Day 2 Part 2 - White privledge and an interracial discussion

Saturday June 3.

I went to another pre-assembly workshop. "Equipping the Church for Ministry with God's diverse family". When I attended, I actually thought this was going to be about drawing a diversity of people to the church. It turned out to be a discussion on racism. We got to hear from a African American county preacher (Jerrod), a Native American (Buddy), a African American woman((Catrelia) and a white woman named Ann. Jerrod was young and charismatic country preacher (self proclaimed) and called us to fight racism simply by calling on the power of the raised voice. It is a tool you have, it doesn't cost money, it doesn't take too much effort, it just takes guts. Buddy's message was similiar, there are too many people in the world whose voices have long since been silenced. We don't hear or pay attention. Catrelia was born in NC in a "colored wing" of the hospital. Went to an all black school (segregated on purpose) and told us the only jobs for the black kids was picking cotton. When hearing this, it makes us realize how far we have come but it was when Ann spoke that I realized how far we have to go. Ann talked about white privledge. Whites still have huge unspoken advantage over other races. They are more likely to get the job, get the loan, get a better quality education. After the talk, I sat around a fully integrated table and we discussed what diversity we had in our communities and what we could do to make it better. I was embarassed to say that I live in Mason, Ohio where there is very little divesity and even though we are starting to get a bit more racially diverse, there is very little socio-economic diversity.