Unitarian Universalists of the Salish Sea 
SOcial Justice
Home
By Warsan Shire
No one leaves homeunless home is the mouth of a shark.
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well.
your neighbours running faster than you, the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is
holding a gun bigger than his body,
you only leave home when home won't let you stay.
no one would leave home unless home
chased you, fire under feet, hot blood in your belly.
it's not something you ever thought about
doing, and so when you did - you carried the anthem under your breath,
waiting until the airport toilet
to tear up the passport and swallow, each mouthful of paper making it clear that
you would not be going back.
you have to understand,
no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.
who would choose to spend days
and nights in the stomach of a truck
unless the miles traveled meant something more than journey.
no one would choose to crawl under fences, be beaten until your shadow leaves you, raped, then
drowned, forced to the bottom of the boat because you are darker, be sold, starved, shot at the border
like a sick animal, be pitied, lose your name, lose your family, make a refugee camp a home for a year
or two or ten,
stripped and searched, find prison everywhere
and if you survive and you are greeted on the other side
with “go home blacks”, “refugees dirty immigrants”, “asylum seekers sucking our country dry of milk”,
dark, with their hands out smell strange, savage - look what they've done to their own countries,
what will they do to ours?
the dirty looks in the street softer than a limb torn off, the indignity of everyday life more tender than
fourteen men who
look like your father, between your legs, insults easier to swallow
than rubble, than your child's body in pieces - for now, forget about pride
your survival is more important.
i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home tells you to leave what you could not behind,
even if it was human.
no one leaves home until home is a damp voice in your ear saying
leave, run now, i don't know what I've become.
Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice (CUSJ) is a national Unitarian organization, specifically focused on Social Justice. https://cusj.org/about/ CUSJ Membership: https://cusj.org/about-join-the-cusj-membership-form/
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Benedict Cumberbatch reads a letter of apology from a father to his children. This letter is a part of the Letters to the Earth campaign, which began in 2019, when the British public were invited to put pen to paper and write letters in response to the climate and ecological emergency. It is published in their book 'Letters to the Earth: Writing to a Planet in Crisis'. https://www.letterstotheearth.com |  | From ShiftCPP Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is one of the biggest pension funds in the world – but earned an overall C-minus in Shift’s Canadian Pension Climate Report Card, placing it toward the bottom of the pack of Canadian pension funds on its approach to the climate crisis. CPPIB is undermining its net-zero commitment by refusing to set interim emissions reduction targets and by using our retirement savings to expand and prolong the use of oil and gas. Read Shift's analysis on CPPIB and share it on social media to help make sure our national pension managers get the message. Read the report here: https://shiftaction.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1108e5912242b30ca1c5da2e9&id=0ccf737d14&e=a941ffb177 Send a letter to CPPIB: https://us20.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=1108e5912242b30ca1c5da2e9&id=ccd28af506&e=a941ffb177
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