Whole Thing 3

The 2001 General Assembly
Part 3

A Special Report to Witherspoon Society and
Semper Reformanda Members

by Gene TeSelle and Doug King

[6-21-01]

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 209^th 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:

the median net worth of whites in the United States is eight times that of African-Americans and 27 times that of Hispanic-Americans;

infant mortality among blacks is more than twice that of whites, and among Native Americans it is 1.5 times that of whites;

at least 95 percent of senior managers in Fortune 1500 companies are white.

94% of the members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are white.

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.

Back to page 1

Forward to page 4