Inequality in U.S. Social Policy

Confronting Historical White Supremacy in Social Work Education and Practice

“…During the Progressive Era, charity and social services were viewed as the Christian Church's responsibility (Warde, 2016). Thus, the Church deemed it necessary to determine who was worthy of aid.…”

“…Plainly stated, services were available to the European migrants, whom White Americans came to refer to as "ethnic Whites," but were denied to Black, Asian, and Indigenous Americans. Interventions ranged from "friendly visitors" to families in need, to teaching financial literacy and modeling a professional work ethic (Miller & Garran, 2017;Morgaine & Capous-Desyllas, 2014;Warde, 2016), as well as religious conversion. Husain and Howard (2017) have asserted that conversion to Christianity among ethnic White communities followed in line with the historic racialization of religion during formal colonialism.…”

“…The Settlement House movement is associated with Jane Addams, a White social worker of the time. It is important to highlight that, like Charity Organization Societies, Settlement Houses only served ethnic White clients and did not challenge systematic racism (Miller & Garran, 2017;Warde, 2016). The goals of Charity Organization Societies were to engage in research about poverty, provide aid to ethnic White people experiencing poverty in their transition to the United States, and support needy families through positive role-modeling (Morgaine & Capous-Desyllas, 2014), also performed by wealthy Christian women.…”

“…BIPOC organized based on shared victimhood and focused on fostering racial pride, mutual aid, and a sense of community in opposition to hegemony (Gregory, 2021;Miller & Garran, 2017;Smith, 2012). These social services and programs are reminiscent of the Indigenous practices of collectivism and sharing (Fast & Collin-Vézina, 2010;Schiele, 2017;Wane et al, 2011;Warde, 2016). This movement was led by Ida B.…”

“…The new working class now considered White were recent immigrants, who organized on racial lines as much as on traditionally defined class lines. For example, the Irish on the West Coast engaged in vicious anti-Chinese race-baiting and committed many pogrom-type assaults on Chinese in the course of consolidating the trade union movement in California (Fellows & Razack, 1998;Warde, 2016). Simultaneously, newly assimilated Jews more closely aligned to whiteness, received employment opportunities that created generational wealth and further excluded an estimated two million Blacks who migrated to the Northern and Western parts of the country (Bonilla-Silva, 2017;Warde, 2016).…”