Removing the knees from their necks: Mobilizing community practice and social action for racial justice

Abstract

In the midst of a year of seemingly insurmountable struggles associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States and other countries across the globe are grappling with another deadly pandemic responsible for taking untold lives and destroying the health, well-being and potential of millions of people and the communities in which they reside. This pandemic-systemic racism-is not new. For 400 years, systemic racism (also known as institutionalized or structural racism) has been used in the United States primarily against African Americans as an institutionalized mechanism of social control, economic exploitation, and white supremacy. Systemic racism manifests itself in a myriad of interconnected ways, including disparities in health, education, employment, and housing; voter suppression; and disproportionate exposure to state-sanctioned violence at the hands of law enforcement (

Convergence of community social work practice, collective impact, and design thinking: What, why, and how?

“…Lastly, while cultural humility provides an important lens in recognizing how power differentials and systems of oppression shape both the interpretation and definition of social problems and the interventions needed to address them, humility alone does not dismantle oppressive structures; competence in, and a broader commitment to, anti-oppressive practice are also needed within community practice (Danso, 2018; Greene-Moton & Minkler, 2020). Notably, there are several examples of contemporary community practice models that go well beyond cultural humility to challenge systemic oppression and structures of power (Santiago & Ivery, 2020).…”

After the Killing of Atatiana Jefferson: Black Stakeholder Experiences Within a Municipal Listening Structure

“…While it is beyond the scope of this project to make the case that police brutality exists, is widespread and long-standing, and traumatizes those in minoritized communities, these realities have been well documented by scholars in Black studies, criminal justice, law, social work, political science, and other fields (for review, see Graham et al, 2020; Newman, 2015; Santiago & Ivery, 2020; Schroedel & Chin, 2020; Schwartz, 2020). As the 13 th largest city in the United States, Fort Worth and its residents have been part of national trends related to police brutality and calls for racial justice by Black Lives Matter and other organizations, especially after the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer in May 2020 in Minneapolis.…”

Mapping an Integrative Critical Race and Anti-Colonial Theoretical Framework in Social Work Practice

“…As outlined in the preceding discussion, from social work practice to service delivery, the profession has perpetuated harm against BIPOC (Dettlaff et al, 2020;Kolivoski et al, 2014;Murray-Lichtman et al, 2022;Murray-Lichtman & Elkassem, 2021;Santiago & Ivery, 2020). Racism, white supremacy, and coloniality within the profession sets the stage for social work practice that also denies the impact of racism on BIPOC service consumers through race-neutral policies that devastate communities (Dettlaff et al, 2020) and the marginalization of voices that speak against such practices (Bryant & Kolivoski, 2021).…”