Coalition Description & Values

The Bishop’s Task Force on Race and Culture was formed to proactively strengthen inclusivity, actively honor diversity, level-set equity and cultivate belonging in the Rio Texas Conference.

Along our journey, as a team, we have shared personal stories, been vulnerable, and at points disagreed while learning from each other’s perspectives. The transforming power of the Holy Spirit has accompanied us and will continue to guide our work as Anti-Racism Equity Coalition.

We believe in the Triune God, whose very nature is relational. We believe in God as Creator, who delights in diversity, in every part of creation. We believe in Jesus Christ, who taught and healed through radically inclusive love. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, who challenges and inspires God’s people to create communities of equity. We all dream, have faults and live in God’s grace. Yet when we validate humanity, human dignity, and each person’s imago dei, we fulfill our call as people of God. 

Our charge as Anti-Racism Equity Coalition is to animate the Conference to embody Equity, Diversity and Inclusion [EDI], and we define these terms as follow:

Equity is ensuring all people have fair access, opportunity, resources, and power to thrive, including eliminating systemic barriers and privileges.

Diversity is the variety of people and ideas within an organization.

Inclusion is creating an environment in which all individuals are valued and connected.

Sermon at San Antonio La Trinidad UMC

Reading List for Anti-Racism

·      The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Woodson

·      The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

·      Bonhoeffer and the Racialized Church by Ross E. Halbach

·      Woke Church by Eric Mason 

·      Racism and the Church by Dr. James E. Collins

·      Be the Bridge - Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation by Latasha Morrison

·      White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

·      The Race Reader by This Land Press, Hannibal B. Johnson, et al.

·      Before the Land Run: The Historic All-Black Towns of Oklahoma by Cheryl A. Coleman

·      Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District by Hannibal B. Johnson

·      So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

·      The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

·      White Kids - Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey

·      Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

·      Two Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage by Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin

·      How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide by Crystal Fleming

·      The Ethnic Project: Transforming Racial Fiction into Ethnic Factions by Vilna Bashi Treitler

·      Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach by Tanya Golash Boza

·      Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations by Joe Feagin

·      White Rage; the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

·      Black Americans by Alphonso Pinkney

·      Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet Washington

·      The Hollywood Jim Crow: The Racial Politics of the Movie Industry by Maryann Erigha

·      Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life by Elijah Anderson

·      The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

·      Black Wealth/White Wealth by Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro

·      Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad

·      Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

·      Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

·      Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom

·      The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein



Rio Texas Committee on Race & Culture

 

Abigail Gutierrez

 

Carolyn Pittman

 

Miguel Padilla

 

Dr. Pamela Owens - Consultant

 

Isabella Lopez

 

James Amerson

 

Katie Myers

 

Rev. Dr. Marcus Freeman

 

Fernanda Casar

Ralph Thompson

 

Others not pictured:
Robert Elizondo
Wade Powell
Matthew Ortiz