wfn.org | Witnesses Testify About Large and Small Horrors of Racism

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

GA99113 
25-June-1999 
 
                        Witnesses Testify  
             About Large and Small Horrors of Racism 
 
 
FORT WORTH   James Verret, of Houston, and Janet Landis Barrett, of Denver, 
brought different but related testimonies about racism to the General 
Assembly on Thursday. 
     Verret called to the collective mind the most extreme form of racism: 
He appeared in memory of his uncle, James Byrd Jr., who was cruelly 
murdered in 1997 by three white men in Jasper, Texas, who tormented and 
beat their victim, then tethered his body to the back bumper of a pickup 
truck and dragged him for three miles, dismembering his corpse. 
     Barrett testified to the "unconscious, blind racism" that she said "is 
felt by people of color even through our good intentions." 
     Their appearances were scheduled in conjunction with anti-racism 
efforts being considered by the 211th General Assembly here. 
     Verret appeared as a representative of the James Byrd Jr. Foundation 
for Racial Healing, a group founded in Jasper to combat racism and to keep 
Byrd's memory alive. He said the crime against his uncle has affected his 
family deeply. "It's changed our whole lifestyle," he said.  "We're just 
not as comfortable as we were before, and we're always concerned about my 
grandparents, who still live in Jasper.  We fear for their safety." 
     Verrett said most members of his family are Jehovah's Witnesses. "Our 
Christian faith has always told us to trust in God and always depend on 
him," he said. "And He has helped us in hard times to hold it together and 
not just lose it." 
     He said his travels for the Byrd Foundation have been "very 
intimidating   I've flown more in the last month than I ever did in my 
whole life.  I'd barely been out of Texas before.  I'm still kind of 
nervous   but this is part of my healing process." 
     In recent weeks Verret has met President Bill Clinton ("He was very 
warm and nice, very friendly.  He even hugged my cousin, James Byrd's 
daughter, Renee Mullins.") and Texas Gov.  George W. Bush ("I was there to 
testify for a hate-crime bill in Texas.  We had two different agendas.  His 
agenda was to get elected President.  My agenda was to try to save lives.") 
The bill, which would have stiffened penalties for hate crimes and created 
a fund to be used for diversity training for law-enforcement officers, 
didn't have Bush's support.  It failed to win passage. 
     Verrett told the Presbyterian News Service that the foundation still 
gets about 150 calls a week from people "who say they're sorry for what 
happened, and they hope we don't think all their people are like that." 
     Three men have been charged in Byrd's death, but only one has come to 
trial.  He was convicted and sentenced to death.  "I'm not a big proponent 
of the death penalty," Verret said, "but in this case I think the maximum 
penalty was warranted.  And the defendant showed no remorse at all    he 
seemed almost proud of it." 
     "Racism is the product of a diseased heart," Verret told the Assembly. 
"It's like gangrene 
  it spreads fast, and if it's untreated in the very earliest stages, it 
can be deadly."  He added, Education is our best weapon against racism." 
     Barrett said it was in 1995, when she looked into the eyes of a 
"grandfatherly black man" at a public school one of her children attended, 
and saw a human being, that "I realized I was a racist. For the first time, 
I was able to connect with the humanness we have in common." 
     That awakening came as a shock.  "How could I, a good Christian woman, 
be a racist?" Barret asked.  "I was even helping 'at-risk' children, who 
were not white, in the public schools." 
     "If you're white in America today," she said flatly, "you're a 
racist." 
     She tried to explain, using a metaphor borrowed from a friend: "The 
fish in a fishbowl don't know the water's there. We are the fish, and the 
water is racism." 
     Barrett, a Presbyterian, says what she calls "my kind of racism"   the 
unconscious, unacknowledged kind   is "the hardest to deal with." 
     "But you can deal with it as long as you're aware," she added. "All 
you need is awareness. 
     "Do I get discouraged? Yes, I do. But I continue to be hopeful. 
          "I'd like to be able to think of myself as courageous for making 
appearances like this," she said, "but it's just a calling. I couldn't not 
do it." 
     The fundamental question, Barrett told the commissioners, "is how can 
we change ourselves?" 
 
John Filiatreau 

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