Abstract
Social work education reinforces hegemonic Whiteness through pedagogies and practices that rely on an entitlement to and harvesting of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s lived experiences for the purpose of its tacit audience: White students. Despite this exploitative and harmful reliance on objectified lived experiences, White students continue to lack critical understanding of their racial positionality and connections to racism. Uprooting Whiteness requires sitting with what it means for White people to be “a White problem.” Drawing on the work of Yancy, we (group co-facilitators; our dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion; and three MSW student participants) describe the creation, organization, facilitation, and experiences of the first year of the Space for Uprooting Whiteness—a biweekly space where White social work students examine and uproot their relationship to White supremacy and domination. We argue for White social workers to take collective responsibility for racism in and beyond our institutions—requiring interrogation of our everyday practices and their (inter)dependence with and on systems of domination. This paper ends with three experiential narratives from student participants in the space and implications of critical intragroup dialogic pedagogy among White students in social work education and beyond.
Highlights
Social work education reinforces hegemonic Whiteness through pedagogies and practices that rely on an entitlement to and harvesting of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s lived experiences for the purpose of its tacit audience: White students
That question is rarely generative, it does open space for White people to engage in groups, spaces, and practices to figure out better questions to ask of ourselves and other White people: What are our everyday practices and actions in and beyond social work? How do they affect BIPOC? How do theysecure and extend systems of Whiteness and racism? When we focus on our everyday actions and behaviors, how does our understanding of individual and collective action begin to shift?
We argue for White social workers to take collective responsibility for racism in and beyond institutions—requiring interrogation of our everyday practices and theirdependence with and on systems of White domination
Summary
From its inception in 1898, social work education in the United States has a long history of racism and White supremacy. As individuals and a collective, we attempt to locate our habits, practices, discourses, and selves in systems of Whiteness and racism, critically engage with how these systems position us in relation to other people, and what anti-racist actions this positioning may require of us in various everyday contexts. The space intends to support White students in the lifelong process of building everyday practices of considering and confronting their racial positionality and role in sociopolitical systems of White racism. Processing can be an important tool for building a consistent critical reflective practice of understanding race, racism, Whiteness, and our own positionality as individuals in relation to one another, institutions, and systems. I believe that cultivating a sense of closeness and community based solely on shared Whiteness is irresponsible and harmful, and at the same time can’t imagine how I could have held people I met with for several hours every week at arm’s length
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