there is a BIPOC person within Quakerism looking for a place where they can have more connections with other BIPOC people, there are resources out there… I hope there comes a time when we can stop justifying affinity spaces.” — Vanessa Julye

You’ll hear excerpts from their influential articles in the October 2025 issue of Friends Journal:

• Vanessa Julye, Affinity Spaces for BIPOC Friends: Healing from Polite White Supremacy Together
• Curtis Spence, We Gather to Affinity Worship and the Light That Disrupts

Extended Conversation: Watch the full video conversation with Vanessa Julye and Curtis Spence on the Friends Journal YouTube channel.

Environmental Justice & the Illusion of Separation

Writer and activist Eileen Flanagan shares wisdom from her new book, Common Ground: How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us from Our Illusion of Separation. She connects the spiritual dilemma of loving one’s neighbor with the urgent realities of the climate crisis, highlighting how environmental racism creates a shared, though unequal, stake in the fight for a habitable world.

“I boiled down my dilemma to a challenging theological question: How do I love my neighbor when he is killing my other neighbors?” — Eileen Flanagan

• Learn more about Eileen, her tour, and her writing at EileenFlanagan.com.
• Read a review of Common Ground by Ruah Swennerfelt at FriendsJournal.org.
• For one of her chapters, Eileen interviewed Daniel Hunter. Learn more about Daniel at DanielHunter.org.  

Resources for Community & Spiritual Nourishment

We share a few of the vibrant affinity spaces available online for Friends seeking deeper connection and specific spiritual community:

• Ujima Friends Meeting: An online community of Friends of African descent. (Worship on Sundays, Prayer on Wednesdays). Visit UjimaFriends.org.
• Three Rivers Meeting: An online queer Christian meeting. (Worship on Thursdays, Vespers on Sunday evenings). Visit ThreeRiversMeeting.org.
• Quaker Discord Channel: An active app-based server with channels for Spanish-speaking Friends, queer Friends, disabled Friends, and more.
• FLGBTQC, Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Concerns.  

Question for Next Month

Who is someone you’ve encountered in fiction that embodies Quakerness? The character could be from a book or movie. They could be a hero or even a minor character, and they do not need to be Quaker.

Leave us a voicemail with your name and town at 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377). (+1 if outside the U.S.) You can also reply by email at [email protected] or on our social media channels.

---

Extended video version

---

Transcript 

Sweet Miche: In this episode of Quakers Today, we are curious about the impacts of affinity groups and how they offer a place for community and spiritual nourishment.

Peterson Toscano: Writer and activist Eileen Flanagan tells us about her new book, Common Ground: How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us From Our Illusion of Separation.

Sweet Miche: Willa Tabor shares how a queer Christian Quaker meeting gave her joy and community while navigating her transition.

Peterson Toscano: Vanessa Julye and Curtis Spence, two African American Friends, speak from the heart about why affinity spaces are a sacred necessity.

Sweet Miche: I am Miche McCall.

Peterson Toscano: And I am Peterson Toscano. This is Season Five, Episode One of the Quakers Today podcast, a project of Friends Publishing Corporation.

Sweet Miche: This season of Quakers Today is sponsored by Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee.

Peterson Toscano: One of the many things I appreciate about Quakers is the commitment to seeing and understanding people who are marginalized in society. We aspire to create and maintain a welcoming space for those who are often excluded from traditional religious settings.

Sweet Miche: When it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and nonbinary people, most Quaker meetings in North America and Europe are welcoming and inclusive. But that wasn’t always the case. Over 50 years ago, LGBTQ Quakers started creating spaces for themselves.

Peterson Toscano: And now LGBTQ people serve on committees, clerk yearly meetings, and are fully integrated into the life of most meetings and Quaker organizations in North America and Europe. In fact, the queer Quaker group known as FLGBTQC is currently in the midst of a discerning process about whether they should lay down their ministry.

Sweet Miche: What about race? African Americans and Indigenous people have been connected with Quakers for hundreds of years. What is their relationship with predominantly white North American and European Quaker meetings, schools, and organizations?

Peterson Toscano: One of our guests today is Vanessa Julye. She serves as Associate Secretary for Organizational Cultural Transformation with Friends General Conference, or FGC.

Sweet Miche: Vanessa works to raise awareness about white supremacy and its impact in both Quaker communities and other faith spaces. She also meets with and creates programs for BIPOC Friends around the world, sometimes in person, sometimes virtually.

Peterson Toscano: Vanessa co-authored the book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, an influential book. For the October 2025 issue of Friends Journal, Vanessa wrote the article “Affinity Spaces for BIPOC Friends: Healing from Polite White Supremacy Together.”

Sweet Miche: I sat down and chatted with Vanessa about her article—why she wrote it, and why now.

Peterson Toscano: Also joining us is Curtis Spence, the author of the article “We Gather to Affinity Worship and the Light That Disrupts.” It also appears in Friends Journal.

Sweet Miche: We will share with you excerpts from both articles along with parts of our conversation. If you want to hear the entire recording, it is available in the video version of this podcast on the Friends Journal YouTube page.

Curtis Spence: Affinity groups have long been sacred spaces for bonding, connecting, and communicating authentically. They are places where deeper relationships are built not in spite of difference, but through shared experience of being fully seen. These are spaces where people bring their full selves into the room, where trust is not assumed but nurtured.

Vanessa Julye: Quakerism itself is an affinity space set apart from broader society. The joy many Friends feel at yearly meetings or the FGC Gathering mirrors what BIPOC Friends feel in our own spaces—sacred spaces. Just as white Friends find renewal in community, BIPOC Friends need that too.

Curtis Spence: I didn’t join a BIPOC Quaker affinity group because I had something to teach. I joined because I needed to breathe.

Vanessa Julye: Most white people in the United States, including Friends, live in a constant affinity space where their culture is considered the default. Eurocentric norms shape Quaker spaces. Some will say this does not apply to the Religious Society of Friends because we are unique, our community is different. After all, we were the first religion to end enslavement. But in BIPOC affinity spaces, my body relaxes, my tone and language change. In affinity spaces we share our lives and get a chance to center and celebrate our “abnormality”—an abnormality I have grown to cherish.

Curtis Spence: These spaces are not alternatives to meeting. They are sites of revelation. These groups don’t ask you to leave part of yourself outside the door.

Vanessa Julye: Having a space where I do not need to constantly center polite white supremacy provides an opportunity for me to breathe. I live in a world that practices what Yawo Brown calls polite white supremacy—PWS. In a society structured around PWS, with subtle, coded, and ever-present demands to conform, BIPOC Friends often feel compelled to prioritize white comfort over our own authenticity.

Curtis Spence: Affinity groups have long been sacred spaces. They are places where Friends who have long been marginalized by mainstream Quaker culture can listen to the divine without having to overexplain their presence and their pain.

Vanessa Julye: I went to Quaker schools and Quaker camp as a kid, but it wasn’t until 1993 that I actually started attending worship. There were times when I had experiences of racism, and I thought, “Well, no, these are Quakers, so this can’t be happening.” It was wonderful to be with this group of Friends of Color who validated for me that what I was experiencing was, in fact, racism and white supremacy showing up—because that’s part of our society. Quakers are part of our society. As much as we like to see ourselves as being different and exempt, we are not.

There have been times when I’ve been told, and others have been told, “You’re too loud” or “You’re too angry.” Well, yes—we’re angry. I have a right to express that. But that anger can also get us killed. Expressing that anger can cause us to lose jobs. The expectation is that we won’t express it. That is part of white politeness.

Curtis Spence: This is the work of affinity worship: to create a space where beauty and disruption coexist. Affinity spaces offer a kind of soul rest, a resolution of voice and breath.

Vanessa Julye: There are Friends who have said, “I can’t worship in my meeting anymore.” They are grateful these spaces are available because without them, they are not clear they would continue to be members of the Religious Society of Friends.

Curtis Spence: We didn’t gather somewhere to divide the body. We gathered elsewhere to remain whole within it.

Vanessa Julye: If there is a BIPOC person within Quakerism looking for a place where they can have more connections with other BIPOC people, there are resources out there. We have a Ministry on Racism program which supports BIPOC spaces. We have retreats, some hybrid. If you need something in addition to being in predominantly white Quaker spaces, those are available. I encourage you to check them out, including Ujima Friends Meeting.

I hope there comes a time when we can stop justifying affinity spaces. Sadly, I don’t think that time will come until we shift the definition of “normal.” Until all of us are able to feel that we fit that definition of normal, we’re going to need affinity spaces.

Curtis Spence: In these gatherings, we pray, we question, we speak plainly, we may cry. Sometimes we hold silence, and we hold each other.

Sweet Miche: That was Vanessa Julye and Curtis Spence. Their articles appear in the October 2025 issue of Friends Journal and at FriendsJournal.org. You’ll also find the video conversation linked at QuakersToday.org.

Peterson Toscano: That was Willa Tabor from the QuakerSpeak video Identity and Navigating Gender Transition as a Quaker.

Sweet Miche: A big thank you to Layla Cuthrell for filming and editing these videos. You can watch them on YouTube or at QuakerSpeak.com.

Peterson Toscano: Perhaps more than any other influence, the Quaker writer and activist Eileen Flanagan has shaped my life as a change-maker. Eileen walks the walk of an activist and teacher, and she clearly communicates the practices and principles that lead to meaningful action.

Eileen Flanagan’s new book Common Ground focuses on environmental justice.

I reached out to Eileen to learn more about her new book, Common Ground: How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us From Our Illusion of Separation.

Eileen Flanagan: I boiled down my dilemma to a challenging theological question: How do I love my neighbor when he is killing my other neighbors? I didn’t have the foresight to publish this book earlier. I felt the leading dragged on way too long, and Spirit was way too slow in leading me to the right publisher. Now I see it was exactly the right time.

Many of the lessons in the book—about solidarity, about taking on billionaires—are directly applicable to what people are trying to do now in resisting authoritarianism in the United States.

The separation that first interested me in writing—and it’s a big part of the book, though not the whole book—is the separation of race. For example, there are a lot of communities from Chester, Pennsylvania to “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, where the frontline community is usually low-income, often people of color, right next to the oil refinery, the gas plant, or the toxic dump. They smell the smells, hear the sirens, see the flares, and know they’re breathing toxic air. But often a neighborhood half a mile away, sometimes working-class and white, doesn’t realize they have a pollution problem.

When my daughter, at age five, got asthma and I took her to the emergency room and asked why, the nurse said, “Probably pollution.” I didn’t realize that my neighborhood, full of trees, was still impacted by the refinery in Southwest Philly.

We have a shared stake—even if the risks aren’t exactly equal. That’s different than just being an ally. It’s different to say, “We have a shared stake.”

I interviewed Daniel Hunter about how different groups have navigated race and how we talk about race in issues where we have a shared but unequal impact. Daniel is so brilliant. For people who think they know the environmental justice talking points, that chapter is really thought-provoking about the pros and cons of different framing choices.

Sweet Miche: Eileen Flanagan’s book is Common Ground: How the Crisis of the Earth Is Saving Us From Our Illusion of Separation. You can learn more about Eileen, her tour, and her writing at EileenFlanagan.com.

Peterson Toscano: You can also read a book review by Ruah Swennerfelt at FriendsJournal.org.

Sweet Miche: Our guests gave us some great recommendations for affinity groups. From Vanessa, we heard about Ujima Friends Meeting, an online community of Friends of African descent. They meet on Sundays for worship and Wednesdays for prayer. Visit UjimaFriends.org.

From Willa, we heard about Three Rivers, an online queer Christian meeting. They meet on Thursdays for worship and Sunday evenings for vespers. Visit ThreeRiversMeeting.org.

And my recommendation for an affinity space is the Quaker Discord channel. Discord is an app used to connect communities with shared interests. In the Society of Friends server, there are channels for Spanish-speaking Friends, queer Friends, disabled Friends, and Friends who are into gardening or cooking.

The URL isn’t podcast-friendly, but you can always find links to our recommendations in the show notes at QuakersToday.org.

Peterson Toscano: I used to be active in that group, but when I got a new computer I never reinstalled the app. This is a great reminder—because there were always some wonderful conversations and lots of affinity groups within affinity groups.

Sweet Miche: Absolutely. It’s really active. I saw several posts just today.

Peterson Toscano: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Quakers Today. If you enjoy hearing our guests give ministry on the podcast, the best way to support us is to subscribe to Friends Journal.

Sweet Miche: The second best way is to rate and review our show. Many thanks to everyone sharing Quakers Today with their friends and on social media.

Peterson Toscano: Quakers Today is written and produced by me, Peterson Toscano.

Sweet Miche: And me, Sweet Miche. Music on today’s show comes from Epidemic Sound.

Peterson Toscano: Season Five of Quakers Today is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee and Friends Fiduciary.

Sweet Miche: The American Friends Service Committee works at the forefront of social change to meet urgent needs, challenge injustice, and build peace. In 2024, Congress created a program to help low-income families buy groceries during summer break, but 11 states refused to participate. AFSC is urging governors to accept the funding so kids can eat. Learn more and take action at AFSC.org.

Peterson Toscano: Friends Fiduciary unites Quaker values with expert investing. They serve more than 460 organizations with their ethical portfolios, shareholder advocacy, and deep commitment to justice and sustainability. In the 2024–25 proxy season, Friends Fiduciary engaged with more than 50 companies on over 30 issue areas. They filed 18 shareholder resolutions addressing ethical business practices, advancing equity, and more. Learn more at FriendsFiduciary.org.

Sweet Miche: Visit QuakersToday.org to see our show notes and a full transcript of this episode.

Peterson Toscano: Thank you, Friend. We’ll see you next month. Until then, may you walk gently and find strength in community.

Sweet Miche: Before we go, here’s our next question for you: Who is someone you’ve encountered in fiction that embodies Quakerness? The character could be from a book or movie. They could be a hero or even a minor character.

Peterson Toscano: So it doesn’t have to be a Quaker, right?

Sweet Miche: No, not at all—just someone who embodies Quaker values.

Peterson Toscano: I immediately thought of Dinah from George Eliot’s novel Adam Bede. She’s a Methodist minister who dresses plainly and lives a countercultural life of service. She shines on the page with sincerity, led by the Spirit, and often confounds people with her choices. I love that novel, and Dinah—even with her little Quaker-style bonnet.

Sweet Miche: Amazing.

Peterson Toscano: Who is someone you’ve encountered in fiction that embodies Quakerness? Let us know what they did that resonated with you.

Sweet Miche: You can answer that question in several ways. Leave us a voicemail with your name and town at 317-QUAKERS. Or send us an email, or DM us on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. All the links are in our show notes at QuakersToday.org.