Social Work Practice with Communities - Essay Example

It is a countrywide community whose boundaries extend to the national boundaries. There are a number of members who live abroad though and are actively involved in the community’s activities from there. The community membership is big and growing. The main role is communalism and the strength in numbers as well as identification.

The community is a combination of two communities that face multiple challenges every day. The life of gay African Americans is hard and full of challenges. The challenges can be viewed in two dimensions; race and sexual orientation. The African American race naturally has many challenges to contend with. They do not cease with being gay, if anything they just multiply. Studies have placed lack of opportunity and safety at number one as the leading challenge for African Americans. Due to different contributing factors like lack of education, African Americans have failed to secure jobs to support themselves and their families. Starting businesses for the majority has been a hurdle due to the lack of capital.

They have been victimized and segregated in terms of equal opportunities. They also lack security since the notion for a long time has been that they are the source of their own insecurity. As such, states have failed to secure African American neighborhoods. This has affected the community and led to more insecurity. The lack of employment and opportunity has led many to crime. As if it is not hard enough to be an African American only, more challenges meet the African American gay community. On the second frontier of sexual affiliation, the African American gay community is undermined, stigmatized, and victimized. The main problem however is stigma.

The gay community can hardly get a voice in the African American community due to the race’s deep-rooted culture and intolerance to such tendencies. The best theory, therefore, is the use of the social problem-solving inventory with an avoidant approach. There is no amount of rallying that can ‘correct’ gays in the larger African American community and as such, the best thing to do is ignore the problems and wait for time and generations to correct them.

The best way of a community intervention for the problem of stigmatization is basic strategy change. The community should be more vocal and fight back such that the world can know that they are there and hence learn to live with them.