| Summary: | "The profession of social work in the United States has a complex history of perpetuating White supremacy and racism alongside a professed goal to achieve social justice and equality for all. The paradox of being situated as a justice-oriented profession that operates within structures of oppression and racial hierarchy has led to ongoing struggle over the definition and purpose of the profession itself. There are numerous discursive conflicts and actual harm that results from being actors in state sanctioned systems of unequal power while working toward a social justice ideal. Indeed, many scholars have discussed social work's paradoxical positions in relation to populations they purport to help: single women and mothers, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, and children and families struggling with poverty, oppression, and displacement (Abramovitz, 2017; Abrams & Curran, 2004; Thibeault & Spencer, 2019). Prior scholarship has centered around control and coercion with respect to the people that we profess to help (Fook, 2002); if social work is simply a tool to try to soften the blows of oppression, hence making oppressive conditions just slightly more "bearable" and thwarting resistance (Lundy, 2011). Other scholars have documented how social workers actively participate in state sanctioned racial violence (Roberts, 2002); and how the profession's social control function is in conflict with anti-oppression work (Abramowitz, 1998; Dominelli, 1996; Webb, 2006). This edited volume on Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice aspires to add context, insight and new ways of thinking to these critical conversations"--
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