Statement of Core Values and Commitments

ORAIIARH is a group working to end racism. This work of the heart is essential to living out our Quaker testimony of equality -- the deep moral recognition that we are all equal in the Spirit. It is work we must do.

Racism is a combination of prejudice and power, a set of attitudes and institutional arrangements that maintain the status quo of inequality. In the United States, racism has its roots in slavery and a history in all institutions and social patterns. Racism persists because it maintains advantage and privilege for whites, who benefit daily from their inaction and avoidance of the topic. Racism causes physical and emotional death for people of color, when white people undermine self-esteem, ignore ability and achievement, stereotype, and participate in economic oppression. All of these actions reduce quality of life for people of color and lead to bad health from emotional and environmental stress. Racism attacks people of color at many levels, from the interactions of everyday life to institutional patterns of power and privilege. The elimination of racism is key to the spiritual growth and development of everyone. Racism is a deeply destructive, immoral system, and the members of ORAIIARH work to eliminate it immediately.

The following values and commitments are the seeds from which our actions grow:

• We believe that it is the responsibility of white people to end racism. White members of the group strive never to leave that work to people of color.
• We believe that the work must begin in the hearts and lives of white people. White members of the group hold themselves accountable for their own racist thoughts and actions, and for the times when they remain silent when they witness racism. They work to become reliable allies of people of color. The group supports that process of truth and growth.
• ORAIIARH members commit to uprooting racism actively, wherever we find it, at home, at work, in our neighborhoods, or at Meeting. In order to uproot racism, we continually have to push ourselves, and those we interact with, beyond our comfort zones, by interrupting the patterns of racism.
• We put the lives of people of color at the center of our work. No member of ORAIIARH will be free until all our members can live in full respect -- that is, until racism has been eliminated.

Our meetings are an evolving way to help each other live out these values. For us, the work requires continual attention, a lifelong commitment, and the discipline of meeting regularly as a group. In this way, we live out our faith in the ongoing transformation that is possible in the Spirit.

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