During General Convention, several dozen Episcopalians from around the country and world squeezed into a hotel breakout room to have a deeply personal reflective conversation about racism. At an event organized by the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, participants were asked to reflect on their own experiences with racism and how they could help overcome it in their communities.
A large contingent of youth participated in the event. In this video, Michael McAdams, Ashley Seeley, Jacqui Maes, Kinnon McPeak, Sergio Trinidad-Estrada and Christian Knafla talk about their experience — and how they would like the see the church respond to racism.
“I want to see the church talk about it more,” McAdams said. “At my church, we mention Ferguson, we mention the situation with Eric Garner, we mention Charleston. But we never actually talked about them in depth. It was kind of like … ‘Oh, this is what happened, let’s do churchy stuff now.’ So I want to have that conversation in church.
“I just wish we would get to a point where we didn’t have to have these tragedies happen every week, it seems, to have the conversation get started.”
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhNiJ-UYV_I&feature=youtu.be]