Andrews University to Host Race and Justice Event
By AT News Team, April 6, 2015: Andrews University, the flagship educational institution of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is hosting a four-day conversation on race and justice in America (April 8-11). Nightly events will use various formats—panel discussion, film and presentations—to consider race issues within Adventism as well as the wider North American society.
This gathering comes approximately one month after Andrews University students held an event exploring the roots and future of racially divided conferences in eastern and mid-western regions of the United States.
To launch the Social Justice Summit on Wednesday night, a racially diverse panel of young men will share their experience of race and justice in America. “We keep talking about the experience of young men, but we rarely hear from them,” event planner and Andrews University social work professor Twyla Smith told Adventist Today.
A film on race and the criminal justice system will be screened on Thursday night. The New Jim Crow probes issues surrounding drugs and incarceration rates. The screening will end with a question-and-answer session and two brief student presentations on advocacy and related themes.
Steve Yeagley will speak for vespers on Friday night, addressing the question: How has the Adventist Church been involved, either positively or negatively, on the topic of race and justice in America? Yeagley is the assistant vice president of student life at Andrews University.
On Saturday afternoon Paul Buckley will speak about racial justice and Christianity. Buckley is assistant vice president at Colorado College and director of the Butler Center, which promotes diversity and inclusion on the school’s campus.
Following Buckley’s presentation, Andrews University students and faculty will present five break-out sessions. Smith told Adventist Today that break-out topics will include health outcomes for minorities, race consciousness, lessons from Ferguson (MO), developing legislation, and the relationship between privilege and micro-aggression.
Schedule:
- Wednesday (April 8), Panel discussion, 7:00pm, Seminary Chapel
- Thursday (April 9), Screening of The New Jim Crow, 7:00pm, Seminary Chapel
- Friday (April 10), Race, Justice, and Adventism, 7:00pm, Pioneer Memorial Church
- Saturday (April 11), Race, Justice and Christianity, 4:00pm, Seminary Chapel; 6:00pm Break-out Sessions
Related Articles:
- Adventist Institutions Confront Racism, Consider Way Forward (March 12, 2015)
- Adventist Denominational Leaders Address Issues of Ethnicity & Structure (March 26, 2015)
I saw the footage of the most recent shooting of an unarmed black man, 50-year-old Walter Scott, who was shot in the back a number of times by a white policeman. There was also 17-year-old Trayvon Benjamin Martin who was shot and killed on February 26, 2012 and Eric Garner about eight months ago. Both young and old victims have only one thing in common: their skin colour. It would be very very naive indeed to arbitrarily dismiss that such a horrific pattern of excessive abuse and violence against unarmed black people is not one which stems largely from racism. The fact is that racism presents itself in many ugly forms which often goes unnoticed, however, it is still apparently alive and kicking in the US.
When the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Benjamin Martin was discussed right here on these boards, the whole article was removed, comments and all, when things heated up a bit. I wonder if the Andrews discussion will chicken out also.
It is a well known fact that the police often act as the henchmen of the state and in turn society as a whole. Racism in the US runs much deeper than many would have us believe. It is therefore the institutionalised racism that is to me the worst kind that manifests itself in such instances where the racist actions of perpetrators are protected thereby allowing them to get away with murder and where they know that the chances of getting caught or convicted is very slim.
The criminal justice system therefore, in turning a blind eye to such racism, further entrenches such evil as a norm. Black man = guilty as charged. The killings, and the subsequent failure of the criminal justice system to take real noticeable action against such atrocities shows the that the courts are more interested in the big money issues where real money is valued more than real lives of blacks.
It is rather evident that the disparate treatment of African Americans is pervasive throughout US society. The excessive force and brutality meted out against blacks can be seen by the large number of similar incidents that have been reported. But that too may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Are African Americans really free in the land of the free?
Perhaps the US should first free and protect their own people before wanting to free the whole world.
I grew up for the most part of my life in a racist society where a minority white government oppressed black people in every way possible. The US has a majority white society and we can see how the racism does emerge. Perhaps Malcolm X was right: the white man’s chickens are coming home to roost.
Perhaps that is why an African hasn’t been chosen as GC President thus far.
We rarely hear from the young men because they are absent and the ones that are there are muted……
According to stats that are often cited Black men are killing many more other Black men than Whites are killing Blacks.
Where is the concern for that situation? What is the remedy?
On any given day people show concern for both the AIDS epidemic as well as cancer. We show concern for depressed Native American populations in Oklahoma as well as depressed populations in the Appalachian Mountains. We can show concern for the war in the Middle East as well as the tragedies occurring in the Sudan in Africa.
Plenty has gone on and is being done to address crime within the black community, unfortunately most of those efforts go unregarded by the media. Could more be done? Of course! But please don’t try to change the narrative. Let’s make sure that with the present incident, we are not afraid to call it what it is.
May I respectfully suggest that we not get caught up in the Al Sharpton syndrome where every act by a White person is translated into racism. I wonder whether there is any one person who has so damaged race relations as has Sharpton.
Mocking what one writes here to me is a demonstration of — you name it.
Maranatha
“It is a well known fact that the police often act as the henchmen of the state and in turn society as a whole. Racism in the US runs much deeper than many would have us believe.”
I cannot agree that it is that deep. That’s what the race hustlers want everyone to believe. There’s more but I have other things to do.