Church takes on racism
Here’s a test:
What’s the first thing you think of when I say:
1. Catholic priest
2. Boy Scout Master
your answers are sad to say but true…
maybe the church should teach their priests on how NOT to sexually abuse little children. let’s start there and work up to racism.
RICHMOND, Va.
Like many faiths, the Episcopal Church has gradually seen more blacks and whites sitting shoulder to shoulder in pews. But when it comes to leading the flock, some church activists say minorities remain in the shadows.
For instance, only a trickle of blacks have been ordained diocesan bishops in some 130 years, evidence, say activists like Satoshi Ito, of white privilege.
Ito will join the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia in tackling the touchy subject in anti-racism training sessions this fall and winter.
It’s part of a national push requiring race-sensitive training as the denomination buckles down on “the sin of racism.”
They’ll use group activities, work sheets and frank, face-to-face conversations to highlight topics like minority stereotypes and how they impact attitudes throughout the diocese.
“We have widespread segregation–where people live, where people go to school, where people go to church,” said Ito, who’s organizing the sessions through the diocesan Anti-Racism Commission.
“The church is kind of a natural place for change to begin,” he said.
Denominations have increasingly confronted the issue of race, organizing efforts to diversify single-race congregations and making amends for their own histories of discrimination.
Recent coverage of racially charged subjects like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has further prodded churches to examine their role in promoting equality, said Susan Glisson, head of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, at the University of Mississippi.
“There continue to be inequalities in health care, in housing and education–traditionally, those are social justice issues that churches are deeply concerned about,” she said.
The Episcopal Church has mandated anti-racism training for national lay and clergy leaders.
A national team trains diocesan leaders; later, they may share their knowledge with church members in voluntary, multiracial sessions like those being held in southern Virginia.
The sessions are planned in each of the nine convocations in the diocese, which stretches from the south side of the James River at Richmond to the North Carolina border.
Attitudes–ranging from stereotyping to outright fear–are exposed during the daylong training sessions through storytelling and other group exercises.
In one exercise, participants sit face-to-face and share their first experiences with race.
Those include a white participant being warned not to use the “colored” water fountain. In one session, a woman recalled being steered away from people “like them”–blacks and other minorities, Ito said.
“What this girl, now in her sixties, kind of remembers is black people and white people are very different,” Ito said. “What’s planted at an early age in that kind of teaching moment, so to speak, affects her for the rest of her life.”
In the church, however, uneasy feelings don’t often become blatant bigotry.
“The real challenge that faces the trainers is to deal with what we refer to as white privilege,” he said. “White privilege is often very subtle, but at the same time, it’s very widespread.”
It’s a term organizers say can encompass everything from a white person’s feelings of guaranteed fairness in the workplace, to a black person’s sense of limited opportunities compared to their white counterparts.
Activists point to church leadership to illustrate the concept.
There have been 38 black bishops consecrated in the Episcopal Church over the past century–a low number even in a denomination where as many as 89.9 percent of congregations are predominantly white.
A diocesan bishop is the ecclesiastical authority in a diocese, elected by the diocese to serve until he or she retires or dies.
Only one minority person, an American-Indian woman, has risen to the role of bishop in southern Virginia in recent memory, according to the diocese. The diocese doesn’t compile how many minorities are rectors–the Episcopal equivalent of a pastor–though officials say the majority are white.
When it comes to the annual convention where diocesan mandates are issued, “it was being conducted by the white leaders of the diocese, as recently as two years ago,” said commission member David Benedict.
The dormant commission reformed a few years ago, in part, to help conduct anti-racism workshops.
“The (Episcopal) Diocese of Southern Virginia had become a very sleepy diocese and just wasn’t thinking much about that race really made much difference,” said Benedict, who thought the diocese’s current search for a new bishop offered an opportunity to show diversity goals in action.
In the 1990s, the Episcopal Church officially declared racism a sin, but saw little change in congregational attitudes, said the Rev. Jayne Oasin, social justice officer for the Episcopal Church.
“We had passed the resolution, but nobody really was talking about it,” Oasin said. “It was still the elephant in the living room.”
The church later created a five-level training program that examines forms of oppression.
Officials have used “Seeing the Face of God in Each Other” to train leaders in more than half of the 111 dioceses across the country, and to prepare those leaders to host their own training sessions.
“The goal, however, is not training,” Oasin said. “It’s transformation.”
Still, church leaders face an uphill battle tackling an emotionally charged subject, with few ways to determine when–and if–they’ve made progress.
Not everyone is convinced it can be done.
The Rev. Lynne Washington spent seven years helping organize racial sensitivity training for the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.
Again and again, she said, the same dozen people showed up to the sessions. Washington eventually left to head a community center.
“The whole notion of race relations training makes people uncomfortable,” she said. “The general public does not accept the fact that it’s their problem, not black people’s problem.”
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