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Okay to be serious ...
From 35 years of observation of the UPC's strongest districts, Louisiana and Texas, as well as the UPC in the south as a whole, I don't see where race relations were any worse than the world at large, but also not any better.
Blacks were pretty much looked at as "mascots" in the Louisiana and Texas Districts and not taken seriously as real leadership material.
Marvin Hicks preached Louisiana campmeeting in 1978.
He introduced a black couple that were starting a "black" church that came out of Calvary Tabernacle in Corpus.
He emphasized the "novelty" of this by saying behind the pulpit "these folks have been out in the sun too long and got a nice tan."
Yes, it was obviously meant for a good-natured joke. The campmeeting crowd of course laughed as well as the couple.
Of course they were just being good blacks in the UPC of the south in the seventies and knew their role as "mascots."
Even as intelligent a man as Tom Fred Tenney got caught up in the environment he was reared in around southwest Louisiana.
When Tenney was superintendent of Louisiana, a black choir from New Orleans sang at campmeeting. This was sometime in the eighties.
After the song, Tenney got up and said:
"There's not a prejudiced bone in my body so don't take this wrong. But we have just been treated to a Holy-Ghost-Chocolate-Sundae."
Again, it was meant to be a compliment laced with good-natured humor but even an intelligent and perceptive man like Tenney was subject to and his worldview affected by the rural south environment he grew up in.
Of course from today's perspective Hicks's statement was just plain ignorant and racist and Tenney's slightly less so.
I think in the Louisiana or Texas Districts of 2007 those statements would not be as well-accepted but in my opinion, I can't say they would go over like a lead balloon.
Face it, in the south most UPC "holiness standards"is a quixotic attempt to impose good old southern white-bread, white-boy, (well, for the world at large, it would be "beerbelly), orange-soda-belly culture on the entire world - at least on the entire culture of oneness pentecostalism.
It was good to see the New York Metro District with a multicultural board.
Of course in New York City, that's just a reflection of the population.
On the other hand, I find it ironic that the thread-starter claims to want to get away from "majoring on minors" and yet proceeds to do exactly that.
In black culture as a whole, their biggest hindrances are militant race-baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; shysters who prey on and make a good living from racial turmoil.
I live about 30 miles from Jena, Louisiana and saw that firsthand - the misrepresentations and lies the national media spread concerning the "Jena Six" would sink a battleship.
In the closed culture of the UPC and southern "apostolic" pentecostalism though, blacks have not near reached the stage of being "militant."
Even in 2007, from my observations, most seem to still be compliant "mascots" in an attempt to be accepted.
I am glad to see from this board though, that some mainline younger apostolics are politically diverse with some members of the Democrat party and concerned about political and social issues that affect their particular culture.
The half-joking (but really serious) pentecostal mantra - even by some moderates and libs like CC1 and Fred - that "you can't be a christian and be a democrat" is a bunch of malarkey.
And I'm a registered Republican though I'm becoming more Libertarian as I get older.
But in the UPC's strongest districts, race relations were and probably still are no better than the world at large.
Now before Brett or BOOMM or someone starts hollering about "Why don't you uproot the problems of the Methodists or Baptists"? - well, there obviously are some.
But of course these same guys will turn around and shout "We have the TRUTH! We have the HOLY GHOST! We have power that the Methodists and Baptists do not have!"
Okay then.
Pentecostals in the south should then be a social phenomenon and an exception regarding race relations ... but of course that is not the case.
That is why threads like this are relevant.
So in the predominantly southern-white-boy culture of the UPC in Louisana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, race relations are better in 2007 than in 1967, but obviously race relations are better in the world at large.
UPC churches in this area had more than their share of ignorant, militant racists.
I'm relating what I've seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears so believe me, I've been there, done that and got the t-shirt.
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