Opinion: The Role of Social Work Through A Systemic Racism Lens

by Marilyn Montenegro 

Over the past decade, the Women’s Council of the CA Chapter of the NASW has interrogated the fundamental conflicts between legal requirements and our ethical responsibilities as social workers. We have asked ” Is Legal Always Ethical?” and promoted in-depth discussion with experts in the areas of drug policy, crime and punishment and the helping professions, oppression and resistance, and trauma-informed systems through the lens of critical race theory.

Through these and other forums we have concluded that while laws are designed to serve the interests of those with power and property, the ethics of the social work profession are designed to advance social justice, and the two are in fundamental conflict. We find that we are asked to help our clients change, to modify criminogenic thinking, to gain self-esteem, to get sober, to deal with past trauma, to express remorse, to demonstrate rehabilitation while remaining embedded in a system that continues to inflict trauma, oppression, violence, and injustice.

We are dismayed at recent suggestions that social workers serve together with police as full participants in a system based on establishing blame and punishment. For too long we as social workers have been handmaidens to an institution created to enforce property rights by catching enslaved people, people who were considered property. As social workers, we have supported the idea that police and policing are necessary to ensure public safety and have responded to police violence and brutality with suggestions for modifications (training, regulations, civilian oversight) rather than concluding that a system based on violence, punishment and retribution is incapable of promoting public safety.

We endorse another vision of community care and safety based on community self-determination and self-care, the Breathe Act. This proposed legislation (developed by the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives),  offers a radical reimagining of public safety, community care, and the ways in which we spend money as a society.  The 128-page bill (the Breathe Act)  may be found here, https://breatheact.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/The-BREATHE-Act-V.16_.pdf

The Women’s Council is in full support of reimaging society and the role of social workers within it. We embrace the notion that it is not enough to just say Black Lives Matter – we need to live it.

Read the 128-page bill now: The Breathe Act

To learn more about The BREATHE Act, visit: breatheact.org

An earlier version of this opinion was published on 3/12/2021:The Role of Social Work Through a Systemic Racism Lens