Presbytery of East Virginia to discuss racial justice at upcoming meeting

Event includes screening of documentary ‘Racial Taboo’

By Rick Jones | Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE – The Presbytery of East Virginia hopes to generate conversation around the issue of racism at its meeting this month. The Racial Dialogue Team of the presbytery’s Peacemaking Committee is inviting local churches and interested parties to the presbytery meeting on Saturday, Jan. 27, at Providence Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach.

“Our peacemaking committee put this together based on a survey we did about a year ago,” said Lisa Schlickenmeyer, co-chair of the Racial Dialogue Team. “We asked commissioners which social justice issues they were interested in exploring and learning about, and by far, racial justice issues were the things people were most interested in.”

The discussion will include a screening of the documentary “Racial Taboo,” written and directed by C. Brian Grimm. The film looks at the issue of racism and has often served as a catalyst for conversation, according to producers.

“We hope to team up with black and white churches in the area in close proximity, to start the dialogue and conversations about racial justice and try to come together and get to know each other better,” said Claudette Gravely, team co-chair. “We hope to be able to work together to improve things in our community.”

Both Schlickenmeyer and Gravely say it is part of their ongoing effort to engage other churches.

“We hope attendees will be interested in showing this film themselves with neighboring churches and that people will be anxious to be in conversation and study these issues,” Schlickenmeyer said. “Many of us have taken part in the ‘Waking Up White’ study, among others.”

“We attended a few trainings on evangelism and began talking about ways to make our churches more diverse, so we decided we would start with us,” Gravely said. “I think it will have a big impact because our members are very discouraged by what they’ve seen and heard these past 12 months. We have some serious concerns and we decided we would have to take things into our own hands and do something about it in our communities.”

Gravely says there are already programs in place in east Virginia, where interfaith leaders are trying to make a difference.

“There’s an organization in Norfolk where ministers from different denominations have started a dialogue and they’re making headway,” she said. “They started a program to ride along with police officers and when someone is arrested, they try to make that person more human to the arresting officer so we don’t have these situations pop up and we are encouraged by that. We want people to feel more inclusive when they step into our churches and try to make things better.”

Meeting organizers say registration begins at 9 a.m., followed by worship and a showing of the film. The meeting will include small group discussion and large group follow-up.

Schlickenmeyer believes racial healing in the U.S. needs to begin with the church.

“There could be all kinds of government initiatives and there are already laws in place, but that doesn’t mean they are just and fairly executed,” she said. “We feel strongly it has to come through the church and we are ready to start this dialogue and really get people involved with what’s going on as far as racial justice is concerned.”

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