Racists Anonymous

Domain V · Systemic, relational, group & community · Ron Buford · 2015 · Sunnyvale, California, USA

What it is

Racists Anonymous is not a therapy and not something a clinician delivers. It is a church-hosted, peer-support fellowship meeting modelled on Alcoholics Anonymous, in which participants work an adapted set of 12 steps on their own racial prejudice. Meetings are hosted by congregations (mostly UCC…

Format

• No phased treatment structure. RA has no assessment phase, treatment phases, discharge criteria or fidelity system. Its structure is the step sequence plus a fixed meeting format.
• Formats published.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Starting a group. A congregation obtains Buford's kit, which he describes as a set of documents that includes a covenant that the resources "be used in a particular way", plus a guide to setting up meetings so people can work the steps (reports also list background material, the Statement of the Problem, Statement of the Solution and the 12 steps). Host congregations have sought governing-body or congregational…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• substituting reading for behaviour change.
• amends driven by the client's need for absolution.
• rumination or scrupulosity versus brief honest review.
• a client starting a group as a substitute for their own step work.
• anticipatory shame or anger; rehearse the introduction aloud if helpful.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.