wfn.org | NCCCUSA/CWS Names Team for U.N. World Conference Against Racism

[Carol Fouke <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252; www.ncccusa.org; news@ncccusa.org
NCC8/23/2001 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC/CWS NAMES TEAM FOR U.N. WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM

	August 23, 2001, NEW YORK CITY - To make connections, to learn and to bring
a religious voice to the political process are among the goals of the
National Council of Churches/Church World Service team going to the United
Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia
and Related Intolerance.

	As a participating non-governmental organization, the NCC/CWS team will
take part in the August 28-September 1 "NGO Forum," then observe the August
31-September 7 conference of government delegations.

	The team is organizing a workshop on "Racism in U.S. Churches: Past
Practices and Current Solutions," to be offered August 30, and will
participate in a worship service and candlelight march set for August 31.
The service is being organized by the Durban-based Diakonia Council of
Churches at the request of the South African Council of Churches, and
co-sponsored by the World Council of Churches.

	The Rev. John L. McCullough, CWS Executive Director and the team's leader,
also has accepted an invitation to participate in a September 2 panel on
religious tolerance, organized by the National Religious Leaders Forum of
South Africa.

	Many religious non-governmental organizations are sending representatives
to the conference, including a number of the NCC's 36 member communions -
for example, the United Church of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The
Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reformed Church in
America and Quaker groups.  The World Council of Churches has requested a
meeting space and plans daily briefings for the wider ecumenical community.

	"The NCC/CWS team recognizes itself as part of the wider ecumenical
movement and thus expects to participate in and support WCC positions and
activities during the conference," noted Kathy Todd of Church World Service'
s Office for Education and Advocacy for International Justice and Human
Rights, staffing the team.  "At the same time, we come with a particular
perspective as a U.S. ecumenical body."

Since their founding more than 50 years ago, the National Council of
Churches and its Church World Service ministry have opposed racism as a
violation of God's will and purpose for humanity.   They cite their
biblically based beliefs in the unity of  creation, the dignity and worth of
each person as a child of God, the equality of all races and peoples, and
the vision of a world bound together in intentional community dedicated to
the well being of all people and all creation.

	Wishing the NCC/CWS team well as it heads for Durban, the Rev. Dr. Bob
Edgar, NCC General Secretary, expressed his appreciation for team members'
"organizational and personal commitment to the goal of eliminating racism in
all the world's societies in the 21st century."

	Dr. Edgar noted that "here at home, through NCC programs of education and
advocacy, we regularly challenge racism in our own society.  And Church
World Service, through its program of emergency response, development and
refugee assistance, targets the most vulnerable, putting into practical
terms our conviction of God's universal care for humanity and the biblical
teaching that 'From one ancestor He made all nations to inhabit the whole
earth.'"

	More about the NCC/CWS team going to the conference:

The Rev. McCullough, a United Methodist minister, welcomed the U.N. World
Conference Against Racism as an important opportunity to develop strategies
to combat racism globally, nationally and locally.  "We'll look at the
progress that's been made, recognize the persistence of racism and tackle
the challenges still before us," he said.

Ms. Sammy Toineeta, NCC Racial Justice Director, will carry particular
concern for Indigenous Peoples' rights to the conference.  A Lakota, she is
accredited to the conference through the American Indian Law Alliance.

"This is the highest I have seen Indigenous Peoples' concerns on the agenda
of any United Nations conference in the past 30 years," she commented.  "350
million Indigenous Peoples worldwide want our lands, language and
spirituality back."

More generally, she continued, "conferences like this one help shed light on
the issues.  They are important places to make connections.  But more
important than what happens before or during the conference and more
important than the governments' joint declaration is what happens
afterward - that's when the real work must get done.  Our team especially
will be watching for what Christians in the United States need to do."

Dr. Sallie Cuffee, a pastoral assistant at First Presbyterian Church in
Brooklyn, N.Y., who is serving as consultant to the NCC/CWS team to the
conference, said that, "As much as possible, we want the religious voice to
be part of this political process."  In addition to her participation in the
NCC/CWS team, she is co-convenor of the Religious and Spiritual Caucus and
among facilitators of the Religious Intolerance Commission, which will take
testimony from victims of religious intolerance.

"The religious community needs to publicly acknowledge its participation in
racism, and how its theology has been used to perpetuate racism," she said.
"We also need to work together across faiths to be part of the solution."

Dr. Loretta Williams, Director of the Gustavus Myers Program for the Study
of Bigotry and Human Rights in Boston, Mass., and a member and former
Convenor of the NCC Racial Justice Working Group, commented that she was
eager to learn about "best practices" from around the world in fighting
racism, and to hear the perspectives of other people from around the world
on racism.

"Americans too often limit their understanding of racism to simple
'prejudice,' but it's much more than that," she commented.  "We need to
understand the structural issues.  Racism plays out differently in different
countries and in different parts of the globe."

While in South Africa, Dr. Williams also will participate in the September
3-7 U.N. Research Institute for Social Development in Durban, and in
educational opportunities being offered by South African groups to expose
U.N. conference participants to the realities of life in post-apartheid
South Africa.

Czerny Brasuell, Director of Multicultural Affairs at Bates College in
Lewiston, Maine, and Co-Convenor of the NCC Racial Justice Working Group,
said she looks forward to following up on the connections she made during
the Americas and European preparatory committee meetings with global African
and African-descendant non-governmental organizations working on reparations
and related issues.

"Reparations as a principle of law must be affirmed, and the principle of
self-determination requires that each affected group be allowed to define
and devise for itself the form of reparations that best responds to its
particular condition," she said.

In addition, she noted that the universality of racism requires groups like
the NCC's Racial Justice Working Group to be in ever closer contact and
solidarity with similar groups around the world.

"Given the range of issues and communities of color with which we are
concerned," she said, "the World Conference Against Racism provides an
incredible opportunity for us to hear directly from those who are working at
the forefront of the anti-racism movement inside and outside of the United
States."

Judith Pierre-Okerson, Director of the Church World Service Miami, Fla.,
Office, a United Methodist, brings particular concern for the rights of
refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers.

"I'm concerned at reports that the issue of refugee protection has been
taken off the agenda of the U.N. World Conference Against Racism," she said.
"I hope that will be reconsidered.

"So many refugees are fleeing racism, ethnic intolerance and xenophobia -
remember what happened to the Kosavar not long ago?" she said.  "And they
are so often targets of racism in countries of refuge - Proposition 187 in
California is such an example.

"Church World Service puts high priority on refugee protection and
assistance, and we'll be pressing for reinstatement of refugee protection to
the conference's agenda," she said.

The NCC/CWS team to the conference also includes Anne Marshall, Associate
General Secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and
Interreligious Concerns of the United Methodist Church, New York City, Chair
of the NCC Ecumenical Networks Commission and member of the Council's
Executive Board.

-end-

See related story: Discussion of Controversial Issues Important, Says
NCC/CWS Team to United Nations World Conference Against Racism