For over a year, I’ve been teaching a class called Unitarian Universalism 102. I’ve tried a variety of formats, and the one that’s done the best has been to pick an article or two from the current UU World and open it up to discussion. I’ve got another in December.

Here, I’m going to do a different thing, a daily series. Every day I’ll post some item by, about, or for Unitarian Universalists and Unitarian Universalism. It’ll be the single most compelling current item I know of.

It’ll be tagged under the category UU 102, as will items for and from my class, and other pertinent items. And what makes an item pertinent? I’m focusing on new ideas and practices of the post-merger era, from 1961 through the foreseeable future.

Doing this was part of why I decided to blog again. Here’s the piece which triggered my decision:

Who Are My People? A Black Unitarian Universalist on Selma and Ferguson

Kneeling in front of Rev. Reeb’s marker drove me—to tears, and to an understanding of history’s importance. Finally, after ignoring the race problem for years, we showed up in Selma. But fifty years later, if we UUs show up in Selma in 2015 but not in Ferguson right now, and not for all those black and brown victims of police violence in the sadly inevitable future, we will not have learned from our past.

The harrowing truth is that I could be the next Mike Brown. My household had two parents. I have a college degree and a job. My pants don’t sag. When I’m out protesting or canvassing, though, none of that matters. I cannot opt out of blackness, and I do not want to. In the wrong situation, though, my respectable nature may not save me—from a racist police officer or citizen, nor from the ensuing character assassination. I would go from the decent, reasonably friendly guy some of you know to a mentally deranged (I have depression) Harvard dropout who was “no angel” and deserved what he got.

Read the whole thing, and visit Kenny Wiley’s blog, A Full Day.