Cover
story Moving toward racial sobriety
In workshop materials, Fr. Clarence Williams lists ways Americans
might exhibit Elisabeth Kubler-Ross various stages in relation to members
of a different group.
Denial might be exhibited by whites insisting that they have never
had greater social or economic privileges than blacks. Non-whites might deny
that racism affects their lives or they might want to be designated as
white themselves.
Whites might become angry when they see non-whites enjoying
certain privileges, or when their racism is pointed out. Blacks might become
angry at the effects of racism or the refusal of whites to acknowledge it.
Whites might bargain by saying that they can protect
their own status by separating themselves from blacks (white
flight, for instance). Blacks may set themselves apart from members of
their own race or refuse to allow themselves to be controlled by whites. Some
may set up conditions that whites must fulfill before blacks would even attempt
to forgive.
Whites might experience depression when they begin to discover
their racist attitudes and behavior. Blacks might become depressed when they
recognize that they are trapped within a society that accords a higher position
to whites. Some might decide its best for blacks to just keep to
their place rather than challenge the status quo.
Depression might take the form of self-blame: I blame myself
for allowing my pain to destroy me.
Acceptance for whites means to begin to value people according to
their humanity, not their color, and to begin the process of recovery from
racist attitudes and behavior. Blacks might begin to accept themselves as
people operating within a hostile society, by recovering their self-esteem and
by challenging racist attitudes and institutions.
The result of racial sobriety, the final goal, is that
members of both races examine and enter relationships in different ways,
Williams said, forgiving themselves for inappropriate actions and forgiving
those who formed them with racial attitudes.
The final stage, witness, consists of telling others whats
been learned on the journey.
-- Pamela Schaeffer
National Catholic Reporter, January 18,
2002
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