Coming into ACA meeting Zoom land, I was initially reticent at putting on my camera in a mostly white environment, ashamed of my face. On a few occasions, when I have switched on my camera mid-share, others have been abruptly turned off. Having said that, I have mostly been warmly welcomed into meetings and have done service in many. I also view it as an act of service to have my camera on and seeing an array of different faces on Zoom meetings leads to a sense of safety for me.
Being black in a white majority country is, at times, like living in a hostile environment. This adds complications to my already complex PTSD. There are health implications to racial trauma: the American Medical Association declared that the effects of racism are a national health emergency in the USA. Black people’s lives are being foreshortened by institutionalised racism; my own health outcomes and recovery are linked, partly, to race. Racial trauma is listed as an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) by many health authorities and is a key wound I need to heal.
Before coming into ACA, I was in ignorance (denial) of many things, including my own internalised racism and how this was handed down to me, intergenerationally, and bolstered in wider society. As a codependent, I used to ask the world what it thought of me and how I should behave. My own shame of being different was reinforced by others until I hit a bottom. I would ignore racist microaggressions and brush off more egregious examples of racism. However, joining BAME/BIPOC/PGM spaces, I got to hear about the experiences of racism from other fellow travelers and, using resources shared in these groups, I was able to do a Step Four inventory from a racial trauma point of view.
While doing this inventory, I was blown away by what I remembered and had previously ignored. My mother, a white woman, was deeply prejudiced and my father, an African, had deeply internalised racialism. As a kid, he had been given a Christian name by an Irish priest; colonialism - a “white is right” power imbalance had been deeply ingrained into him. This was handed on to me. The fact that no African was involved in drawing the map of African countries says a lot. Doing a Step Four inventory from a racial point of view has allowed me to uncover and grieve what happened to me in the past and how I abandoned myself. I can now reparent myself around racial trauma and reintegrate and nurture those banished parts I had ignored. To assist with my Steps Six and Seven reintegration process, I have adapted generalised ACA reparenting affirmations to speak to my African identities.
In some ways, I am decolonising my thought processes and self-concept. It means I can better recognise and call out boundary violations, including those, quite counterintuitively, encountered in BIPOC recovery spaces. For example, I have been put in a “one-down” position by other BIPOC people who identify as whiter than me (shadism) or other BIPOC travelers who have made tribalist comments or mocked African accents. I am not having it now. I am becoming positively maladjusted to such aggressions. It is confronting for me to recognise and dismantle my own prejudices around race and sexuality, my own internalised racism and homophobia, but I need to do this to reach my True Self and, by extension, be compassionate to others with their own struggles. My Step Nine amends include amends to myself and others around race, and an ongoing commitment to be informed by anti-racist and wider-inclusivity teachings.
I am gladdened by ACA’s open literature policy and the ability for groups to choose non-ACA literature to supplement conference approved resources. This is not just important in the field of race, but also for intersectionalities, such as neurodivergence and sexuality. I am grateful for meetings who read a safety statement that includes words to the effect that, “No issue is an outside issue if it comes from experience”. ACA meetings are a “safe container”, but to feel safe enough to “unarmour” and relax into being vulnerable, I need to feel safe as a black person too. To me, Tradition Six has sometimes been misquoted to close down or censure shares on race quicker than naked Zoom bombers have been removed from meetings. While I personally would not share extensively on white supremacy or the patriarchy, I would like to know that in mixed meetings I can share honestly about my experience of racism - if I need to - without being shut down.
ACA is an international fellowship, but if the norms of one culture dictate the culture of ACA, we are not meeting the needs of this diverse and global fellowship. If injury happened in community, then does it not follow that it needs to be witnessed and healed in community, too? Keeping quiet just replicates family of origin dynamics; being “policed” or mobbed in a meeting – similarly. The Big Red Book, page 564, states: “We accept without comment what others say because it is true for them. […] This is a safe space to share your adult and childhood experiences without being judged. […]” Some meetings add: “You might not agree with everything that is shared […], however, we suggest you listen for similarities and listen from the heart”.
I can imagine how it might be discomforting for parents to hear about parental abuse and neglect experienced by other fellow travelers. Similarly, I can also imagine how it might be confronting to hear shares around race. Does that mean they should be censored, self- or otherwise?
I am happy that ACA has space to explore different intersectionalities within the fellowship, and I, for one, would jump at the chance to help support the creation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion group to help bring the message of ACA to more Adult Children and support them in their recovery. Perhaps the Racial Trauma Service Group’s Step Four inventory can inspire similar inventories for other intersectionalities.
Martin A