|
|
|
|
|
|
Home
|
The Social Action Social Justice Council appreciates Dr, Kelly’s invitation to comment on “Rolling up My Sleeves” (NASW News, July, 2008)
His statement is available at: http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/news/2008/07/kelly.asp
Dr. Kelly’s statement confines its mention of oppressed groups to veterans. We support aiding veterans, particularly because recruiters systematically enlist poorly educated young people and ethnic minorities from marginal areas of the country. But we could all easily identify other groups in critical need of our expanded role. For example, the number of our country’s incarcerated has climbed to the highest figure in the world, both in per capita and absolute numbers. In February the Washington Post observed that one in 100 adults in the United States is currently imprisoned, an all-time high costing government tens of billions of dollars. The article also notes that a disproportionate number of these inmates are minorities. We live in a country where the state incarcerates people of color disproportionately, punishes children like adults, and forces women to give birth in prisons. These facts reflect our politicians’ harsh, impractical, and ultimately disastrous “tough on crime” posturing.
Veterans are now the most politically innocuous group to support because our country has become deeply militarized. The federal government devotes some 60 percent of its discretionary spending to the military, paying out more than all other nations on earth, friend and foe combined. Add to that the three trillion dollars-plus for the costs of the Iraq war and occupation, and the next administration—whoever it is--will be wearing budgetary handcuffs, even without financial bailout obligations. We know the people left behind. Frances Fox Piven’s The War at Home also examines the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars’ domestic damage. Given this monumental problem, limiting our role to “helping the country to serve its veterans” diminishes us and denies our historical calling as advocates of peace.
Another specific strategy point, positioning our profession “to face global realities,” is hard to interpret, perhaps because “global realities” is so all-encompassing. To “face them” seems to suggest passively accommodating them, whatever they may be. Our concern with the international dimension of social work prompts us to request clarification.
Several points in the strategy statement aim to show policy makers what the NASW is currently accomplishing. Let us go beyond them, to proclaim: "We are the conscience of this nation. Our experiences put us in a unique position to tell policymakers what this country needs to become whole in mind and body again." Social workers must forge more strategic alliances with other professions to bring this about. We hope that approach is reflected in the strategy statement’s “collaboration with like-minded organizations.” Single-payer health care would improve our clients’ lives dramatically, and organizations like the California Nurses Association are pressing energetically in various high-profile ways for reform. A working relationship with them would yield real results. Similarly, the American Public Health Association has long been actively involved in reducing deaths from firearms. What if strategic statements were to refer more specifically to cooperation across such professional lines?
Any “new partnerships” with corporations require serious caution. Rampant privatization of traditional governmental functions and corporate aggrandizement of power overwhelmingly favor private sector powers’ agendas over ours. AARP, for example, has profiteered via its role as a health insurance marketer for big insurers. When we affiliate with AARP we give them undeserved respect.
Our profession needs collaborative relationships with organizations that conduct policy oriented research geared to getting attention. The separation between NASW and CSWE highlights our current isolation—a body in one place and a head in another. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, publishes a broadly circulated magazine, The American Prospect, which regularly features special reports of central importance to social work. We offer two recent examples: “The Politics of Mental Illness” in the July/August issue, and “The Color of Opportunity: Narrowing Racial Divides and Expanding Prosperity for All,” published in October. If social workers could be involved systematically in such research and publishing the synergy would be marvelous.
Lest this prescription seem "heady" or abstract, please note that assorted reactionaries in this country have been pouring money and talent into "battle think tanks" like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute for decades. They pontificate about our turf--the problems we encounter every day as social workers, such as poverty, family instability, and violence. (See Stefancic and Delgado 1996 for an examination of this long-term right wing agenda.) We see around us the sorry results of their efforts.
In closing, we know that it is relatively easy to offer suggestions but far more difficult to effect them. Dr. Kelly walks a daily tightrope of securing resources on one side and realizing social work ideals on the other, and those efforts deserve respect. The new President’s energy and experience inspire strong feelings of hope among progressive social workers. We shall be rolling up our sleeves with you, Dr. Kelly.
References
Aizenman, Nurith C. 2008. “New High In U.S. Prison Numbers: Growth Attributed To More Stringent Sentencing Laws. Washington Post, February 29.
Retrieved from the web on August 1, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022801704_pf.html
Anonymous. 2008. Special Report. “The Politics of Mental Illness.” The American Prospect, 19 (7): July / August, pp. A1-A24.
Anonymous. 2008. Special Report. “The Color of Opportunity: Narrowing Racial Divides and Expanding Prosperity for All.” The American Prospect, 19 (10): October, pp. A1-A23.
Piven, Frances Fox. 2004. The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush’s Militarism. New York: The New Press.
Stefancic, Jean, and Richard Delgado. 1996. No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America’s Social Agenda. Philadelphia: Temple University Pres
|
|
|
|
