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Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic shift in the way organizations around the country are conducting business. For the first time in the history of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the organization will not hold an in-person General Assembly. This year the 224th General Assembly, originally scheduled to be held in Baltimore, will be a virtual event.
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those who were enslaved, in January 1863. However, it wasn’t until two years later, on June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. After this, more than 250,000 slaves across Texas learned that they were free.
On Friday, an independent group of United Nations human rights experts released the sort of statement we are used to seeing about other nations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a tremendous toll on communities of color across the country. And while black and brown people are adversely affected in times of health and economic crisis because of decades of systemic racism and poverty, they remain resilient in their ability to forge ahead despite structural obstacles.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Law and order exists for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” Is the current unrest around the country and particularly in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Louisville, Kentucky, a result of decades of law and order failing in its purpose to establish justice?
Honoring the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Brionna Taylor, and George Floyd, the Racial Equity Advocacy Committee and the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns issue a call to immediate action, reminding the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) we are accountable to the commitments we have made.
In its latest grant cycle, the Mission Development Resources Committee (MDRC) recently approved 11 Mission Program Grants to new worshiping communities and two to presbyteries for their congregational transformation work.
The Rev. Laura Cheifetz was halfway through her presentation in Monday’s “COVID at the Margins” discussion of anti-Asian racism when she advised that sensitive viewers might want to hit the “mute” button.
After a successful first outing looking at the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus pandemic on communities of people who are black, the “COVID at the Margins” series returns at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, May 18, with a look at a community experiencing overt racism due to the virus: people who are Asian and Asian-American.
The feel-good line “We’re all in this together” has been an oft-repeated refrain during the coronavirus crisis, but for some minorities, feeling the brunt of the pandemic, it doesn’t ring true.
