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The Institute for Recovery from Racismsâ Fr. Clarence Williams, CPPS, Ph.D. Director |
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The Institute for Recovery from Racismsâ Fr. Clarence Williams, CPPS, Ph.D. Director |
Recovering from Everyday RacismsÓ is a process developed by
Fr. Clarence Williams, CPPS, Ph.D. to address the dysfunction of racism through a recovery model. Fr. Williams has constructed a theoretical explanation and argument for treating racisms as a disease in our society and our global village. The paradigm sees racisms as the product of the erroneous core belief of White supremacy which results in dysfunctional behavior patterns in the intra-personal, inter-personal, community and global life of nation/families. As a result of the internalization of this belief by White and Nonwhite communities, treatment must address the unique responses to White supremacy that results not in one racism but racisms.
The metaphor of racism as a disease is applied to the United States as a dysfunctional family as it relates to people who are Nonwhites. Though race is a fiction, racisms is a fact. The history of the United States is seen as typical for the republics in the Americas where the development of racisms became the backbone of these civilizations. By extension of the racisms in the Americas, global racism is re-inforced throughout the world. Fr. Williams has studied global racism in the literature and with field studies in Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Tanzania, Israel and Egypt.
Personal recovery, recovery working groups and focal support groups are the formats that he suggests for recovery from racisms, such as those employed by Alcoholic Anonymous and other substance and process addiction recovery groups. The recovery stages for his model are based on the work of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ ‘death and dying’ stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. To which Fr. Williams adds, Re-engagement, Forgiveness and Witness. The model calls for focal support groups to assist its members in the recovery process of ‘death and dying’ as they struggle with the dying of their racialized formation and give support to what he calls New Family Formation. This New Family Formation assists the person seeking recovery to belong to an intentional New Family of human beings who see every person as their sister and brother.
The recovery process stages are the same for Whites and Nonwhites, since the recovery focus is the curtailment of their mutual codependency on White supremacy. However, the behavioral issues of codependency to White supremacy are different depending on ones community of origin. There are three community of origin groups in Williams’ model: Whites, Nonwhites and Intermediates, also called Colorists. Each group has a different repertory of responses to White supremacy in their racialized formation within their community of origin. (See Sociotext document)
The formats for recovery from racisms allows for individual work and group. The Institute for Recovery from Racismsâ facilitates the introduction to the concept of recovery from racisms to audiences throughout the world, and trains educators, community leaders and facilitators in this approach.