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Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice Symposium: Envisioning an Anti-Racist Future: From Practice to Policy

Social work has a complex history of upholding White supremacy alongside a goal to achieve racial justice. Moreover, our profession simultaneously practices within racist systems and works to dismantle them. In the wake of a fervent #BlackLivesMatter movement and persistent racial disparities in key social welfare institutions, these paradoxes have come to the forefront of discussion in academic and practice circles. This unique moment presents an opportunity to interrogate our profession’s relationship to White supremacy and racial justice in order to reimagine an anti-racist future.

We hope you’ll join us for a four-part series of virtual symposia that will address these themes. Symposium events will occur throughout the academic year and will address different aspects of our past, present, and future. Additional information and specific dates are below.

*You will only need to register for one day. The ticket you receive will allow you to participate in both days of the symposium streaming live via YouTube.

PART 3: Envisioning an Anti-Racist Future: From Practice to Policy

March 4 & 5, 12:30 – 4:30 PM Eastern (11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. CST)

Part 3 explores emerging movements in social work that are working to actively dismantle racism and White supremacy. If anti-racism is the goal, how will we get there? What is the future we can imagine, and what is the future of social work in this new society?

DAILY SCHEDULE

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021

WELCOME ADDRESS

9:30PST/11:30 CST/12:30 EST - Welcome to the Symposium

Laura S. Abrams, Sandra Crewe, Alan Dettlaff, James Herbert Williams

PANEL 1 - Toward a New Vision of Society Powered by Our Moral Imagination

10:00-11:30 PST/12:00 - 1:30 CST/1:00-2:30 EST

Using Futures Thinking to Imagine What Comes After Social Work As We Know It

Laura Burney Nissen

Reparations and Neo-Abolitionism: Symbiotic Social Movements for Anti-Racist Social Work

Joshua R. Gregory

A 450-year Retrospective: The Dismantling of Systemic Racism and the Role of Social Work

Henrika McCoy

PANEL 2 - Abolitionist Strategies for Achieving Justice and Liberation

12:00-1:30 PST/2:00 - 3:30 CST/3:00-4:30 EST

Making Police Obsolete: Abolitionist Social Work and Emancipatory Responses to Social Problems

Noor Toraif and Justin Mueller

We Ain’t It and Neither Are They: De-Constructing the Narrative of Social Workers as Alternatives to Police and Developing a Strategy Out of It

Michael Rangel and Sam Harrell

The Role of Social Workers in Transforming the American Educational System as a Means to Carceral Abolition

Alizé Hill, Durrell Washington, Lester Kern, & Toyan Harper Jr.

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2021

PANEL 1 - Black Women, the Family Police, and the Fight for Liberation

9:30-11:00 PST/11:30 - 1:00 CST/12:30-2:00 EST

Black Women (Be)en Knowing: A Guide for Dismantling White Supremacy Through the Fight for Reproductive Justice in Social Work Research, Practice, and Advocacy

Crystal M. Hayes, Michele Eggers, & Kathryn Libal

Welfare Through the Lens of Black Motherhood

Natane Eaddy, Marcía Hopkins, & Dominique Mikell

Imagining a New World Through Afrofuturism: A Response to Racism Within the Social Work Profession

Lakindra Mitchell Dove

PANEL 2 - Reimagining Our Future Starts Now: Social Work’s Role in Radical Change

11:30-1:00 PST/1:30 - 3:00 CST/ 2:30-4:00 EST

Radically Imagining Anti-Racist Social Work Research Using a Trauma-Informed, Socially Just Framework

Meredith W. Francis, Alexis Jemal, Laura A. Voith, Tyrone C. Hamler, & Amy E. Korsch-Williams

Envisioning Anti-Racist Social Work Organizational Change: Amplifying the Grey Literature

Colleen Daly Martinez & Jeena Williams

Social Work for Social Movements: Using Movement Lawyering as a Frame for Action

Sophia Sarantakos and Shannon Sliva

CLOSING REMARKS

1:00-1:30 PST /3:00 - 3:30 CST/ 4:00-4:30 EST