Corporations seeking to enhance the workplace by providing an environment in which racial and ethnic diversity is taken for granted find Racial Sobriety an approach that moves beyond tolerance. Managers and Directors of Diversity have found that this approach provides a common frame of reference for ongoing discussions and programmatic development. The benefit approach of racial sobriety moves beyond the anxiety/guilt approach that has made discussions of racial and ethnic difference a taboo in the workplace of corporate America.
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The racial sobriety workshop experience offers multiple learning styles in a low key ambience. The learning formats include time for personal reflection, small dialogue groups, and a group reporting that enhances the insights as they are shared with the assembly. The Racial History Journal process is an experience of sharing one’s journey of racial awareness in a non-threatening way. One of the major leaning experiences for an institution is that the “Don’t Talk” rule that makes talking about race a taboo is suspended. The participants experience a shared growth in their appreciation of the team building work of the day as well as enhanced self-esteem in finding their own “voice” around a difficult subject..

Always open to design a program to address the particular learning objective of an institution, the following formats have been successful throughout the country.

Introduction to Racial Sobriety®

This facilitated workshop introduces the audience to a unifying approach to begin the conversation on racisms. The experience includes the explanation of the three elements of talking about racism that brings on anxiety; facilitates a discussion of finding one’s own “voice” in the conversation on racial issues; allows for a discovery of one’s Racial History Journal; and introduces other instruments for continuing one’s understanding of the Racial Sobriety approach.A brief introduction is a two hour program; while a full introduction is a four hour program.

Racial Sobriety and Working Groups

This six hour workshop takes the Racial Sobriety® approach and demonstrates its use with committees, task forces and other forms of working groups who are entrusted with bettering racial and ethnic relations for their respective communities or organizations. This program includes the Introduction to Racial Sobriety and develops from this core approach its applications for social and organizational transformation.

Executive Leadership Training

This is a 12 hour workshop aimed at leaders who need tools to get the organization on the "same page" in their conversation on race, ethnic, cultural and religious issues. It offers a benefit approach so as to move away from a anxiety/guilt model as a motivation for Racial Sobriety®. The leaders will develop their “voice” of racial sobriety as a personal way to balance the internal feelings of their own concerns and the feelings and challenges that come with a diverse work force. The outcome of the training is to equip leaders with the tools they need to construct a culture of racial sobriety within their organization.

© Institute for Recovery from Racisms, 2002 - 2010