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WELCOME
TO EBONY
OA BAY AREA INTERGROUP OF
Ebony OA Retreat 2nd Day, 3rd Session, August, 29,2007 Annette
John-Hall | A patron saint for the black and overweight By Annette John-Hall Inquirer Columnist Angela J. calls herself the Darth
Vader of Overeaters Anonymous. She's
the fallen angel pushing for cultural inclusion in the group she says saved her
life. A proud pioneer advocating for diversity while on the road to recovery
herself. Plus,
she's black - "a race-baiting heretic," she said and laughed. She's
only half-joking. For more than a decade, Angela J. - that initial is good
enough for public identification, she assures me - has been on a mission to
include more African Americans in OA. In
1996, she started Ebony Overeaters Anonymous within OA for African Americans to
address the special issues they face in their weight-loss struggles. In 1998,
she launched an accompanying Web site, www.ebonyoa.org. Starting
today at the Loews Hotel, about 100 Ebony OA members from around the world will
meet for their own retreat, two days of workshops, testimonies and spiritual
programs, all with a cultural focus, before the OA's World Service Convention
begins Thursday through Sept. 2, also at the Loews. Members from nearly 7,000
groups listen to "abstinent" speakers and learn strategies to resist
overeating. OA's
only requirement for joining is a desire to stop compulsive eating. As
well-intentioned and inclusive as it sounds, the traditional organization never
took racial differences into account. The
why is as important as the how. Black folks face particular pressures - from
living in high-crime areas, working at low-wage jobs, and dealing with the daily
racism that saps self-esteem. Those
are just some of the issues traditional OA doesn't address. Angela
wants to create an environment where African Americans "can come into a
room that helps them heal, helps them undo the damage of oppression. "OA's
[12-step] philosophy says you must suspend your ethnicity in order to
recover," Angela says, "but . . . it wasn't teaching me how to live in
my skin." A
quiet strength I met Angela, 54, near Funny,
she doesn't look like Darth Vader. There's none of the shrillness you'd expect
in an agitator. She's so subdued I had to strain to hear her. At
5-foot-3, she looks as though she's a size 10 soaking wet, an eternity away from
the 208-pound size 22 she was at her heaviest. She
wants to be clear: OA helped save her life. A self-described binger, she says
she was digging her grave with her own fork. "I
came from a Christian background," she says. "Food was a byproduct of
pleasure," and in church although there was no drinking or drugging, there
sure was a lot of eating. "In
my house," she says, "it was, 'Praise God and pass the mashed
potatoes.' " 12-step
success OA's spiritually based program,
modeled on the success of Alcoholics Anonymous, appealed to her. Angela could
admit she was powerless over food (step 1) and turn her addiction over to a
greater power (step 2). When faced with temptation, she could pray her way out
of it (step 11). But
the more she became involved, the more troubled she was by the dichotomy in OA. According
to a recent Centers for Disease Control study, black women are 42 percent more
likely to suffer from obesity and its attendant diseases - high blood pressure,
diabetes - than white women. Why
was it then that African Americans, many of whom find support in religion,
accounted for only 3 percent of OA members? It
was soon clear to Angela and other black members that for all its talk about
inclusive fellowship and the emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of
addiction, OA didn't address the cultural. A
longtime OA member named Vondalyn says Ebony OA has allowed her to purge
emotionally as well as physically. She has "released" 50 of her 300
pounds and controlled her high-blood pressure. Being
among other African Americans is like therapy. "When
you live in the inner city, you have a lot of different issues. Like, how I grew
up, a single mother raising children, living on a restricted income. . . .
There's nothing like talking to people who have been there," she says. For
example, she would like to lose another 50 pounds from her 6-foot-1 frame, but
some white members might still consider her too heavy. Since
becoming one of two African Americans on OA's 16-member volunteer board, Angela
has pushed a national resolution for diversity training among its leaders. In
black communities where obesity is at epidemic proportions, we need more leaders
like her. It's
a matter of life and death. 2008 Ebony OA Retreat Bookmark or save this link in your favorites for updates on the 2008 Ebony OA Retreat Third
Annual Ebony OA
Online and Phone Retreat OA 7th
Tradition Therefore by the 7th Tradition EOABIG
is self-supporting. OA members who care to contribute may do so by sending their
monetary donations or OA Literature donations to the chair, La Verna who will then generate a receipt in
response to your contribution. Please make your check payable to Ebony
OA and mail to: History
of Annual
Ebony OA Retreat
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