Like many of my classmates, I was drawn to social work for its mission towards social justice, a desire to help others, and to contribute to a better, more equitable world, and of course, my own personal need for a job. Yet I’ve found myself disillusioned many times throughout the program and stuck on questions of purpose.
As clinical social workers, we are taught to recognize the individual in their environment and yet we tend to ignore the environment as a major factor to change and instead focus on the individual. There is no doubt that individuals and communities need services to survive the oppressive system of racial capitalism, but if this is the extent of our work, are we not inadvertently upholding these very systems? If affected communities are calling for defunding police, and instead we start sending social workers on calls with police, are we not just instruments of oppression? The University, nonprofits, field agencies, and other institutions are making anti-racist statements and beginning to adapt diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in schools, classes, and workplaces. Yet, we are left wondering what that means when power still resides with the same few individuals at the top who are committed to capitalism and the status quo. If our anti-racism work does not include a redistribution of power, can it even be considered anti-racism work? How can we say social work is anti-oppressive when we are expected to spend two full years in the workforce unpaid and our labor exploited as interns?
My hope for social work is that we can resolve these questions by moving towards a radically transformative approach in the profession. We must recognize the immediacy of the crises of racial capitalism and organize with fellow social workers, other professions, and workers, as well as the communities we serve, using our collective power to create systems level change.
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