wfn.org | North Americans in WCC prepare for U.N. World Conference against

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Note #6548 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Racism
6-June-2001
01192

North Americans in WCC prepare for U.N. World Conference against Racism

Participants urged to "serve as a voice for those who have no power" 

by Philip Jenks
WCC New York Office

DEARBORN, Mich. - North American church representatives hoping to influence
a United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance gathered here May 10-13 to  develop a
consensus and sharpen their awareness of the issues that will be presented
at the Aug. 31-Sept. 7 World Conference in Durban, South Africa.

	Many of the 55 U.S. and Canadian citizens at the World Council of Churches
(WCC) preparatory  meeting in Dearborn, Mich., said they intended to go to
the Durban conference.  Most of them were African Americans, Africans,
Asians, Native Americans, Latinos and other persons of color.

	Bernice Powell Jackson, executive minister of the United Church of Christ's
justice and witness ministries, charged them to tell the truth about racism
in North America.

	"We commission you this day to confront the official denial which will be
all around you," she said. "We commission you to remember the people who
have no power and no privilege and whom you must serve as their voice in the
international arena."

	Other speakers provided background comments on a WCC "draft declaration and
program of action" being prepared for the World Conference.  Participants
debated the fine points of the draft and made recommendations for additions
and revisions.

	U.S. and Canadian racism against Indigenous persons is not fully understood
because of distortions in the way media and historians tell the story, said
Professor George E. Tinker, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
clergyman and professor of America Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions
at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colo.

	"Every day we hear that the bombing of the federal office building in
Oklahoma City was the 'worst act of terrorism on American soil,'" he said. 
"That is a-historical.  It does not take into consideration the thousands
who died because of acts of terrorism against American Indians."

	Today, Tinker said, racism against Native Americans is "invisible."  "My
people have health problems far in excess of the general population," he
said.  "Our teenagers are three to ten times more likely to commit suicide. 
Our public school dropout rate is 50 percent.  We have a 50 percent
unemployment rate, five to six times higher than African Americans. We are
suffering from a community-wide post-traumatic stress syndrome that won't go
away."

	Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt Jr. of the 4th Episcopal District of the Christian
Methodist Episcopal Church, Shreveport, La., characterized the situation as
an "American dilemma."

	"We promise in our constitution to be a democracy, yet we live
undemocratically," Hoyt said.  "Somehow, we must come to grips with America,
the home of the oppressor, and America, home of democracy."

	Officially, the courts have eliminated statutory racism in the U.S.  Yet
"racism has raised its ugly head in crimes of hate, police racial profiling,
redlining in housing, gerrymandering in congressional districts, and in
opposition which frequently surrounds attempts to achieve racial balance and
parity in education and housing."

	Brenda Girton-Mitchell, director of the National Council of Churches of
Christ in the USA's public witness and advocacy office in Washington, noted,
"We could have been in this conversation 30 years ago.  Racism doesn't go
away."

	Dorothy Wills of the United Church of Canada and other Canadian
participants described the evolution of racism and discrimination in Canada.
 The Rev. Melodee Smith, a United Church of Chist pastor and civil rights
attorney from Trenton, Ill., urged the group to take to Durban an opposition
to the death penalty in the U.S.A.

	The draft declaration and program of action as modified and amended by the
participants will join other action plans developed by similar WCC
preparatory meetings in other regions of the world.  A copy of the North
American draft and more information is available through the U.S. Office of
the WCC, 475 Riverside Drive, Room 915, New York, NY 10115, 212-870-3193,
USA, pej@wcc-coe.org.

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