Towards a Black Love and Care Ethic: Reimagining Social Work Through Black Technologies

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe insidious impact of anti-Black racism on Black peoples remain obscured by even the most well-meaning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming and curricula. The following inquiries guide this article: What becomes possible, in clinical settings and beyond, when the needs, dreams, and abundance of Blackness and Black peoples are tended to and affirmed? What Black technologies can be employed to cultivate the fullness of this possibility? This article will introduce readers to the Black Love and Care (BLaC) Ethic, a practical framework intended to disrupt the impacts of anti-Black racism and its intersecting oppressions by shifting how clinical practitioners practice being with Blackness. The BLaC Ethic is an invitation into a worldbuilding practice that explores what is possible when systems tend to and affirm Black experiences. The article will apply The BLaC Ethic through a reimagined clinical social work lens. The BLaC Ethic will also be explored from the perspective of “black technologies,” or methods of perspectivity developed by Black peoples, such as the Afrocene, Endarkened Storywork Epistemology, and the Divine Genders Oracle Deck.