A Social Worker's Reflections on Power, Privilege, and Oppression

Abstract

The pursuit of social justice is a core social work value (NASW, 2007). Social workers promote social justice by engaging in activities that promote equality of opportunity, challenge injustice, and advance social change, particularly on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed populations. This is easier said than done. Oppression and systems of power are extremely complex, multifaceted, and saturate our individual psyche and external environment. As social workers committed to social justice, how do we challenge and change these systems of power? How do we find a standpoint from which to act? Paulo Freire (1970) stated that a commitment to social justice requires a moral and ethical attitude toward equality and a belief in the capacity of people as agents who can transform their world. Furthermore, he stated that to create social change and to promote social justice, we must begin this process with ourselves--through a self-reflective process that examines the contradictions between our espoused values and our lived experience. We must believe that all people, both from dominant and targeted groups, have a critical role in dismantling oppression and generating a vision for a socially just future. For if only people from oppressed groups take on this responsibility, there is little hope that we will ever achieve our vision. As a social worker and an academic who identifies strongly with the profession of social work, I take these words of Freire and other scholars of social justice seriously. In 2001, I had the honor of participating in a presidential plenary panel at the Society for Social Work and Research Annual Conference. As part of this plenary, I presented an introduction that provided a reflection of who I am and how my social identities are affected by the dynamics of oppression and privilege. The speech was published later that year in Advances in Social Work (Spencer, 2001), and every year since I have taken the opportunity to further reflect on who I am at that particular moment in time. A lot has happened in the past seven years, and as my social identities have evolved and my understanding of them becomes increasingly complex, I find the need to contemplate again on the question, Who am I? My interests in issues of oppression, power, and privilege began with my own experiences as a person of color who has experienced racism. I identify primarily as Native Hawaiian, but I also identify as mixed race. As a person of color, I am often placed in a position in which I must process the disrespect I perceive or the assumptions that others make of me. For example, I know what it is like to be grabbed by the arm at a campus restaurant on my way to the restroom and be asked to bring people their drinks. I also know what it is like to seek the support of a friend following this incident and be told, That could have happened to anyone. The most painful thing about racism is its invalidation, even more so than the incident itself. I hope for reconciliation, but I recall that reconciliation requires truth. We are just beginning to learn about the truth of racism in this country and, thus, are still far from reconciliation. Among people of color, however, I have the privilege of light skin. I know this privilege has allowed me to be more trusted, accepted, and easily assimilated within the dominant culture. I have also been educated by the dominant culture and taught to think like the mainstream. I know how to speak properly. Growing up as a Native Hawaiian educated in Hawaii under the U.S. educational system, I never heard the word colonization. The spirituality of my ancestors was taught to me as mythology. Although I know there is much in my culture that I have lost, I still reap great benefits from my assimilation, including my ability to pursue higher education and ultimately my current employment at the University of Michigan. I was made palatable to the dominant culture. My education has moved me from my status as a child growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Honolulu to a middle-class professional living in Ann Arbor. …