The original meaning of \u201cwoke\u201d is to awaken after sleep, of course, but the word now has picked up other social connotations. The Oxford English Dictionary says, “woke had been extended figuratively to refer to being ‘aware’ or ‘well informed’ in a political or cultural sense.”<\/p>\n
Being woke is viewed positively by Unitarian Universalists. They value social justice, so they want to be knowledgeable about what\u2019s going on within their own community and within the wider society around them.<\/p>\n
In previous centuries, injustices needing attention were more obvious, such as when women and people of color couldn\u2019t vote.\u00a0 Now, we need to look deeper if we are to recognize where our social systems still are embedded with privilege or oppression.<\/p>\n
UUs seek to take up this challenge.\u00a0 Internally, they examine their own history, theology, and practices to identify ways they might have perpetuated injustice within their own tradition.\u00a0 They also work to identify and disrupt any\u00a0disrespectful or damaging\u00a0systems and attitudes in their wider societal context.<\/p>\n
For example, at the Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship a \u201cWidening the Circle\u201d program exists to educate and inspire-to-action its members regarding injustices suffered by marginalized people\u2014neighbors whose race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, or other surface characteristics limit their potential or freedom.<\/p>\n
Together, gradually, imperfectly, UUs use their wokeness as inspiration to build communities and practices of inclusion, care, growth, and love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The original meaning of \u201cwoke\u201d is to awaken after sleep, of course, but the word now has picked up other social connotations. The Oxford English Dictionary says, “woke had been extended figuratively to refer to being ‘aware’ or ‘well informed’ in a political or cultural sense.” Being woke is viewed positively by Unitarian Universalists. They … Continue reading UUs Are Woke (#122)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8931,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8693\/revisions\/8931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}