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CENTRAL FLORIDA PRESBYTERIANS LEARN ABOUT ANTI-RACISM WORK
by Rev. Jody Mask, Anti-Racism Committee Member

The day after the fall stated meeting of Central Florida Presbytery, a group of around twenty folks gathered at Harvest Church in Winter Garden to participate in an Anti-Racism Training workshop. The presbytery’s guest speakers, Rev. Dr. Letiah Fraser and Nick Pickrell, conducted the training. Pickrell was a founding leader of The Open Table in Kansas City, a “dinner church” that “creates space for hospitality, conversation, peace, and reconciliation with theology rooted in contemplation and liberation. Rev. Dr. Fraser is the current pastor.
 
After group members introduced themselves, they watched a video clip from 1969 when James Baldwin appeared on The Dick Cavett Show. In it, Baldwin related a truth that largely holds to this day:
 
I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only include what they feel from the state of their institutions. I don't know if white Christians hate Negros or not, but I know that we have a Christian Church, which is white and a Christian Church, which is black. I know as Malcolm X once put it, the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. That says a great deal for me about a Christian nation, it means I can't afford to trust most white Christians and certainly cannot trust the Christian Church.
 
The group then shared a confessional reading and pledged to enter into the training with a spirit of curiosity and wonder, and exit it with questions including “How have I seen this play out?” and “What will I do with this information?”
 
The workshop began in earnest with a group exercise where folks wrote down their definitions of racism on Post-It notes and posted them together on a whiteboard. Power differentials and proximity to whiteness emerged as common themes. Together, the trainees realized that racism is not individual bigotry or prejudice alone; rather, it depends on the misuse or abuse of systemic institutional power.
 
Historically, proximity to “whiteness” (which is not limited to skin color, but denotes what Isabella Wilkerson has identified as the dominant caste in America) has determined one’s ability to realize “the American dream.” With this understanding in mind, participants, including black, brown, and white folks alike, shared personal experiences of racial inequity, particularly in church settings. Such honest discussion revealed that church silence regarding racial disparities in American society is tantamount to complicity with the status quo.
 
With this knowledge in mind, participants watched a video showing the need to go beyond being “non-racist” to “anti-racist.” Next, they engaged in an exercise called “centering the borderlands ”that showed the need to share power with folks who live in those borderlands, i.e. those who are far removed from places of power and privilege.
 
Workshop leaders then introduced the basics of community organization to the participants. Some keys to the process include defining the issue, identifying power players, creating a plan, taking action, and evaluating the results. Throughout organizing activities, groups must remember that failure will occur and helps teach. Also, rest is critical to the success of any organizing effort. After learning these basics, participants worked in small groups to imagine scenarios in which they could organize for a cause, whether it was anti-racist in nature or something else. The point was to put the elements of organizing into practice.
 
As a reminder of the lifelong, even generational, nature of anti-racism work, the workshop’s final segments consisted of a brief survey of the history of racism in the Western context. “Highlights” included the following:
  • Pope Alexander VI issued the Papal Bull Inter Caetera in 1493, and the resulting “Doctrine of Discovery” elevated European interests over those of native Americans, and gave a Christian seal of approval to systematic oppression of anyone not from Europe--especially native Americans and imported enslaved Africans.
  • Racism is rooted in the history of labor. A prime example of this is the headright system used in the original 13 colonies of America. Headrights were land grants given to people who paid for imported laborers to work the land in what was first an indentured servitude scheme, but later progressed into slavery as landowners looked to the African trade in humans.
 
From this overview of milestones in the development of American racism, participants once again broke into small groups. Each was assigned to quickly research and speak about a U.S. law or policy that featured racist elements. A prime example of this was the Home Owners Loan Corporation, an aspect of The New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt. It is often identified as an originator of mortgage redlining, the practice of devaluing African American neighborhoods by deeming them to be “high-risk” for the purposes of mortgage lending.
 
The workshop concluded with explorations of the cycle of socialization, a housing and ethnicity exercise, and a list of characteristics of white supremacy culture. Participants left with more knowledge, humbled hearts, and renewed resolve to be more anti-racist in their work. The workshop had enough material for two days, but Letiah and Nick did a great job presenting it in one.
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