The 2001
General Assembly
Part 3
A Special Report to Witherspoon
Society and
Semper Reformanda Members
by Gene TeSelle and Doug
King
To
the beginning of the report
[6-21-01]
Racial
and Ethnic Advocacy
Commissioners and visitors to the Assembly gathered
around tables on Saturday, June 9 for a pre-assembly event
introducing antiracism training. [Because of the significance of
this event, we have added more detail to this report, as of
8-3-01] The four-hour event was scheduled in response to a call
from the 209th Assembly (1997) for "all governing bodies
. . . to undergo a program of antiracism training by the year
2005." The event reminded participants that previous General
Assemblies have affirmed that racism is a sin, violating God's intention
for humanity and that the church has the privilege of proclaiming the
good news of God's love for all people and working for the elimination
of racism as a matter of discipleship.
Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick welcomed the commissioners and guests.
Worship began the event. The worship included an opportunity for
participants to introduce themselves to one another.
Laura Mariko Cheifetz, Gender Justice Issues Coordinator in the
Presbyterian United Nations Office of the Peacemaking Program, and Youth
Advisory Delegate from North Puget Sound Presbytery, and Mark Koenig,
Associate for Antiracism Program in the Racial Ethnic Ministries program
area, made a presentation on the nature of racism and oppression as well
as its impact on white people and people of color. Koenig cited
statistics documenting the effects of racism:
Cheifetz then provided analysis showing how systemic
racism created such realities. Koenig spoke about the privileges that
come from having white skin; Cheifetz spoke about the costs internalized
racist oppression inflicts as people of color seek to cope with the
reality of racism.
In closing, Cheifetz and Koenig noted that while racism tells us that we
are made for separation, God in Jesus Christ proclaims a very different
vision. Jesus came to put us in right relationship with God. Jesus came
to break down dividing barriers of hostility. Jesus came that we might
love God and love ourselves and love one another in all the wondrous
diversity that God creates. Jesus Christ calls us to the hard work of
antiracism, of grappling with the divisions in our world caused by
racism, so that someday we might be in right relationship with
ourselves, with one another, and with God.
Four individuals witnessed to the effects of racism on their lives:
Teresa Chavez Sauceda, Executive Director of Manos Unidas Community and
Development Center in San Francisco; Unzu Lee, Associate for Leadership
Development for Presbyterian Women in the Women's Ministries program
area; Anitra Kitts Rasmussen, staff member of Cascades Presbytery and a
former member of the Oregon House of Representatives; and Charles C.
Heyward, Sr., pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC.
and a minister commissioner from Charleston-Atlantic Presbytery. Each
speaker provided a reminder of the pain caused by racism.
A portion of the video, "A Class Divided" was then shown. This
video recounts the "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes" exercise used by
Jane Elliot for teaching about the nature of oppression. Elliot, a
third-grade teacher, designed this exercise to teach her white students
about the reality of discrimination. Participants discussed the video at
their tables.
Otis Turner, Associate for Racial Justice Policy Development in the
Racial Ethnic Ministries program area, closed the event by recalling
that the General Assembly was on the leading edge of the campaign for
racial justice in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, some people thought
that the age of racism was coming to an end. Systemic racism still
thrives, Turner observed, within the structures and processes of our
institutions. But, he affirmed that racism is learned behavior - it can
be deconstructed and new processes and structures put into place. Turner
provided an overview of the policy base for antiracism work -
"Facing Racism: A Vision of the Beloved Community," an outline
of the training methodology being used by the PC(USA) and specific ways
in which individuals, congregations, presbyteries, and synods may become
involved in individual transformation and institutional change.
Later on, at the request of
the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns, the Assembly directed
the GAC to create a task force to study the issue of reparations
to groups subjected to vast injustices -- not only African Americans but
Native Americans, Alaskan Natives and Asian Americans, Mexicans, Puerto
Ricans, and others. Reparations is an idea whose time has come. There is
precedent in the reparations paid to interned Japanese, forced laborers
in German factories, and Jewish people whose accounts got lost in Swiss
banks. Recently commissions have suggested reparations for the
long-hidden atrocities in Rosewood, FL, and Tulsa, OK. The ACREC hopes
that the church can play a helpful role as the nation seeks truth,
justice, and reconciliation.
The Assembly also approved a study of disenfranchisement
as manifested in a number of states during the 2000 election. And it
authorized a Task Force on Racial Justice Policies to examine the employment
practices and procurement policies of the Presbyterian
Foundation, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, the Board of
Pensions, and the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program, and report
to the 2003 Assembly.
One headline-worthy
item has not been picked up by the media, perhaps because other
denominations got there first. The Assembly confessed the corporate
guilt the Presbyterian Church shares for the evils of slavery
and pledged to work with African American brothers and sisters to
overcome the vestiges of slavery in church and society.
Last year's Assembly condemned
the bombardment of the island of Vieques,
ten miles east of Puerto Rico. The issue was reopened this year by an
overture from Greater Atlanta, asking for a reversal. Several
commissioners who had been in the Navy emphasized the importance of
"live-fire training" for "the safety of our men and women
in uniform." Puerto Ricans, however, called attention to the deaths
that have occurred and the refusal of the Navy to say what ammunition is
being used and what its health and environmental effects might be. By
the time the vote came on Wednesday it was a bit of an anticlimax,
because President Bush (apparently acting before he consulted fully with
the Navy) had announced that same morning that live-fire training would
be stopped by 2003. Commissioners thanked the Puerto Ricans at the
Assembly for the many years of resistance that made this policy change
unavoidable.
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