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General Synod Update from the UCC Web Site.

SYNOD DELEGATES SEE 'COLOR OF FEAR,' VIVID PORTRAIT OF THE EVILS OF
RACISM 

Also:
UCC testimonies are most poignant.
Synod celebrates with 40th Anniversary Rap! 
Good News Department

Contact: Irwin Smallwood 
UCC Office of Communication 
July 6, 1997 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A denomination that has long been known for fighting
racism viewed a vivid portrait Sunday of the evils of racial division
that few if any of them had ever encountered before. 

Some 2,000 delegates and visitors here for the United Church of
Christ's General Synod 21 sat in rapt and sometimes stunned silence as
the 90-minute provocative film, "The Color of Fear," fairly burst into
their psyche from the big screen behind the stage of the cavernous
Columbus Convention Center. For more than an hour they saw and heard
eight men from diverse backgrounds verbally wrestle with one other and
themselves on a subject that plagues the church and society across the
nation. 

The film, produced and directed by Lee Mun Wah of Oakland, Calif.,
included selected sounds and sights of conversations between the
eight - two African Americans, two Latinos, two Asian Americans and
two Euro Americans - over a period of three days spent isolated in a
remote nothern California coastal town. 

What the audience saw was not always a pretty sight. There was
shouting, as well as a touch of occasional raunchy and profane
language. The faces of the men in the movie reflected up-close
personal hurt as stories of past experiences unfolded along with
accusations, apologies, confessions, and constant signs of the need
for understanding across racial lines. 

"I'm here because I am a racist," said one at the outset. 

"America means white to me," said another. 

"Is clinging to one's heritage the problem?" asked another. 

Then it got more than a little testy, with one man raising his voice
to high decibels reflecting deep-seated anger. "Racism is essentially
a white problem," he declared, unfolding the pain of his life
experiences.

The words Mun Wah spoke in setting the tone for the film struck home
as thunder. "The story you are about to see is shocking and will make
you feel uncomfortable," Mun Wah had said in his soft delivery 30
minutes earlier, "but it is about time. ... The hurt has not been
heard...." Now the audience understood his warning. 

"You're the same as I am but just don't believe it," struck back one
of the movie's Euro-Americans a little later when he felt particularly
under fire, but his words did not convince many. 

Then one of the angry ones fired a salvo that really made the audience
squirm - the UCC is a denomination that is approximately 94 percent
white.

"What does it mean to be white?" he asked in a voice growing more
intense as the words fell from his lips. "What is the white
experience?"

He answered his own questions: "White means never having to say you're
sorry ... [they] don't have to think about their background or worry
about being white. ... They step into a world that is theirs...." 

It struck a nerve, and the reply was one of frustration: "It makes me
feel unwanted ... I don't understand your anger ... I do not find you
to be an enemy ..." 

On and on it went, Asian and Latino pain now emerging, though seldom
with the intensity of the black-on-white confrontations. The stories
came more easily, and candor more pronounced. 

"Certain [people] have reacted to me like [I was] a thug and I hated
it," said one of the black men. 

"If I faced a white audience I would say that what I want from you is
justice, because I cannot love you until I get justice," said one of
Asian descent. 

"There is no quick fix. The cure for the pain is the pain," said
another. 

Now it was getting near the end. The conversation became more
confessional. They all had explored who they were to one extent or the
other. An appreciation for one another began to emerge, as did a tear
or two, as Mun Wah closed the conversation. Then came the music as the
credits rolled: "May the work I have done speak for me ... may the
truth I have told speak for me ..." 

The audience picked up the beat and, when it had ended, began to stand
until all were on their feet, applauding in a way that said, "We hear
you, we thank you!" 

It had been a morning to remember in the life of the United Church of
Christ. 

TESTIMONIES OF UCC MEMBERS ARE THE MOST POIGNANT 

Contact: Michelle Carter 
UCC Office of Communication 
July 6, 1997 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - "The Color of Fear" may have shocked and jolted the
General Synod delegates and visitors Sunday morning as producer Lee
Mun Wah promised, but it was the quiet testimony of their own - Frank
Thomas, Arthur Cribbs, Tolonda and Sue Henderson - that moved them. 

The raw and powerful dialogue of the eight men showcased in the
documentary left the 2,000 or so gathered in the plenary hall of the
Greater Columbus Convention Center with their emotions exposed and
their defenses down. Then Lee Mun Wah carried his crusade against
racism to the people who, four years ago, declared themselves on a
journey to create a multicultural, multiracial church. 

He asked if anyone in the crowd had ever found themselves the only
person of color in a room full of white people. Among the people who
stood, he asked Frank Thomas, the vice moderator of the General Synod,
an African-American man, to come to the stage. Once there, Mun Wah
asked Thomas to express his feelings when a white man approached him
in such a gathering. 

"I was embarrassed - and suspicious," Thomas said in a strong, quiet
voice. "I wanted to know what his motivation was." He wondered if he
was being patronized by this white man. 

Then, with Thomas still standing there, Lee Mun Wah asked the
questions he attributed to white people who had heard about the
successes of a black man. How did he get into college? Surely
affirmative action was the answer and surely he wasn't taking science.
How did he get that executive appointment? Surely affirmative action
was the answer. 

He turned to Thomas; had that ever happened to him? What did he feel? 

Angry ... discouraged ... frustrated ... abused ... invalidated. 

After Thomas left the stage, Lee Mun Wah posed another situation. Had
anyone there ever been stopped by the police only because of the color
of his or her skin? Once, twice, five times? He pointed to the man in
the white shirt in the back of the hall and the Rev. Arthur Lawrence
Cribbs Jr., director of the Office of Communication, came forward with
his young daughters, Camille and Mika. 

With his voice quavering a bit, Cribbs described the first time this
had happened to him: "When I was 11 years old," he said, "I had to lay
spread eagle on the lawn" while the police searched him. 

And what has been the effect of that and similar experiences? 

"Today," he said slowly and thoughtfully, "it's difficult to trust the
police, to call the police, even when I need to." 

While one daughter squirmed in his arms and another played beside him
on the stage, Cribbs explained how shared experiences like that one
lead people of color to expect injustice from the justice system.
"That's why there was a sense of relief when O.J. Simpson was
acquitted, that an African-American man could go through a trial and
be acquitted," he said. 

In the same way, he said many people of color weren't surprised that
another black man, Geronimo Pratt, could spend 27 years in prison for
a crime he didn't commit. They were surprised that his innocence was
recognized and he was released. 

Lee Mun Wah had another question: How does it feel when people
mispronounce your name? He ventured out in the audience and approached
a man of color in the second row. 

"My name is Juan Pie (pronounced 'pea-uh'), but most people don't say
it right. Sometimes people I've worked with for 11 years old still
can't pronounce my name. I wonder if they care how it feels." 

Lee Mun Wah asked him to pronounce his name again. "My name is Juan
Pie." The congregation repeated his name. "Now I feel accepted," he
said, nodding his head. "Now I do!" 

A 19-year-old from Nashua, N. H., expressed the frustration of an
unusual name. "I tell them it's Tolonda: to (like your toe)-lon (like
the grass)-and da, like 'duh' are you so stupid you can't pronounce
it?"

She talked about the unuusal character of her name and then turned to
her mother, Sue Henderson, and hugged her. "Mom, I want to thank you
for my name." 

Lee Mun Wah asked Sue Henderson what she, as a mother of color, had to
tell her daughter about life as a woman of color. 

"Raising a daughter in a predominantly white environment is difficult
and yet I want her to know her roots and her heritage and how
wonderful her people are," she said. "I want her to know that we are
survivors. We are strong, very strong." 

QUOTES OF THE DAY:

"I was embarrassed to be on that stage. I hadn't expected the question
and I didn't expect to be up there. All of a sudden I was 11 years old
again, spreadeagled on my grandmother's lawn and scared. And it was
that 11 year old who was talking. I've never experienced anything like
it." 
-- The Rev. Arthur Lawrence Cribbs, Jr., about being called forth by
Lee Mun Wah to describe a bad police experience. 

"Let me tell you 'bout a church that started back in '57 
with a march and a handshake and a lot of prayers to heaven. 
Wagner, Hoskins, Louis Goebbels, with the vision that was noble. 
Jesus prayed that the people would be one; 
separation of churches, something had to be done, 
'cause the walls between Christians showed the world the wrong thing. 
'57 Synod helped 2 million sing ... "

"Last but not least is how we praise and worship 
as the U-double-C. 
Preaching and teaching. Sitting at the table.
Trusting in G-O-D, 'cause we know we're able. 
It's the nine-oh's and the U-C's still stable. 
The future is wide open because the world needs the Word: 
Justice and hope no longer deferred. 
So we take a hard look at the last 40 years: 
Blood sweat and tears. Overcoming fears. 
Now we look ahead to the 2040 vision: 
What does God see? 'Cause the world is in prison. 
God's will be done - and U-double-C to the world is one." 

-- First and last stanzas of the UCC 40th Anniversary Rap - words by
Hans Holznagel - performed during General Synod at the 40th
Anniversary Celebration on July 6. 

Other Synod News:

GOOD NEWS DEPARTMENT: Four million dollars in sales: that's how well
"The New Century Hymnal" has been selling, the Rev. Thomas Dipko,
Executive Vice President of the United Church Board for Homeland
Ministries, announced Saturday evening at the UCBHM dinner. "What that
really means," he grinned, "is that the bills are paid." 

MORE GOOD NEWS: Dipko also announced that with an investment by Back
Bay Mission in Biloxi, Miss., the Cornerstone Fund recently passed $5
million in investments. The Cornerstone Fund accepts investments by
individuals and churches and uses the funds to help build churches,
resolve accessibility problems and spread the gospel. 

TEARS FLOWED FREELY at the UCBHM dinner as friends remembered the Rev.
Susan E. Lyon, a talented and committed person with disabilities, who
died last September from a fall in her home in Connecticut. Rita Fiero
and the Rev. David Denham of the UCC's National Committee on Persons
with Disabilities remembered Susan as a gifted pastoral counselor and
a compassionate administrator, while her father, Pro Lyon, described
Susan's spiritual strengths that emerged from her personal struggles
and challenges. 

Contributors to the writing, editing and production of this update
were Michelle Carter, Evan Golder, Hans Holznagel, Barb Powell and
Irwin Smallwood. 

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