September 8th, 2015

Although I have just begun my learning journey as a social worker, I have already come across numerous curricular connections to the teacher preparatory courses I participated in as an undergraduate student. The strongest connection by far, though, is the discussion of the shared responsibility of teachers and social workers as responders, educators, and thoughtful criticizers of institutionalized racism.

In a course I took several years ago focusing on the impacts of race, socioeconomic status in students across the United States, a central text referred to was Beverly Daniel Tatum’s (2003) racial identity building analysis, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? : A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity.” The text promotes the same type of challenging conversations about race referred to in the Abrams and Molo (2009) article, “Critical Race Theory and the Cultural Competence Dilemma in the Social Work Education.” Both ascertain that addressing the racism that permeates society in 2015 can be frustrating, scary, and even guilt-ridden at times, but that it is necessary to bring about any sort of real change to the status quo.

One of the first steps in engaging in these conversations is acknowledging differences in race – a notion that differs greatly from “color blindness,”  the unsuccessful attempt to, “eliminate personal prejudices and level the playing field” (Abrams & Molo, 2009). Personally, when I began this process, I too felt that if I commented on another’s race I could be misconstrued as racist. Bringing these issues to light for the first time was challenging, and made me feel as though I was walking on egg shells whenever I participated. I was embarrassed, and I didn’t even really know why!With more practice, particularly in academic settings, I now rarely shy away from these conversations, but recognize them as vital to my own racial identity development and understanding.

A similar idea that was initially very challenging for me, was going through the “stages” Tatum (2003) describes in her book, and identifying moments from my personal history that helped shaped my identity (both positively and negatively) as a white American female. Tatum stresses identifying with yourself (racially) as a powerful prerequisite to exploring the races and cultures as others. Abrams and Molo (2009) describe this “self-awareness as a lifelong endeavor” which makes me excited to re-enter this type of self-discovery several years later, in a new field, with new peers. My learning, and self-awareness growth are not finished yet.

One way that I am excited about exploring my racial identity is possibly through the medium of Digital Story Telling (Lambert, 2013), which I am honestly very new to. I reflect, sometimes weekly through (often bulleted) journal writing. However, I have never turned these moments into full-fledged stories, developing friends and family as multidimensional characters – let alone illustrated or added sound in any way! I am intrigued.

References:

Abrams, L.S., & Molo, J.A., (2009). Critical race theory and the cultural

competence dilemma in social work education. Journal of Social Work

Education, 27(2), 245-261.

Lambert, J., (2013). Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community

4^th edition. New York: Life on the Water, Inc.

Tatum, B. D., (2003). Why are all the black kids sitting together in the

cafeteria? : A psychologist explains the development of racial identity.” New York: Basic Books.

Observations:

September 6, 2015: At 4:30pm all the individuals within my line of sight at the Eastern Promenade were white. About 50% of them were using smart phones.

September 3^rd, 2015: At approximately 9pm on Chestnut Street, there were two large congregations of people on either side of the street. On the left, there were white people sitting/standing/talking on the grass outside a parking lot. On the other side of the street, there was a group of seemingly black people only with three children playing in a parking lot. They were using rocks as props in their game.