What Knowledge, Understanding, and Values Do Social Workers Need in Order to Challenge Discrimination - Essay Example

What knowledge, understanding and values do social workers need in order to challenge discrimination In 1991, a videotape taken by a bystander of aman being beaten up by four armed policemen - three of whom were white and one, Latin American -- was given prominent airtime in news and public information shows all over the United States. The footage showed officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) violently striking one Rodney King with a baton until he could no longer stand up and using an electroshock weapon on his person. In a controversial verdict, the police officers were acquitted of the charges that they used "assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury" and with assault "under color of authority." This triggered massive riots in the streets of Los Angeles, now referred to as the LA Riots, and is known to be one of the worst and most destructive civil disturbances in the history of melting-pot State. More than fifty people lost their lives in the three-day frenzy of violence. The main cause of furor was the belief that the police violence was racially-motivated and the ferocity of the attack would not have happened if Rodney King were white. Media branded it as yet another example of racial profiling, and indeed it was. It was more than racial profiling in fact: it was brazen discrimination, it was violence of the most deplorable kind as it was perpetrated against a member of a race historically known to be marginalized. This kind of discrimination is indeed brazen and dramatic. The danger in that is that it is all too easy to forget that there are other forms of discrimination that exist, and some fields are more vulnerable than others. One particular field where discrimination should be especially guarded against is the field of social work, wherein social workers are there precisely to assist those individuals who are, in some way, marginalized and in need of assistance due to a particular infirmity. Often already disempowered and vulnerable as they are, they are most susceptible to discrimination by the society they find themselves in. Hence, social workers must take extra care in ensuring that discrimination does not permeate their practice and that they are equipped with the necessary tools to combat discrimination, whenever and wherever it exists within their realm of accountability. Social workers must understand and believe in the fundamental premise of social work. Primarily, one very important piece of knowledge that social workers must have in order to combat discrimination is a deep understanding of the premise of social work. More specifically, social workers must be aware that social work is an extension of justice and not of charity. What is the distinction between the two terms, and why should justice take precedence over charity It is best to understand the ideological moorings of social work. Scott (1985) provokes the thoughtful reader and states: But it is not sufficient merely to understand the obviously self-interested basis of these social relations of production. What is critical for my purpose - that is, the analysis of ideological conflict - is to grasp the nature of the normative filter through which these self-interested actions must pass and how and why they are socially transformed by this passage. Why, in other words, is economic power "euphemized" in this fashion and what are the consequences of its euphemization From one perspective, what the wealthy did was to transmute a portion of their disproportionate economic means into forms of status, prestige and social control by means of acts they passed off as voluntary acts of generosity or charity. This social control was, of course, again convertible into labor services - and hence, again into material wealth. James Scott uses a very defined space to illustrate his thesis on charity as a mechanism to reinforce existing hierarchical relations. He gives the example of a tenant who, understanding that his employer is in a position to provide him with work and benefits, couches his requests for assistance in words that he knows the employer is comfortable with. The tenant uses words like "help" and "assistance", words that convey the idea of generosity and liberality. The worker gets what he wants through this strategy, and at the same time, the class dynamic is reinforced in a manner advantageous to the employer. There is a one-to-one correspondence in Scott's example: laborer to employer, tenant to landlord. However, upon reflection, one concludes that the same thesis may be arrived at in situations wherein the class relations are as pronounced but the players are interacting with each other in less direct ways. What we see here, therefore - and precisely what work should seek to address -- this twisted dance of double symbolic manipulation wherein both the ruling class and proletariat subscribe to the euphemization of economic power to achieve their own ends, results in the ruling class' long term interests being satisfied and the proletariat's short term interests being satisfied temporarily. At the end of the day, the tangible costs of this inequality - lack of accountability in governance, corruption, disenfranchisement, stark and painful poverty -- are borne solely by the marginalized. This is precisely why social workers should be able to make the distinction between justice and charity, for this distinction underlies the very essence of social work. Justice distributes power; charity empowers only the giver. They are the kind-hearted benefactors, smiling indulgently as they watch the hungry hoi polloi enjoy their crumbs. The obscenity of their wealth in the face of so much want has become sanitized by strategically-timed acts of grace and generosity. It is a two-way thing. The poor reinforce this hierarchical construct with their servile mien and their blubbering gratitude, knowing that this will have a greater chance of getting them what they want than taking any real steps to cure the malaise. This kind of mindset is what breeds discrimination even more and social workers have a responsibility to make sure that they themselves do not carry this mindset. Even though this mindset may remain unspoken, it will inevitably be articulated in some form in the course of the social work interventions. Social workers must understand the notion of social exclusion. These statistics are chilling (Internet, 2006): Two-fifths of people from ethnic minorities live in low income households, twice the rate for White people. More than half of people in Pakistani and Bangladeshi households are in low income households. People of African, Bangladeshi, Caribbean and Pakistani descent are all twice as likely as White people to be out of work but wanting work. Black Caribbean pupils are three times as likely to be excluded from school as White pupils. Black young adults are three times as likely as white young adults to be in prison. Black adults are twice as likely not to have a bank or building society account as the population as a whole. What this can only mean is that there clearly is a nexus between racial discrimination and economic marginalization. We see not only economic exclusion but social exclusion as well. Those coming from racial minorities are marginalized in many different ways at so many different levels. While it may seem as though the apartheid has ended and we are ushering a new age of tolerance, pluralism and diversity, it is still difficult to correct people's impulses and preconceived notions made and arrived at under very antiquated paradigms. Even though the European community may be considered a pluralistic and openminded society, compared to other communities, and there is a greater tolerance for divergent viewpoints, one must not be complacent and believe that the problem is solved. The number of homeless people still is staggering, and that the exist in a society of plenty is cause for alarm and for a reexamination of policies. Social workers must not possess the "blame the victim" syndrome. Many people believe that self-reliance and industry are values that must not be undermined by a welfare system. The welfare system is seen to "coddle" the lazy and the weak. But the statistics militate against this argument. The poor and homeless are not the lazy and the weak, they come from traditionally-oppressed sectors like migrants and those from minority racial communities. It is folly to think that they are homeless because of their own doing, when in fact, what we see is a systemic pattern of keeping them at the fringes of society. It is a moral imperative to make their voices heard and to give them avenues to participate and be considered. Which is why, even as we work towards providing them with economic assistance and helping them develop sustainable livelihoods, it is more important to be able to provide them with participatory tools and lenses with which to view the issue. Without such interventions, whatever economic assistance we will render will be stopgap at the least, unable to go to the root of the problem. Moreover, legislation to prevent social exclusion is not enough. It is very important as well, based on our understanding and analysis of history, to note the problem is not solved merely by prohibiting overtly discriminatory practices such as making race a basis for employment. Such practices are outdated and have no place in the twenty first century. The problem is the more insidious forms of discrimination. These are the forms that are difficult to legislate. How indeed, can one determine where the right of marginalized racial communities begin and where the right to free speech ends The boundaries are ever-shifting; and internally, the judge will be trying not only to apply the law, but to subject the text or speech in question to her own subjective inquiry in order to determine the intent of the message-bearer and what the material was trying to say. Social and political values inevitably come to the fore. To quote legal writer Thomas Streeter (1995), "It is in the character of language, in other words, that a judge will never be able to look at the text of the Bill of Rights and legal precedents to decide whether or not flag burning is protected by the First Amendment; he will always in one way or another be forced to make a choice about whether or not he thinks it should be protected, and will always be faced with the possibility that a reasonable person could plausibly disagree.". What distinguishes the area on free speech from other "legally-indeterminate" areas is that it is inextricably intertwined with and largely dependent on language which, as many eminent linguists have said, is arbitrary in the sense that meanings cannot be derived from anything logically-inherent in the words. These meanings are merely "assigned meanings" born of the collective experiences of people in a community and this system of interpretation is never static. Social workers should understand that the ultimate goal should be empowerment and social citizenship. In Britain, it used to be that the idea of social policy was often focused exclusively in the domain of the economic. After all, the debate concerning it may be traced back to the Poor Law, which was from 1598 to 1948. (Anderson, 1993) Much derided because it was founded on principles perceived to be undemocratic, it was replaced subsequently by the "Welfare State" model, which focused on social security, health, housing, education and the welfare of children. (Barr, 2004) Gradually, however, the realization grew that poverty is not merely economic poverty. It can also mean a sense of disenfranchisement, lack of access to institutions and state infrastructure, lack of redress mechanism, lack of participation in policy-making. In short, these are the rights afforded to a citizen, hence the idea of social citizenship. Said Jenson (2001), Social citizenship was -- and is -- of interest to social democrats because it shines the spot light on a key value, that is equality of participation. This is the "for what" answer. Citizenship by definition implies equality for all members of the polity. It has meant this since the Greeks first invented it (and restricted equality to male residents of the city-state). Therefore, being a full citizen means being able to participate, to exercise one's responsibilities as well as one's rights. We are most familiar with the notion of participation when we think of political rights and responsibilities -- the right and responsibility to vote, to right to stand for office, to be heard and respected in political debate. But we can also think about the equality of participation in social rights. One then is bound to ask: What exactly is equality of participation in social rights and how should this concept animate our discourse Jenson (2001) posits that it means two things, and this true today as it was in the past. We may understand it to be guaranteeing equal access to market incomes, through state sponsored policies that impact on regulations, education, training and employment. However, and this is where the paradox lies, it can also be taken to mean removing market income as a yardstick or as a basis for providing benefits, or allowing the exercise of rights. Said Jenson: "The first implies that all citizens will have the capacity to exercise a key social citizenship responsibility, that is to pay their taxes. The second implies that all citizens will be able to enjoy the entitlements that come with citizenship." What is manifest in this discussion is two things: first of all, the State and the legal system as it currently stands are of the persuasion that citizens are entitled to enjoy the same services and benefits on similar levels, and therefore, corollary to that, it is the responsibility of the state to at least provide minimum protections to vulnerable classes such as marginalized communities so that they may have a nurturing environment where they may be flourish and develop as human beings. (Drake, 2001.) Secondly, and of no less importance, it underscores the idea that it really is not just a "free lunch". The citizen - as part precisely of his or her role as citizen - has an obligation to the community he or she belongs to contribute to its continued existence. The most obvious example for this is the paying of taxes, the lifeblood of any polity. In a sense, the ideological firmament of social citizenship, including as it does the idea of "responsibility" is ultimately more human than the concept of welfare merely as charity. (Mishra, 1999). Social workers must take into account the other factors responsible for causing discrimination, like the media. Stereotyping is one subtle form of racial profiling. The website Media Awareness Network states that "stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people-usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation." However, stereotyping is dangerous in that it transforms assumptions into realities and it places individuals in simplistic categories without recognition of each person's uniqueness and gifts.1 Indeed, factual and fictional media portrayals have a propensity to activate culturally shared racial and gender stereotypes and affect judgment involving those who belong to stereotyped groups. Werner-Wilson, Fitzharris and Morrisey2 wrote a paper entitled "Adolescent and parent perceptions of media influence on adolescent sexuality". According to them: The media passively reinforce gender and ethnic stereotypes (Gerbher, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1986). Passive reinforcement of gender and ethnic stereotypes was demonstrated in a content analysis of Rolling Stone magazine, a popular adolescent periodical, which examined gender and ethnic themes in issues published in the years 1968 and 1988 (Wilson, 1990). Results from the content analysis suggested that women and people from traditionally underrepresented groups were rarely the source of stories; when they were featured, they were depicted unflatteringly. News reports, for all its declarations of impartiality and objectivity, may be guilty of racial stereotyping. In his landmark study, Ungerleider (1991), states that a news report has the implicit agenda of "casting" characters as heroes, victims or villains. Members of minority groups end up either ignored or cast in the role of villains. Since these stories are repeated over and over with this same angle, they become the "accepted understandings among those to whom alternative interpretations are not evident." Then there is also the Internet, which is becoming the medium of choice for racial supremacy groups. it is the medium of choice of hate-speech fanatics who thrive on the relative safety and untraceability that the Internet provides. Hier (2000) presents three reasons: First, there exists a considerable gap between the public images that racial supremacist groups attempt to present in the Internet and a far less benign image that emerges upon closer analysis; second, exemplified by the Freedom-site, the internet has facilitated a greater degree of solidarity between racial supremacist organizations; and third, given the impersonal nature of the internet, there exists a certain degree of danger that otherwise ordinary citizens will become more susceptible to the ideology of racial supremacism. (p. 471) Lastly, social workers must be prepared to battle discrimination in all its forms. Indeed, discrimination comes in many forms. There is discrimination against women, discrimination against a racial minority groups, discrimination against the handicapped, and more often, the ways these groups are marginalized and discriminated even further are ways that take advantage of particularized disabilities. For example, on the issue of homelessness. It may appear that the problem of homelessness is strictly a third-world malaise. Indeed, surrounded by gleaming accoutrements of economic stability and first-world fortunes, it is all too easy to turn a blind eye to the marginalised members of our society who, for a variety of reasons, have not been able to partake of the material benefits enjoyed by their richer fellow citizens. Perhaps it can be attributed to simply a pattern of personal misfortunes, perhaps it may be a question of health, perhaps too, one wrong choice after the other. Or perhaps there are bigger issues that must be grappled with, difficult questions of race and class dynamics. (Fitzpatrick, 2001.) Whatever the reason is, the stark and painful truth is that the homeless live among us, drifting and teetering precariously, and it is the duty of law and policy to ensure that the mechanisms are in place so that they may not be left behind - fall within the cracks, as it were. Yes indeed, concepts such as "social policy", "social democracy" and "social exclusion" seem very difficult to grasp. However, it is incumbent on us to grasp the concept and see how it applies to one's daily life and once immediate worldview of experiences, so that we may continue to educate ourselves and educate other people. References Alcock, P. Social Policy in Britain. London: MacMillan. 2003. Anderson, E. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Polity Press. 1990. Barr N. The Politics of a Welfare State. Oxford University Press. 2004. Braddock, J.H. II, and McPartland, J.M. Social-Psychological Processes That Perpetuate Racial Segregation: The Relationship Between School and Employment Desegregation Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3(Mar., 1989) , pp. 267-289. Clarke & Newman. The managerial state: power, politics and ideology in the remaking of social welfare. Sage Publications. 1999. Drake, R. The Principles of Social Policy. London: Palgrave McMillan. 2001. Jenson, Jane. Putting Citizenship into the Social. Available at http://www.misc-iecm.mcgill.ca/socdem/jenson.htm Fitzpatrick, H. Welfare Theory: An introduction. London: Palgrave McMillan. 2001. Mishra, R. Globalization and the welfare state. Edward Elgar Publishing. 1999. Murphy, S. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 560, The Future of Fact (Nov., 1998), pp. 165-178 Ungerleider, C. "Media, minorities and misconceptions: The portrayal by and representation of minorities in Canadian New Media," Canadian Ethnic Studies, vol. 23, no. 3 (October 1991), 158. Wilenski, The welfare state and equality: structural and ideological roots of public expenditures. Polity Press.1990. Williams, F. Social Policy: A critical introduction on issues of race, gender and class. Polity Press. 1989. Read More