A Call to Action: How Can Practitioners and Educators Engage in Authentic EDI Guided Social Work Podcast

Editor's note: This text-based course is a transcript of the A Call to Action: How Can Practitioners and Educators Engage in Authentic EDI Guided Social Work Podcast, presented by Candice Beasley, MSW, DSW, LCSW, BACS, Warren Graham, MSW, LCSW, ACSW, CASAC, and Benjamin T. Bencomo, DSW LISW, LCSW.

Learning Outcomes

After this course, participants will be able to:

• Consider the difference between workplace/classroom safety, therapeutic safety, and the use of safety as a critical conversation avoidance tactic.
• Evaluate social work's commitment to anti-racist social work education and practice.
• Decide on how best to create space for brave conversations in social work education and practice.

Podcast Discussion

Ben: Thank you for joining us for this second hour of our podcast on equity, diversity, and inclusion in social work practice and education. Since you are back for part two, we did not scare you away. I am joined by my wonderful guests, Warren Graham and Candice Beasley. During our first hour of this podcast, we discussed the idea of anti-racist social work practice and the ideas of equity, diversity, and inclusion. We demystified the idea that this is something new in the social work profession.

We talked about our experiences as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) social workers and social work educators. We also discussed the idea of authenticity. If we are going to engage in anti-racist social work practice and be faithful to the ideals of equity, diversity, and inclusion in moving our profession forward, we have to be authentic. We must be authentic with our lived experiences, self-reflection and self-correction processes, and conversations with colleagues and those outside the social work profession. We can invite them to listen and learn from our experiences to move this conversation forward.

If we are going to do this, we have to be okay with being uncomfortable and courageous. I encourage my students to engage in courageous conversation. Courageous conversation means that we have to be uncomfortable and okay with knowing that we do not know, and we have to be okay with the understanding that to learn, we have to be able to be courageous enough to put aside our fear of change and the homeostasis in which we live.

I want to start there, if we could, Warren and Candice, with the idea of addressing the fear of change and homeostasis. What are your thoughts on that?

Warren: When I think of homeostasis, I do not just think about equilibrium but the status quo. The status quo has not worked out well for us so far. We have to challenge what homeostasis means. What is our benchmark, the foundation, or the norm? We may find that we have been operating from a place that is already broken. Perhaps, we do not go back to homeostasis that was already created for us, not by us, and take an honest look at where we are, where we have been, what we have done, and what has yet to be done. Then, we can create a new standard that becomes a foundation for that homeostasis.

Candice: Absolutely. As social work professionals, we cannot ask others what we are unwilling to do. As researchers, do you not ask people to participate in your research, and as practitioners, do you not ask your clients to change? As professors, we ask our students to engage, change, and meet a learning curve, yet sometimes, we are unwilling to change anything. Nothing comes from staying stagnant. We may be comfortable in our space and how things have always been, but the world is changing. The people who do not move forward get left behind. I do not know about all of you, but I am not near retirement, and I think social security is moving the retirement age.

I tell my students you can think however you want, as we are all human and have discriminatory beliefs. Suppose your values are a little archaic and behind. In that case, when you step outside your door threshold, you are now a social work practitioner for humanity and do not have the authority to be racist or discriminatory. Those who have been in the game a long time have to change our thinking unless we do not want to do this anymore. Life is changing, and technology is advancing with Facebook, WhatsApp, videoing, live streaming, et cetera. It is only a matter of time before you get caught if you are being harmful, and this is not even about getting caught. Things have been happening for a long time, but it is now coming to people's conscious awareness due to this technological advancement.

We need to hold others accountable for things like racism, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), hegemonic masculinity, and discrimination toward people with different abilities. Even if you do not ascribe to the whole racism thing, unless you are a white male, you will fit into one of those categories. If you want people to understand the fullness and totality of that and move the profession forward, you have to be a change leader into whatever category you fall.

Warren: I want to add something to that because you said something important. You talked about us being social workers for humanity. When I started teaching some of this content, it was under the guise of social justice. I was late to the party, understanding that social justice was a component of human rights. I have to become educated to be introduced to the universal declaration of human rights and what that means. If we reframe how we view social justice and socializing students to the profession, we may do it from a human rights perspective. And if we do that from a human rights lens, then perhaps we will not be so hesitant to change because we have already been changing.

Our language in the field has become a lot more inclusive for individuals like those in LGBTQIA or differently abled. We have been changing to accommodate the different ways in which people show up, but we still do not embrace change as it relates to issues of racism, power, privilege, and oppression. I think that is the last stronghold that we need to conquer. Without change, there is no growth. The world around us is ever-changing, and we need to be fluid to change with it if we continue to work in this field.

Candice: Absolutely. The intersectionality of race and those other issues of oppression (e.g., differently abled and race and LGBTQIA and race) becomes highly convoluted.

Ben: If we ask others to be comfortable enough to listen to our story and lived intersectional experience, we must be open to change and learning from others. We have reflected on how pushing through feeling uncomfortable is vital for social workers. What are your thoughts on how this relates to social workers with privilege?

Candice: Social workers with privilege do not have any problem with people feeling uncomfortable when they tell their stories. For example, a privileged social worker may be comfortable with a certain "uncomfortability." What do I mean by that? Let's take a social worker with a research agenda or a dissertation on violence and rape. Some people are very uncomfortable with violence and rape, especially if that is their issue. Professors with privilege will walk into a classroom and freely discuss rape, a sensitive subject. They will infer you need to get over that because this is their research agenda. They may say, "What will happen if you have a client that comes into your office, and they have been raped? You need to gain some comfortability about that because we are part of the helping profession, for goodness sake." If you have a client who has been raped, you have to do everything you can to help that person, and that is completely true. But if you have someone related to the George Floyd family who comes in and wants to discuss that, then this is when the world will end. What if you have someone struggling with addiction because they are a descendant of a member of the Trail of Tears, you understand that is now a different issue, but the same tenants apply. Just because someone comes from status quo privilege does not mean they do not have problems, but they are free to tell their story. I think people of color do not appreciate that they are forced to be comfortable with others' stories, while those of privilege do not want to hear theirs. They have the power to control policies and silence stories. We are told we are combative or our stories do not fit their curriculum. 

In academia, they often say, "You need to focus on helping students pass the licensure test?" Why are we talking about that, Ben? Let's not talk about that. Diversity and oppression are not on the licensure test. Many universities offer only one DEI course, yet we expect them to be this expert on diversity and oppression. Unless they have a very learned professor and this content trickles throughout the curriculum, and in other classes, we cannot expect them to be experts. I will say that the privileged force others to be comfortable with differences that they are comfortable with, but they have the power and privilege to silence differences that they are uncomfortable with; there lies the problem.

Ben: As social work professionals, we no longer have the privilege of being silent. We have an ethical mandate to speak up when we know that people are being harmed in any way. When we apply that same thinking to our profession and us as the privileged few with education, licensure, and all those fancy letters after our signatures, what do we do? One of the very first responses I received from a good friend after defending my dissertation from a good friend and fellow BIPOC professor was, "Remember Ben, we lift as we climb."

How do we use our position to continue to invite others to this same level of professional privilege? How can our listeners, who might be social work educators or practitioners, draw upon our privilege to invite BIPOC students or clients into these conversations?

Warren: I think being able to draw on our privilege has to be done very delicately. I am thinking about race-based microaggressions in the myth of meritocracy. When I lean on my privilege, I need to be mindful that at some point, someone will say there are no glass ceilings for people who look like you because you have achieved a certain status. I frame leaning on my privilege or using my positionality to support who I am and what I do by discussing this carefully to avoid race-based microaggression before they happen. We need to be intentional about the language we choose.

Additionally, let's lift as we climb. We must understand that there are people who do not occupy these spaces, and there are rules created for them that do not reflect their needs and wants. I think, where possible, we should level the playing field by using our positionality and identity to sometimes speak for those who have no voice. It is not just a matter of having a seat at the table, but it is also having voice and power at the table. I think that is part of our obligation to use what we have to advance a larger agenda.

Candice: I will also say having an education with an education. I usually do not share this with many people, but when I was in high school, I was placed at a "status quo" high school, not my choice. I remember my elders telling me, "You are going to this high school, and you won't like it. But you're going to go because they will teach you what they know." Although my elders were not well educated, they knew I had to become "bilingual" in this different educational construct.

As a BIPOC faculty member and practitioner, one of the significant roles I take very seriously is educating students on navigating white social work. Many do not understand that we are in a white social work construct. When you are brought up in a BIPOC environment with BIPOC jargon, it is hard to understand, even for knowledgeable people. They do not know what is meant by silent coding and innuendos. I never bothered or cared to ask, but I am unsure if some status-quo people understand that BIPOC people do not always understand what they mean by certain things. I am very well-versed in understanding certain looks and ways of doing things, and I have taught my eight-year-old son what kids mean when they do and say certain things. It is a whole different construct than how I was brought up.

I use the word construct constantly, but BIPOC people live in an entirely different world than white folks. Again, I do not know if they fully understand that we must navigate both worlds. So I view our position within academia and as clinicians as responsible for teaching our students and clients how to navigate those worlds. I genuinely mean this. If we do not learn that, we do not survive. We are here because someone taught us how to navigate those worlds. For instance, I am from the south, and we are animated and loud. When I entered the university, I had to tone that down because I would be seen as disruptive, angry, or combative when I was only loudly laughing. I have learned how to lower my tone, soften my voice, and say things in a certain way so I will not be viewed negatively. I have to teach my black female students how to lower their voices, change their intonation, and ways to say things so that people will give them a chance. I tell them that if they say things the wrong way, they will not have the opportunity to see their brilliance.

An example is that you say, "Hi, Dr. Bencomo. How are you doing?" rather than, "Hey, Ben. What's up?"  This is the learned behavior of navigating through these different constructs; unfortunately, we have to do that and not be our authentic selves. There is authenticity for survival, and then there is authenticity within the profession. For people of color, we also have different meanings of authenticity, but that is a whole other podcast.

Ben: Many conversations with my students look more like the latter in your example, but I get your point. I understand what you are saying because I think we all do that. We all learn to exist in spaces where we were not meant to live. When we find ourselves in those places or in "mixed company," as my mother would say, why is this intergroup dialogue so vital? As social workers, how can we lead those conversations to engage in that intergroup dialogue that is so vital?

Candice: As we share a profession, I think we speak the same language. We also come from the same place of understanding about our core values. However, it is different when we are having that conversation with psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors involved. Social workers have a shared understanding of why we are doing what we are doing. On the other side, some people think this is ridiculous. What are we talking about? They want to keep things as they have been done, or that "status quo" thinking. I think one reason is that many people are fearful of having these conversations. They do not want to lose friends and colleagues and do not want people to think of them differently. Or they do not want to be honest about what they do not know. I also believe that some people with research agendas do not even understand their research agendas or what they are writing. I think people are scared to be exposed.

I, too, have a fear of exploitation. I do not take what I say in this space and want people to use that against me later. I do have a fear of that. I do not mind being vulnerable, but it is like the green mile. What I say in this space, I am going to leave here. Do not stop me in the hallway and say, "Oh, Candice, when you said this, ..."  I do not like that. 

I do not understand why academia is so competitive when it does not t have to be. Some people of color are scared of exploitation, and I am one of them. People of color are afraid because they have been pushed down and beaten by the white supremacist agenda. People go along to get along, and it is safer for them. Perhaps they fought the fight at one point in life, and the fight did not work, or the institution, agency, or whatever threatened them. They may have been fired or missed a promotion. People also get close to retirement and take a backseat and coast.

It is good to have these conversations together, but I also fully understand the varied reasons why these conversations do not happen. The people responsible for keeping us safe do not always do their job. They do not want these conversations to happen and want to maintain the status quo instead.

Warren: I think what you said also connects to a previous comment about safety. It is safe not to have these conversations or adjuncts teaching some potentially inflammatory content. This way, they can let the adjunct member go instead of a tenured faculty member. We should not play "keep away" and contribute to students' vulnerability.

This intergroup dialogue can be constructive in guiding conversations for individuals from differing backgrounds. You can create new levels of understanding and relation and create a collective vision that upholds the dignity of one another and advances an agenda of wholeness. In that conversation or dialogue, you can teach other social workers, non-BIPOC social workers, what it is to be bilingual and bicultural and why code-switching is a thing. You can also teach why these conversations are so vital in the context of historical trauma and emotional unwellness. These conversations can easily connect to competencies and engagement. So when a student walks by and says,  "Hello, Dr. Graham," and another says, "What's up, Dr. G?" I should not have to defend to a peer why I allow that level of communication. At that moment, that was a safe space for that student. I will not police those safe spaces because not every space is "safe." I stopped saying that my classroom was a "safe space" long ago. As wonderful as I think I am, I am not that powerful to create the reality of safety for some of our students, especially the BIPOC marginalized students. It is an illusion, and I will not perpetuate that in my classroom. However, I ask them to be brave or, to use Ben's words, courageous. "I want you to be courageous, move past your uncomfortability, and contribute to the conversation because someone will learn something from it." Intergroup dialogue can be helpful by removing some assumptions that contribute to prejudice. We do not utilize it as a tool all the time. Ignoring it contributes to some of that exploitation and exacerbates the historical trauma of BIPOC students of color. Like clients, BIPOC faculty go through a similar experience.

Ben: Warren, you speak of this idea of safe spaces. We, as social workers, are often trained and socialized into the idea of creating safe spaces. As you said, we talk about that in our classrooms and group settings. How can it hinder engaging in courageous conversations when we encourage people to exist in a "safe space?"

Warren: First, we must challenge what a safe space looks like or means. Comfortability does not mean sensitivity. Like I tell students, I will be sensitive, but I have no problems making you uncomfortable because it is in that uncomfortablity that the learning occurs. Some students think uncomfortable means unsafe, and we need to challenge that. Being my class does not mean I am not going to disagree with you or that I am not going to call you on your stuff when it manifests. I may call to your attention a thought or behavior contributing to white supremacist behavior. I would be remiss in my responsibility as a social worker and educator if I did not. I bring this to your attention because you may not even know that this is how you are presenting.

Everyone wants to be politically correct, and nobody wants to offend anybody. You cannot even listen to comedians anymore because someone is going to say something about someone, and suddenly, you will see it trending on social media. When we say a safe space, it means safe to express differing opinions and engage in discourse that may or may not be satisfying and pleasing to the eye but necessary for growth. We have to do a better job as either the quarterbacks in the classroom and lay the foundation for students.

Candice: I think safety utilized within the classroom is starting to become a complete misnomer. The social work pioneers were neither safe nor were the people of charity organization societies (COS). They were pounding the pavement. We are not to give social workers the promise of therapeutic safety that we provide our clients. That is not the same thing. Social work instructors are creating harm and entering into a dual relationship when they promise that. You are going to be their therapist, or you are their instructor. You cannot do both. We should not be promising our students therapeutic safety. So let's get that off the table, as students are not our clients. We are asking our students to engage in a transformative process to become a professional. Therefore, they are not paying us to give them therapeutic safety.

Secondly, NSAW as a profession does not allow that safety. They tell us that we have safety from violence only, so we must follow the profession. Our profession says that safety is talking about violence. When I promise my students' safety, I will have them expelled from the school if I ever find out that you have physically harmed or bullied another student. However, I will never offer them safety, which means that I will not protect them from being uncomfortable, as that hinders the transformative process. I have a responsibility to do my job. I have been teaching for seven to eight years, and I have never once had a student report me for making them feel uncomfortable because I tell them in the beginning that it is their responsibility as it is mine.

Remember, change hurts. Change is questioning everything you have been taught in the past. If students are not transforming, I am not doing my job, or they are not doing theirs. If you explain to people why you are doing something, and they know you are comfortable about being uncomfortable yourself, they will follow suit. Clients, as well as students, rise to your expectation of them. Again, this falls back on us as professors, instructors, and social work professionals having an issue with difficult conversations. It is not the clients or students; it is us. We have the issue, and we have to do better.

Ben: We have to change that narrative. Moving from creating safe spaces, how do we create brave spaces? How do we develop courageous conversations and safety parameters in which to be uncomfortable? I will stop using the phrase safe spaces, Candice, and instead say brave spaces. Where do we go from here? How can we contribute toward an anti-racist social work education and practice?

Candice: That has different layers. In a classroom, you must be intentional and start with a conversation about your expectations. School is an investment that takes time, hard work, and money. If you explain what and why they have to do something initially, they want to do it. You cannot walk into class the first day and say you cannot be racist anymore.

Nobody likes change. If you question my values and tell me I cannot be Christian, Muslim, or whatever, that will not go over well. That is a trans-theoretical model of change. You better give somebody a good reason why they must change. People they have looked up to their entire life may have told them one thing, and now you are trying to change them. It would be best if you had good data and reasons they can no longer think like this or need to think differently. This is something we must change ourselves. We must explain why we must shift things and look at this idea of humanness.

I tell students they do not have to change today. They may come in as black-and-white thinkers, but the beauty of our profession is they will move into some gray thinking. "Is it wrong to hurt somebody?" This is a question I like to ask and then give this example. I had a client who came home and found her significant other severely sexually harming her five-year-old daughter. At that moment, she killed him. Now, let me ask again, is hurting someone or homicide wrong? This is a gray area and a shift in values and thinking. We ask them to consider humanness, not change the core of who they are. I am not asking them to love BIPOC people, but I am asking for their consideration. You can have discriminatory thoughts about me because I am black, but you also need to know that I am a mother, daughter, friend, and part of a family who loves me. I am a human being as well. You can have whatever thoughts you want of me, but I am also human, and can we start right there?

You can start dropping these nuggets in class. We all have basic needs. We are humans that want respect, to be loved, and to be left alone. If you do not care for us, get out of our way and leave us be. Ben, when you are talking about change on a macro level, I am not even trying to fight that one. I do what I can in the classroom. We all have our spaces. Some people can fight the big macro wheel, while others are meant to fight that meso wheel. I do what I can on the meso front but find my space in micro-level work. After eight years, some of my students are working in Washington doing policy work. They called me and said, "Candice, I changed this policy, and I thought of you," or "I remember what you taught me, and I changed ...". I think this is where we can influence others with power and privilege. Because guess what, Ben, it is the white men I have taught who are going and getting those jobs and making change by remembering what I taught them. I am utilizing their power, which I do not have myself, to make changes. I am tired, and I am passing the baton.

Ben: I will ask here in a moment about other practice settings and how we can do that, but first, Warren, how do you create those brave spaces and contribute to anti-racist social work practice in your classroom settings?

Warren: Contributing to anti-racist practice is almost easier of the two to describe. There are some concrete things we can do as professors and instructors that make a difference for students. As I mentioned about decolonizing social work, we can start by decolonizing our classroom because representation matters. I discuss what I am teaching and what articles, textbooks, videos, and podcasts I reference. Are the authors of these materials reflective of everyone in the class? Am I teaching students a theory created by white men, presumably for a white population, or am I using works by Bell Hooks or someone else so that students can see themselves reflected in their scholarship and in the literature that I am asking them to learn?

For those in charge, who are we selecting to teach some of this content? Again, this is important for the student sitting in the class wondering, "Why am I here?" They may feel that they do not deserve to be there or that their peers think they do not deserve to be there. Having a professor who looks like them and may have a shared historical traumatic experience navigating some of the same hallways they are now navigating is crucial. And it is not a heavy lift, per se. Changing some of the material you are using and putting people in front of students who may look like them or, at the very least, are not representative of the status quo forces them to look at the different levels of identity. Can we also tweak the assignments we are giving students and create self-reflective assignments, which will force students to lean into these learning edges that will contribute to that self-reflection that we talked about earlier? We do not have to give students multiple-choice quizzes because it is easier for us to do that. Sometimes, we must be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable to contribute to student learning. For those sitting on committees, how are we contributing to integrating this content and concepts across the curriculum?

I have to be mindful of my little piece of the pie or my little space in the universe, but I can also mention that someone else's course is whitewashed and does nothing for students of color. Schools do not have to be an extension of the same oppressive conditions in our students' backgrounds. There are things we can do, including having encouraging conversations among our faculty and students, because it is a parallel process. Conversations faculty are having with students should be the same ones students are having with field instructors, and field instructors should be having with their field advisors, and so on.

Ben: Many of our listeners are current social work practitioners. How can we then extend these conversations, whether at that micro agency practice level or in those meso spaces, and yes, even in those macro-level advocacy spaces? How can our listeners engage in these conversations and contribute to anti-racist social work practice?

Candice: We need to allow the client to tell their story. We are so quick to get into the issue of why the client is there and maybe not connecting with the client or examining how race and oppression play into their problems. People do not like to discuss it, but during the incident with George Floyd, the emergency rooms were filled with people having exacerbations of heart problems, asthma, and other conditions. What happens in the world affects our health, psyche, and how we deal with our families. Whether you are a status quo practitioner or a BIPOC person, we do not know everyone's story. Just because I am a person of color does not mean I know all the stories of brown people, nor do all brown people know my story. The BIPOC population may not all understand each other, either. I think allowing clients to tell their stories and asking, "Has anything happened in your community that you want to discuss?" is an essential first step. You will start to find that many may have lost jobs or other issues intrinsically connected with race issues. You can help that person navigate and process those issues. That is how you embed those tenants of anti-racism and DEI within a practice. However, we often want to jump immediately into CBT or Bowenian concepts instead of educating people about navigating white supremacist harm. Some people think this is foolish. As a person of color, white supremacy has harmed me more than other things, like divorce or family issues. Thankfully, I have my way of working through that, but not everyone does. Helping people navigate these issues will provide better outcomes than whatever current intervention you are utilizing.

Warren: I would also add that if we consider using a trauma-focused orientation or lens to encapsulate some of our work, we can probably identify how harmful white supremacy is. It is not only dangerous, but there are actual threats against black bodies. An adverse childhood experiences (ACE) approach may be helpful if you have a diverse client population. It is essential to consider how posttraumatic slave syndrome and historical trauma can manifest in generations and generations. We can also consider Resmaa Menakem's work, My Grandmother's Hands, where he talks about how trauma stays in the body. These experiences of trauma live in the body and can be connected to social determinants of health and physiological issues.

Maybe the fixes require practitioners to go a little bit deeper into the work that they are doing with their client populations. Not all the clients who appear before you know exactly why they are there. If we consider the differences in CSWE EPAS (The Council on Social Work Education and Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards) from 2015 to 2022, there are some significant differences. The 2015 competency advanced human rights and social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. In 2022, it says to engage diversity and difference in practice. This is what we need to do as practitioners, engage diversity and difference and maybe ask for these understandings of people's lived experiences.

Ben: We have a couple of minutes left. I wanted to end by looking toward the future. What are your hopes for equity, diversity, and inclusion in the social work profession in the coming years?

Candice: I hope we understand and internalize this content and are not doing anything nuanced or different. I want us to use our profession's ethics and stand on the truth of what our profession calls us to do. If this happens, difficult conversations will not be so hard. Truth is truth, and fact is fact. If someone says two plus two equals four, no one falls apart. We have to have these discussions. Talk about it, as this is what our profession tells us we must do, and all of a sudden, these conversations will not be so daunting. This is what we must do. If we stand upon what we discussed in segment one, it automatically is an aversion to people who do not want to ascribe to this, but it will draw close the people who do amazing work within our profession.

Ben: Absolutely, thank you. Warren, what are your hopes for EDI and social work?

Warren: I hope that these conversations become the norm and become passe. I hope we incorporate these values into everything we do and that DEI and the corresponding work are not adjunctive to social work. I want this content to be ingrained in everything we do in the profession, whether in practice, teaching, or supervision. It needs to be a part of our professional orientation and how we socialize with the profession. This also means holding our social work organizations accountable for making that so. I would love to see a CSWE mandate that schools of social work have to weave this content throughout their curriculum and have a standalone course speaking to this specifically. We need to do more to support the uncomfortable people in the classrooms by having these conversations because they have never been forced to have them.

Candice: And how the profession will hold people accountable who do not ascribe to these tenants. 

Ben: There you go. Thank you both for having this brave conversation with me and the listeners in this two-part podcast. I hope we can continue to move forward and expand upon these brave conversations in all of the spaces in which we exist, those that were meant for us to exist and those that were not. Thank you again to both of you, and thank you to our listeners.

Warren: Thank you for having me.

Candice: Thank you.

References

Available in the handout.