Quaker Coalition Offers Antiracist Clerking Advices

A coalition of six Quaker organizations offers a new set of “Anti-racist Clerking Advices for Friends” to help clerks center Friends who are typically marginalized in North American Quaker spaces. The Quaker Coalition for Uprooting Racism (QCUR) is a coalition of six organizations, including American Friends Service Committee, Friends Council on Education, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends General Conference (FGC), Pendle Hill, and Quaker Voluntary Service, as well as other Friends. Developed over several years by Friends of Color and White Friends, the advices, released in January, seek to make meetings, as well as meetings for worship with attention to business, more inclusive and welcoming to Friends of Color.

Compiled into a 65-page document and published on a QCUR website hosted by FGC, the advices recommend designating certain individuals to serve as “noticers” who observe interactions and procedures to evaluate how they help or hinder the goal of becoming an antiracist meeting.

Friends can examine assumptions about equality in meetings and explore structural inequalities, explained Barry Scott, a Friend who worked on developing the advices. Scott worships with Kea’au Worship Group on the Big Island of Hawaii. He is a member of Central Philadelphia (Pa.) Meeting and Ujima Meeting, a meeting of Friends of African descent, which gathers online.

Friends can recognize where power is inherent and where Quakers can fall into the patterns of the larger society, according to Scott. For instance, nominating committees generate names of people who could serve as clerks and committee members.

“There’s an incredible amount of power there,” Scott said.

In addition to inviting Friends to examine the structure and culture of business meetings, the advices contain suggestions for responding when racial wounding and harm occurs, including the following:

• For larger offenses and racial woundings, have systems and people in place to offer support/guidance so that problems can be dealt with sensitively, firmly, and soon.
• For those who have been wounded/harmed: Reach out to them after the meeting, ask what they need, and have a support structure in place to meet their needs.
• Make sure that the person who committed a racial offense knows what they did wrong, and that they have support and someone to talk to.

One example of racial wounding is when White Quakers assume that Friends of Color have less experience with Quakerism than White Friends do. Friends of Color who come to a meeting might be told, for instance, “Oh, you understand that we don’t have music here,” said Regina Renee Nyégbeh, who worked on developing the advices. Nyégbeh previously used the last name Ward, which appears in the document.

At one meeting where Nyégbeh worshiped, a person used a racist slur to refer to a person of African descent, causing racial wounding. She notes that just because racist epithets are not used in a meeting, does not mean that members and attenders do not benefit from White privilege or that they are actively antiracist.

Nyégbeh is a member of Ujima Meeting and FGC’s Friends of Color virtual worship. Nyégbeh served FGC as clerk of the Committee for Nurturing Ministries, as well as clerk of the Racial Wounding Committee, which supports Friends who have experienced racial wounding at an FGC event. She was also co-clerk of FGC’s Institutional Assessment and Implementation Committee.

Friends intending to support people who have experienced racial wounding should be attentive listeners, according to Lauren Brownlee, who worked on developing the advices.

“I think there is harm done when people are too eager to help,” Brownlee said. “People who are the best allies often listen before they offer solutions.” Brownlee is a member of Bethesda (Md.) Meeting and co-clerk of the Steering Committee of QCUR.

Friends supporting Quakers of Color who have experienced racial wounding should possess compassion and deep listening skills, according to Barry Scott. Supporters can reflect on how God would care for a person and uplift that person.

“Allyship, I would argue, centers the Divine,” Scott said.

When White people commit an act of racial wounding, they should talk about their actions and emotions with caring and trusted White people, according to Brownlee.

“Connection is the antidote to shame,” Brownlee said.

Sometimes White people who feel ashamed of committing racial woundings want to be comforted by People of Color, Brownlee noted. People of Color have themselves been wounded by racism and are not in a position to accompany White people as they work through their shame, she explained.

Clerks who attempt to tamp down passionate or emotionally warm expressions in business meeting could be practicing inappropriate conflict avoidance and silencing of Friends of Color, according to Kat Griffith, who worked on the advices. Griffith observed that passion can be a sign that someone is experiencing a spiritual leading. Clerks can avoid inappropriate silencing of Friends of Color by understanding their own motivations in calling for silence, she explained.

Clerks can ask themselves, “Is it me who needs silence?” and, if so, they can explain their need to members and attenders at the business meeting, Griffith explained. Griffith is a member of the Winnebago Worship Group, which is under the care of Madison (Wis.) Meeting.

When a clerk responds to a Friend expressing their views in a passionate way by calling for settling silence, this has a disparate impact on White Friends and Friends of Color, according to Brownlee. Clerks can explain the purpose of calling for silence, Brownlee noted.

“I think it makes it feel less silencing and more like a spiritual practice,” Brownlee said.

Before the 2019 FGC Gathering, a Friend with a long history of antiracist activism inside and outside of Quaker spaces asked Griffith, “What are you going to do to be an antiracist clerk?” Griffith had just become co-clerk of Northern Yearly Meeting.

Griffith considered the question and realized she could not find published resources to help with it. Friends in Arthur Larrabee’s clerking workshop at that year’s FGC Gathering said they would appreciate guidance on antiracist clerking.

Eleven authors, six individual reviewers, and the whole QCUR Steering Committee collaborated to create the advices.

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Correction: An earlier version of this news story attributed the clerking advices to Friends General Conference (FGC) as the sole author. We have clarified that the document was authored by a coalition that includes FGC and noted that it was published on a QCUR website hosted by FGC.