Social Work So White: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and Social Justice in Social Work

All Michigan social workers are invited to a virtual CE event on Friday, November 1 from 12-1:00pm.

FREE | 1 Implicit Bias CE

Overview:

As a profession informed by such lofty values as service, social justice, dignity and worth of the individual, integrity, competence, and the importance of hum relationships, social workers often become so infatuated with the idea of helping or saving “people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty” (NASW, 2018) that we fail to acknowledge the ascendant white supremacist norms in our profession. We become socialized by the same hegemony we claim to fight against. This often leaves us blinded to the issues of internalized white ideology with the profession and resistant to race-based elf-critique (Pewewardy & Almeida, 2014). We must name white supremacy and intentionally work to disrupt it. As Kendi (2019) notes, “the only way of undoing racism is to consistently identify and describe it, and then dismantle it” (p. 9).

1 Implicit Bias CE Credit is available for licensed attendees.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe impacts of white supremacy on social work education, practice, and scholarship
• Describe and contextualize decolonization within the context of the social work profession
• Identify strategies for disrupting white supremacist norms within social practice
  

Presented by Chris Fike, Region 5 Representative on the NASW-MI Board of Directors.