| The White Face of 12 Step Groups | |
By Anne Wayman
As a white woman who has had a chance to examine my own, mostly unconscious, racism, I've come to understand that the myth of perpetual powerlessness, while damaging to me, is often a real barrier for people of color.
I came to this conclusion gradually. Although even when I joined AA some 25 years ago I noticed we whites were in the vast majority, my education really started when I was a member of Glide Memorial Church and watched Rev. Cecil Williams successfully help crack addicts from San Francisco's Tenderloin district. So much of his approach was to praise progress and empower the addicts.
A few years later, at 16 years sober, I ended up in the Salvation Army shelter in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Even there, on the edge of the ghetto, the A.A. meetings were predominantly white, and, while I was there, always led by a white man or woman.
Worth of Recovery
I joined a small group, however, and went deeper into the ghetto to a meeting of something called Christians In Action. Run by a black minister and his wife, we spent much of the meeting listening to why we were worthy of recovery. The effect was amazingly uplifting as they worked to convince us we could claim our own power and recover.At 22 years clean and sober, I was part of a program through the Unitarian Universalist Church called Journey Toward Wholeness - Beyond Racism. (http://www.uua.org/faithinaction/jtwarp/jtwarpt.html) During that three-day look at unconscious and institutional racism, I was asked, "What is it like to be white?" Two things became immediately apparent:
1. In this society, that's a question that, as a white person, had never occurred to me
2. The advantages I have because I'm white are subtle, and automatic, and a tremendous advantage.
Perpetual Powerless is a Myth
I came to understand that people of color understand powerlessness at a level I probably never will. Is it any wonder that recovery groups that insist we are perpetually powerless are unattractive to them? It's a shame because perpetual powerlessness is a myth that has grown up in the Program over time.The First Step reads, ”Admitted we were powerless over (name the addiction) that our lives had become unmanageable." Note the phrase, 'we were powerless.' That's the past tense!
The Program, as it was originally written, does not intend us to be powerless over everything in our lives. That's a notion that comes from fear fear that the promises of the Program won't come true.
The Program is truly a program designed to empower us; the sooner we let go of the myth of perpetual powerlessness, the sooner our groups will reflect true diversity.
Anne Wayman is the author of Powerfully Recovered, now in its second edition and available at powerfullyrecovered.com.
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