wfn.org | Presbyterian UN Office sponsoring seminar on combating global racism

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Note #6466 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

28-March-2001
01107

Presbyterian UN Office sponsoring seminar on combating global racism

Event in May will be held in New York City

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - There's only one race - the human race. 

The Presbyterian United Nations Office will make that point in May by
sponsoring a seminar in New York City on the global dimensions of racism and
intolerance.

The three-day conference, "The Challenge of Global Racism," will get under
way on May 16. Leaders will be from the United Nations, the Presbyterian UN
Office, and the global UN community.

"We hope the seminar will help participants tap into resources in the global
community to combat racism everywhere," said Laura Mariko Cheifetz,
gender-justice issues coordinator for the Presbyterian UN Office. "It's
important that we work to hold ourselves and others accountable for the
local and global racism we perpetuate."

Most seminar programs will be held in the Presbyterian UN Office in midtown
Manhattan. A tour of the United Nation's headquarters building also is
scheduled. The topics to be covered include: the Presbyterian Church's
historic and current commitment to ending racism; how environmental and
gender-related issues intersect with racism; religious intolerance and
xenophobia; racism against indigenous groups such as Native Americans; and
reparations for those who have been harmed by discrimination.

The keynote speakers will be Elissavet Stamatopoulou-Robbins and Clarence J.
Dias.
Stamatopoulou-Robbins, a deputy to the director in the United Nation's
office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, will speak about the
historic involvement of the UN in dealing with issues of race, current
manifestations of racism and xenophobia around the world, the UN's upcoming
"World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance," and how individuals can combat racism.

Dias is the president of the International Center for Law in Development, a
Third World non-governmental organization (NGO) concerned with human rights
in the development process. He will speak about economic justice, racism and
human rights.

The need for a racism seminar is not hard to see, organizers said; racism is
deeply imbedded in the attitudes and social structures of many societies. In
recent years the global community has witnessed brutal campaigns of violence
based on race, ethnicity and religion in places like Rwanda, the Sudan and
the former Yugoslavia, where patterns of discrimination affect minorities,
migrants and indigenous peoples.

The Presbyterian UN program supports the World Conference against Racism, to
be held in Durban, South Africa in August and September. Representatives of
UN bodies and agencies, governments, NGOs and ecumenical groups are expected
to attend.

"The World Conference Against Racism is an attempt to recognize new forms of
racism, and is focused on ways governments can be proactive in fighting
racism," said Cheifetz, who is coordinating a PC(USA) delegation to attend
the UN conference. "This is important to us, because Christians are called
to be witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Racism is a spiritual sin
that we in the church are called to combat. Racism pervades our everyday
existence and isn't contained by national boundaries."

The Presbyterian United Nations Office is part of the Presbyterian
Peacemaking Program in the Congregational Ministries Division. It serves as
a PC(USA) witness to issues faced by the United Nations, and provides
resources, tours and seminars to the church and church groups.

The deadline for registration is April 16. For more information, log on to
http://horeb.pcusa.org/peacemaking/racism.htm or contact the Presbyterian UN
Office by phone at (212) 697-4568, or by email at seminars@presbyun.org

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