wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Young women at NNPCW event share tales of discrimination

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Note #8827 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05396
August 1, 2005

Prejudicial testimony

Young women at NNPCW event share tales of discrimination

by Mashadi Matabane

CHICAGO - About 35 young Presbyterian women from around the country shared
their experiences of prejudice during last week's annual leadership event of
the National Network of Presbyterian College Women (NNPCW).

	Once, for example, a middle-aged white woman stopped Rufaro Gwarada
on the street and asked, "Do you people feel the heat?"

	"She didn't even say hello first," said Gwarada, a senior at
University of The Pacific in Stockton, CA., "but I looked at her and said,
'Yes, I feel the heat' and explained that if I don't put on sunscreen, I
could get sunburn. 'Why, that's remarkable,' she said. ... I was thinking
'You people, who?'"

	Gwarada, who is originally from Zimbabwe, can laugh about the
incident now; but for her, it's a vivid reminder of how far we still have to
go in battling racism.

	"It's hard to be optimistic sometimes," she said, "but I am happy
about doing this particular leadership event, even though we've only started
to scratch the surface.

	"Everyone has preconceptions, misconceptions, and prejudices, and we
need to stop tip-toeing around the issue, stop being afraid of offending
someone, and shed tears if you have to," Gwarada said. "Go ahead and be
uncomfortable, because it's OK, that's part of the process."

	The conference, whose theme was, "Many Hands, One Spirit: Confronting
Prejudice through Education and Social Action," offered workshops on such
topics as white privilege, domestic violence and neglect of the environment.

	The four-day event, which ended on July 31, also included on-site
community service opportunities among people experiencing poverty,
homelessness and HIV/AIDS.

	Lucy Ortiz Perez's experience last Friday at Sarah's Circle, a day
shelter for "at-risk" women, reinforced her commitment to live her life on
the basis of Biblical principles.

	"Jesus teaches us that we should not acknowledge our differences,
like, black and white, rich and poor, because we are all the same in his
eyes," she said.

	Ortiz Perez, a native of Puerto Rican, says she has encountered
prejudice in the United States. Those feelings of rejection, she said, made
her think she'd like to help children with incarcerated parents deal with a
similar sense of rejection.

	"I will do whatever it takes, because we can make a difference," she
said. "If you start doing something, anything, people will eventually follow
you."

	Participants also heard speakers discuss a broad range of issues
related to prejudice, going far beyond black and white.

	"Prejudice makes me angry," said La Sheena Simmons. She said she
attended the conference in hopes of learning how to confront prejudice,
because "I still haven't completely learned how, even though I'm
African-American."

	Simmons, who will go to Southern Methodist University's Perkins
School of Theology in the fall, has attended the three most recent leadership
conferences; she said this one affected her most, actually changing the way
she thinks about prejudice.

	"My concern before this was mainly with African-Americans," she said.
"I feel like there are opportunities for us out there, and we can't always
lean on prejudice as a crutch; but at the same time, it is still present,
just not always as obvious. Now I have a much stronger understanding outside
the African-American view of prejudice; I know more about prejudices
involving different disabilities, class and sexual orientation."

	Jennifer Ross, a Tennessean who will be a sophomore at Rhodes
College, said she is familiar with class prejudice. "I've seen a fair amount
on a day-to-day basis in Tennessee," she said. "People asking for money on
the street, or for your leftovers when you're coming out of a restaurant, and
the way some people negatively respond to them. My eyes have been opened a
lot."

	Ross, who is white, said the leadership event, her first, has
reinforced her determination to help stop class discrimination by educating
herself and others. "That is so very important, and NNPCW really stressed
that," she said, "especially through talking to different people, by
encouraging us to go outside of our comfort zones, even if it's just for a
little while. That's how you learn what kind of person you really are."

	Elizabeth Campbell, a recent graduate of Davidson College in North
Carolina and a member of the conference planning team, said she hopes any
discomfort participants experienced will spur them to keep asking and trying
to answer the hard questions.

	"I am so thankful for this community of young women," she said. "I
don't always believe that maybe we can overcome prejudice on a grand scale,
but on an individual scale, I do believe we truly can begin to combat
prejudice. Maybe it's naïve of me to feel this way but there's got to be
hope. What will our children think years from now if we don't do anything
now?"

	The NNPCW is a ministry of the Women's Ministries Program Area of the
National Ministries Division.

Mashadi Matanabe, a member of NNPCW's Racial Ethnic Task Force, is working
this summer as an intern at Seventeen magazine in New York City.

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