Whiteness In Social Work Practice

1 Anti-Discriminatory Practice in Counselling identifies the ease with which individuals can be disadvantaged merely on the basis of their gender, race, culture, age, sexuality or ability.

Social workers are often on the forefront in the fight against any form of oppression as against the marginalized society. These demanding but oftentimes unappreciated efforts are often addressed through the conscious use of skills and knowledge of the problems being solved against. When such oppression is however committed against them within the organization where they work, the social worker seems to be mum about the situation, or their efforts perhaps are rendered inutile. North America social workers experience this form of oppression within the social service institution. For this reason, I examine the arguments why the social workers need to be aware of the existence of this unique form of oppression. In order to eliminate oppression in the social welfare workplace, the social workers, in their pursuit of social change, must have a competent understanding of the theory around racism and oppression.

1) From the soical workers point of view and being apart of the National Association of Black Social Workers I can see why she would not baby boy Hakim to be place in a white home, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. In the article of National Association of Black Social Workers they state that a black boy living in a white home they would not grow up with a postive racial identity. That they would not get the proper needs and attention that they would in a black family home.They say that ethnicty is everything and the child being in a white home the family may not know how to do their hair properly and then either moving to a nieghboorhood that is segergated or preparing the neighborhood that they will be a trans racial family. So for Mrs. Johnson, the social worker, looking out for baby Hakims well being is only helping him be put in the right family that would help him identify his ethnicity and no confusion with race identity.

From our text, Race, Class, and Gender, we read Unit III E: The Structure of Social Institutions; The State and Violence: Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization; The Color of Justice; Rape, racism, and the Law; and Interpreting and Experiencing Anti-Queer Violence : Race, Class, and Gender Differences among LGBT Hate Crime Victims. We also encountered and excerpt from Social Work Practice With a Difference; The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. The first four reading from our text explore the association of the manner in which state power organizes race, class, and gender. We also get a view of how the intersectional approach of race, class, and gender may help us to understand some forms

This essay will address key aspects of white privilege and pick the two most important aspects with explanations signifying the reasons for their choosing. An explicit aspect of white privilege is the fact that it is an automatic add-on to anybody satisfying the definition of “whiteness”. Whiteness is defined by Frankenberg (1993) as a concept/identity historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced involving systems of domination (p. 40) thereby privileging anyone who satisfies this definition. Another notable aspect of white privilege is the fact that white people are taught not to recognize their privilege (McIntosh, 2002, p. 33). On a more subtle level, white privilege is an ongoing, institutionalized remnant of colonization. Another aspect of white privilege is its ability in creating dichotomies with PoC. For example, whiteness is associated with “innocence” and “goodness” while blackness is associated with “evil” and “badness” (hooks, 1992, p. 49).

Adams, W. Blumenfeld, C. Castaneda, H. Hackman, M. Peters, & X. Zuniga book “Readings in diversity and social justice” chapters 6-10 (2010) they discussed in order to rid oppression it starts with recognizing our social identity and how it contributed to our socialization. In order to understand socialization you need to understand the socialization cycle. Supporting subordinate groups are privileged and target groups are disfranchised but the worse is these roles are determined without our permission. The authors argue that once individuals understand oppression and want to make a change they become frustrated with the process of liberation. Supporting that the process of liberation is a cycle that begins with empowerment of self, ends with maintain, and at the core is a serious of attributes (self-love, hope, self-esteem, balance, joy, support, security, spiritual base, and authentic love of others. In differ the authors’ further support the idea white people are compensating for the system of advantage but as high as the cost of black people. The authors back up this claim through the notion of whites benefit from racism but they don’t all benefit

The article “The Great White Way” by Debra J. Dickerson attempts to show her readers that “Race is an arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege” (68) in America. In her article, Dickerson questions how “whiteness” leads America in our culture and society and how all the other races are defined in America. She also explains how history has divided whites from non-whites in America. The intended audience that Dickerson’s essay gravitated towards are political or liberal Americans. In her article “The Great White Way”. Debra J. Dickerson powerfully argues that race is an overall way to establish social classes and who and what get special privileges because of their certain race or skin color. Dickerson argues that “Race is

Race is a particularly powerful way of maintaining the dominance of the social group in power. The construct of race is about stratification, which puts a racially justified hierarchy among people in society to keep the dominant social group in power. Stratification can influence the resources an individual receives. Therefore, social workers sometimes use a theoretical approach called, Critical Race Theory (CRT), to guide their work in making certain general assumptions about issues of power, race, ethnicity, and racism. This is because CRT is an alternative theory that offers a radical lens to make sense of racial inequality in society, which could prove useful when analyzing a client’s situation. The

Anti-racist practice consists of being able to actively and honestly explore who you are, what you stand for and where you are situated in terms of social location, what has advantaged and disadvantaged you and how you found the strength to overcome those challenges (Heinonen and Spearman, 2010, pp. 133). To further explain, our “social location further gives us an understanding of ourselves in terms of our ethno culture, gender, age, socioeconomic, class, ability and other characteristics and critically examine how these have advantages or disadvantaged us in our needs and life chances” (Heinonen and Spearman, 2010, pp. 132). It is important to ask ourselves these questions as social workers so we can uncover any unresolved biases we have in ourselves. The anti-racist approach to social work involves how social workers deal with attitudes and practices that promote prejudice and discrimination. Thus, an anti-racist

Kenneth stated he had participated in treatments over the years. He claimed to get a better result from inpatient setting which is more structured and they are tailored to his individual treatment plan and addresses his issues, lifestyle and recovery goals.

Frideres and Rene R. Gadacz. “Whiteness” is described as being a new form of racism that is covert and structural. This idea is particularly of interest to me as all other people other than whites are considered “raced,” which would include me as I am from Asian descent. Whites are not racially seen or named and therefore function as the “human norm” (Frideres and Gadacz 9). Even now, Caucasians are often unaware of their own “white privilege” and the whiteness remains invisible to them. This poses an overarching dilemma of stratifying whites and non-whites which is due to the structural arrangements already embedded in our society today. The tricky matter here is that while white privilege operates as an invisible force, Aboriginal peoples and other minorities that do not fit the norm are rarely represented in media and more importantly, the educational curriculum. What can be done when white privilege has been ingrained into society as the norm? How do we start from scratch and restructure whole relationships and change perspectives? In order to reorganize societal dynamics and overcome this perpetuating cycle of colonialism, we may have to form new identities and – as dismal as this sounds – just does not seem possible.

One of the most challenging professions for African American males is social work. As a social worker, I have realized that I have to work under two domains. The first one is to work under the race identity and the second one is to work as a class identity. Although I am proud of being an African American, I usually feel sorry for myself being from unprivileged social class in the American society. The identity of being an African American male has affected my social work in many aspects. This is because it has made it impossible to carry out my professional duties because of negative perspectives and discrimination in the society. African American social workers are considered to be incompetent by the rest of the society hence making it impossible to delegate duties without any form of discrimination. This paper provides my own reflections as an African American male in the field of social work and how this identity has affected my practice in community work and advocacy duties.

The article “Cultural Considerations for Social Workers: A sociological perspective” by Orville W. Taylor, argues that inner-cities of Jamaica are culturally distinct phenomena and therefore they should be treated as such. It also suggests that this should be considered if the theory is to be developed or any attempts to apply intervention strategies and that the divisive nature of the society and cultural distinctions of these communities which are different from that of the mainstream society should be comprehended. It concludes by stating that the main challenge for social workers is to acknowledge that these inner-cities communities are functional operating communities separately from that of the larger society.

Within the two articles there are some significant similarities that have an impacted on the social work system. The first similarity to be discussed is whiteness. Whiteness is a “complex social process that maintains the dominant and/or majority group’s power within social service organization and prevents anti-racist workers from changing today’s societal and institutional arraignments.” (Baskin, 2005). This is stating that the whites control the work either allowing or permitting of anti-racist practices from altering society. This is true by reflecting back on the colonization of aboriginal communities. The institutionalization the dominant group tried to implement on the communities was an act of on the prevention of anti-racist practices.

We can begin to eliminate institutional racism in society, through investigations and interventions based on feedback. When claims of racism occur in society,