The core UU principles call for us to respect and acceptance of all people, to support a free and open search for meaning, and to promote an open democratic process of operating our groups.  More broadly, our First Amendment promotes a very wide acceptance of the content of speech in public spaces.  However, some of our fellow humans exhibit less acceptance and tolerance than we’d like.  This intolerance is communicated quickly via online and broadcast methods, spreading distasteful (and worse!) ideas to many.  We will discuss the paradox of tolerance, provide some insights into how messages of misogyny, racism, authoritarianism, and lack of acceptance of people in the LGBTQA communities are communicated in the modern social media environment, and then discuss how we might deal with this.

Warnings: This service covers some difficult subjects, and we will not “platform” hate speech or its promoters.  We will touch on the nature of hate speech to help us identify and cope with it. The service will also provide fewer answers than we’d probably like.

Meet in-person at CVUU or online through Zoom on Sunday at 10:00 AM.