Examples Of Racism In Social Work

The Defining And Solution of Racism in Social work

Kimberly Marion

Murray State University

Racism vs Social work

The purpose of this paper is to understand how racism is defined and how it is dealt with in the social work practice. Carlos Hoyt Jr. and Claudia Bernard both stress the importance of discussing racism and education on anti-racism in the social work atmosphere. A proper definition is thought to solve conflict amongst individuals in society and the social work practice. Each article goes into a debate on the dynamics of racism as well as the meaning behind it including how you define racism at an individual-micro level or institutional-macro level. Both author’s argue that unless it is dealt with, the understanding

Why does it exist? What determines you to be racist? Claudia Bernard and Carlos Hoyt Jr. discuss the realms of racism, how they work in society, and how education can help the social work practice be effective for the economy. Hoyt defines racism as “the belief that all members of a purported race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or other race.” (Hoyt, 2012) He believes that there is great dispute among society of how racism is to be interpreted. The dispute is whether its meaning describes superior or inferior people based on racial ethnicity or if it should describe the use of power and conserving it. Hoyt (2012) pointed out that the reason of the holocaust being racist was not in the killing but was based on the inferiority belief that they had toward Jewish people. The main argument is that racism means power; therefore anyone of any race with power can be considered racist when using that power to oppress and have prejudice beliefs of another group of people or

Bernard’s (2013) research found that the obligation to combat racism has uninhibited the fight for anti-racism. The focus is no longer on anti-racism but implemented as anti-oppression. In her research she documented that Croft argued that if we stay invisible to whiteness when we talk about racism, it doesn’t support our debates when it comes to defending anti-racism. She also talks about how Bartoli discussed a social work team’s effort to establish a peer support group for black students, which would give them a voice to speak on how they have been oppressed and ways to cope and fix the issue of oppression and racism. In her opinion, this gave an opportunity for African Americans to express their concerns and talk about the issue at hand while providing some outlook and resolution. (Bernard,