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The United Methodist Church made a prophetic witness against
racism during the civil rights revolution, and we are committed
to becoming a truly inclusive Church. However, the face of racism
in America has changed from the crudeness of segregation to more
sophisticated but equally oppressive forms. If our Church is to
maintain a strong witness against racism and for an inclusive
Church, we need an analysis in keeping with the times.
Because of past inequality of opportunity and because of
continuing discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities,
it is Pan-Africans, Latinos, and Native Americans who are hardest
hit by rising unemployment. Because they have been kept at the
bottom of the economic ladder in numbers disproportionate to
their percentage of the general population, they are the first
and the hardest hit by cuts in welfare, health care, education,
and by harsher prison conditions and parole policies. These
policies, seemingly racially neutral on their face, are harshly
racist in their effect and implementation. One of the most
blatant forms of this new sanitized racism is the rising clamor
for imposition of the death penalty. Over 85 percent of the men
on death row in United States prisons are Pan-African and Latino.
This is due in large measure to their economic inability to
afford high-priced legal representation, but this is never
mentioned openly by those who cry the modern equivalent of
"Crucify him!"
The new face of racism requires new remedies. To this end, we
call for:
1. the General Commission on Religion and Race to develop new
programs to unmask and eliminate racism in its new guises;
2. every annual conference to conduct anti-racism training
programs, with a list of organizations and groups who provide
such training to be provided by GCORR;
3. continued United Methodist opposition to the death penalty,
emphasizing its disproportionate impact upon racial and ethnic
persons; and
4. local churches to become intentionally multicultural and to
share power with those they seek to include.
It is a simple issue of justice that we must ensure that racial
and ethnic and women clergy who serve churches in economically
depressed and/or blighted communities receive fair and equitable
compensation. We strongly recommend that all annual and
missionary conferences take appropriate steps to meet minimum
salary and housing standards for pastors who serve in these
circumstances.
In addition, we call for local, state, and national governments
to place greater emphasis on education, job creation, drug
rehabilitation, and community development than on building
prisons, hiring police, and the imposition of the death penalty.
ADOPTED 1996
From The Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church--1996. Copyright ©1996 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Used by permission.
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