What is the racial make-up of your congregation?

[marc]

Does hillbilly count as a separate ethnic group?

I do agree that much needs to be done to improve racial attitudes.  We are located in an all-white area, and unfortunately several of our members have openly racist attitudes.

[Fate]

:)     Thought this chart might help the discussion
 
Ethnicity                                       Percent                   Percent of
                                                    of Total                     US Population
   
   
   
White               1,216,800           93.6%                       69.1%                   White   

   

African Am.   57,200                 4.4%                     12.3%                   Afr. Amer.
   
   

Hispanic             23,400                1.8%                          12.5%                  Hispanic   



Other                  3,900                 0.3%                           5.5%                     Other

   

                                                                                         3.6%                      Asian   

   
   
Total Membership   1,300,000       100%   
   
Source: Mac Lynn (2000);

Ministers at the Millennium, ACU Press 2000

[janine]

Thanks to all who have been asking about my dry-ness or lack thereof.  Things are fine for me, besides the dreadful inconvenience of having my family all together under one roof for almost three solid days  (ooh, the agony).  And Mike's having bought $168.00 worth of "hurricane food", canned soups we like, kippers, pickled herring, etc.  "Candy", unlike the brown rice, fresh produce & fatless meats we try to stick with.

Well, now we won't be without electricity or clean water, so I guess I'll be a good girl & store the hurricane food away against future need.  (Yeah, right.  I won't be able to keep the locusts, ah, Mongol hordes, uh, family out of it!)

Anyway... I do my bit to disrupt any work Satan wants to do by playing upon our usually unnoticed prejudices.

[janine]

I was pleased when I worked for this past U.S. Census to see the expansion of choices available for identification of the interview-ee's background.

In fact, if you had the "long form", you could write in just about anything.

There were separate sections for race vs. ethnicity.

So, if you a were Cuban-born naturalized U.S. citizen, and one parent was of West African ancestry, and the other was half Aleut "Eskimo" and half Pacific Islander, there was a place for you on the form!

If you wanted to skip parts, or identify yourself as only "American" you could.

Someone like Tiger Woods, who has at least four ancestral backgrounds that he can easily identify, at last had a Census form that included him.  No more "Other", if he didn't want it.

Since I was to help people fill out the forms if they needed help, with no editorial comments on my part, if they wanted to put down "Martian" they could.  I got nothing like that, though.  

I'm waiting (not eagerly, just with resolve) for the furor that may arise when some racially mixed couple moves to my congregation.  Or when one of our already-established young people courts and marries someone of another race.

It has already happened that a young man of one race was attending services before he had to move away, and his girlfriend of another race, who had had his child, was accepted and urged to continue to visit with us... Were folks just happy to see her?  Hoping they would marry?  I'm not sure if it was widely known who she was.

Despite what I may think sometimes, the Christians at my congregation do not routinely gossip.  Otherwise all of us would always know what was going on all the time. :p

I've always loved the study of ancestry and ethnicity and culture as relates to ideals of beauty, etc.

[spurly]

I was just wondering about the racial make-up of the congregations the people on this board attend.

In general, I think the Restoration movement churches need to do more to reach out to minorities.  Does your congregation do any special programs to try to bridge the gap?

Kevin

[janine]

Ours is about half-and-half racially, but the cultural, socio-economic & ethnic factor mixture cuts across the old pie chart every which way, making it more like a psychedelic chessboard.  (Hmmm... LSD flashbacks might explain a lot...)  :p  :D

Hey, Marc, do you ever find yourself in a position where it's productive to say something about it, when these misguided-ignorant-dim-witted-ego-bloated-get-a-life Christian brothers and sisters (aaauuughhhh!) say out-and-out racist stuff?

*Whew*... that felt good to unload.  Y'all try to imagine how garbled and filled with hotter language this post was before I previewed it & went back over it.

I have done what I could to address such things when they come up, but I'm afraid the best result it's had is that they don't say the stuff around me any more.

[marc]

Janine--you're not underwater, then?  Unless, of course, you have some newfangled computer that operates on seaweed and saltwater.

I have said things many times (very possibly one of the reasons I am no longer the youth leader here).  Have met with everything from denial to outright defiance.  Still haven't given up.

[Booty]

LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Here I sit in a country where race as an issue is practically non existent and I looked at the poll and discovered I might be a minority!! Then I remembered how on our recent trip with Sandi's granmum we had explored Sandi's heritage. During the discussion of her heritage racial terms were practically non existent, where the nation of origin of an ancestor was unknown, (98%), they would be described as tall, short, thin, fat, dark or fair.

I remember when we visited the USA and Sandi tried so hard to understand prejudice and racial differences, I remember her shock and pain when we encountered racial bias. Her confusion when learning of the way english have treated the Irish over the centuries and how Irish treat their own Tinkers. Her continued lack of understanding of the Troubles which persist to this day in the province of Ulster. Race is simply a foreign concept to this culture.
 
Now Sandi is "morena", brown. The probability is she has indigenous Indian, African, European blood. All we know for sure is she does have someone from Spain in recent generations. Now Basque? (Gaelic), Gallician? (Moorish) or Castillian? (Saxon) is simply unknown.....Spanish and nothing more.  

Her makeup is typical of the greater majority in the nation, Mestizos.... Mixes. Few "Racially Pure" people live here. The wife of the preacher in PLC, Beatriz, is like my own self, "Catire" which is an indian word for "fair". I truly believe if she never spoke, she could walk the streets of the USA and never be noticed. Yet if you ask you will find out her heritage is the same as Sandis, the proportions just vary. Refreshingly though, both of them respond to the race question simply, "Venezuelan". As will Aracelis who exhibits features which strongly indicate her African influence, or Anna whose Indian heritage is unmistakable.

Then I looked at my own self and wondered just what am I?  A prickly boyo that bristles should I be called WASP? (I am not Anglo Saxon and Protestant is too confining, White? More pink to be sure!) Uncomfortable when labeled Gringo, furious when called a Brit? Intensely proud of my Gaelic heritage while subduing my equally present Teutonic roots, (Yet all the while I actually speak slightly more German than I do either Irish or the Cant, (Gammon)). Even more perversely proud of my Tinker, Traveler, blood which continues to drag me across the globe.

Really a wonder what I am. Not quite a Venezuelan as I have a year to go to qualify for my nationality, yet so far separated from the land of my birth that I never will return to live there. And so long gone from the lands of my parents that even there I will always stand out if nothing else than by my accent in whatever language I speak.

So might there be a category added? I had to choose "Other" as our congregation is composed of Venezolanos and one very confused man.

[Skip]

Though our congregation is best described as "Mostly Caucasion with a handful of other races", considering that the community in which I live is also "Mostly Caucasion with a handful of other races", and my fellow employees are "Mostly Caucasion with a handful of other races", I suppose I could also have answered "A good mix of races" relative to the population in the area.

We have African-American, Latino, and Asian members (several of the first group, a small handful of the other two). The African-American numbers, happily, are growing, though the numbers of the other minorities are steady (as it is in the population in the area). Latino population is up in the region, but not in our community as yet.

I am happy to say that minorities are also included in the leadership, and among the teachers, and are vitally involved.
I won't say there is no racism, but I can say that I've never seen nor heard of racism in our congregation in my eight years.