Working within the system July 19, 2010
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As educators, social workers, lawyers, and civil servants, we are all working inside of a system to some capacity. How do we balance needing to do our jobs and provide services to people with our desire to change certain aspects of those systems?
As I prepare to begin my job as a new public school teacher in New York, I have some ideas about how to navigate the complex landscape of education.
1. Be excellent at your job.
By excelling in clear ways—helping students make significant academic gains or increasing parental engagement by creating a new initiative—we will develop the support we need to do the work we want. It will give us more clout, more credibility, and sometimes even more wiggle room to do things that are less conventional but ultimately better for your clients or constituents.
2. Check yourself.
We absolutely cannot fight for change without examining how culture and power operate within our own lives. We have to be aware of how our assumptions about authority, power, and cultural assumptions inform our work.
In college, I was the unofficial leader of several non-hierarchical organizations. I often felt frustrated when I tried to hold myself and the organization to the values that we professed (non-hierarchy, collaboration, community-building, awareness of power, etc.). It’s just easier, I thought, to act like a leader and delegate tasks rather than build consensus and allow members to take ownership of the group. When I finally realized that I needed to relinquish power and control in order to facilitate responsible and meaningful work in my group, the results were miraculous. I felt more comfortable about my role in the group and everyone’s investment, enthusiasm, and productivity increased exponentially.
3. Get creative.
Simply rejecting the standards or requirements imposed upon us is irresponsible and counterintuitive. Students need to perform on standardized tests in order to advance in school. This standard might have nothing to do with actual learning, nor does it have much to do with what I would like to teach my students. The key is to find creative ways to incorporate your own ideas of what should be taught into what you are required to teach. In his wonderful book, To Teach, William Ayers describes how he used test prep as an opportunity to discuss cultural bias with his 6th grade students. It is challenging to do this, but it is possible.
4. Identify your allies.
My successes as an organizer during college, as a student, and as an employee have almost always been contingent upon my ability to forge alliances with folks both inside and outside of the space where I was working. When I planned rallies, events, and speaker series in college, I frequently reached out to folks I knew for help. I had a clear vision, but no graphic design skills, so I called on my friend Adam to design promotional materials. I even made friends with the ladies who worked in the scheduling office; they are not particularly pleasant people, but if they like you they can pull some pretty extreme favors.
We must be able to suspend our judgment and assumptions about people; folks who disagree about most things can often coalesce around an issue they feel strongly about. Also, more experienced teachers or social workers often know the politics of their organization or field, and they can be invaluable resources in this regard.
5. Love what you do.
Why do we do this work? Whatever our reason, we have to find specific and consistent ways to remind ourselves why we have poured our hearts and souls into working toward change. When we forget that we love our work, it is reflected in our performance and in our ability to succeed. When I start to lose myself in my work, I attend discussion groups and conferences, and read a lot. These activities inspire me and get me fired up again.
Sarah Solomon is a Teach for America Corps Member in NYC.
News Round-up, 6/25/10 June 25, 2010
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Digging in at the Social Forum. Yesterday 20,000 activists gathered to march to Cobo Hall in Detroit, MI for the second US Social Forum. Today, organizers and activists got to work. Check out Josh Healey’s report from his first day digging into the workshops at USSF. We’re hoping to have a guest post from a RISE member about the Social Forum sometime in the next week or two, so stay tuned!
Rebranding at ICE meant to soften immigration enforcement agency’s image. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is rebranding their image in an attempt to emphasize criminal investigations over immigrant deportation and improve public perception. Immigration advocates put perspective on this “makeover” by reminding us that the problem with ICE is not its image, it is their policies. Afton Branche, blogger for Drum Major Institute, takes a closer look at ICEs PR stunt, which favors style over substance.
Bid to suspend California’s global warming law qualifies for November ballot. Texas oil giants Valero and Tesoro spent $3 million to gather the signatures needed to get a measure on the ballot to abolish the state’s tough climate legislation. The law they hope to abolish allows the state to set limits on greenhouse gas emission from automobiles, oil refineries, and other industries. The law will also require a third of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. Get the full story from the LA TIMES.
FLD Covers the Prop 8 Trial. Speaking of California propositions, last week there were Closing Arguments in Perry v Schwarzenegger, the federal trial to determine the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which revoked marriage rights for same sex couples. For live blogging from the trial and thorough coverage, check out Firedoglake.
Human Trafficking: Not Someone Else’s Problem. Last week the the State Department released the 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report. For the first time the report includes an assessment of trafficking in the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “Involuntary servitude is not something we can ignore or hope doesn’t exist in our own community.” Check out the full story from The Nation, or read the Trafficking in Persons Report itself on the State Department website.
What’s Wrong with Radical? June 15, 2010
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Soon after completing my Bachelors of Social Work at NYU, I began looking for a Masters program with a more radical curriculum. I told my mom this and that I want to be a part of a community of radical social workers and students. As soon as I said the word “radical” her eyebrows furrowed in.
It is the face she makes when I curse.
Many people treat “radical” like it is profane, not just my mom. I identify as a radical, but I still sometimes make negative assumptions about others that identify this way. I think that “radicals” see only in black and white. They are militant and not critical of their own views. They are just wildly against, but not for anything.
Why does this word stir such discomfort? And why do I call myself radical anyway?
We feel uncomfortable with the word “radical” partly because of the way it is used in the media. In the news “radical” is often synonymous with “extremist” and underscores irrationality. It it is a word used to scare us. In a recent interview with Sean Hannity, Tom Horne, Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction, discussed the recent ethnic studies ban:
“They’re dividing them up, teaching each group only about its own background, and in Raza studies, particularly, it’s an extremely radical agenda, anti-capitalist, anti-free enterprise, separatists.”
As if “Anti-this! Anti-that!” isn’t enough to let us know how terrible he thinks ethnic studies are, he uses the word “radical” to scare and convince us that something as benign as teaching people about their own culture is threatening. But in response, I would probably call Mr. Horne a radical right-winger. So there I go, using the word to emphasize just how different his ideology is from my own.
So why do I identify as a radical, when I also use it despairingly? I call myself radical when I need to make a “considerable departure from the usual,” which is one definition of radical, according to Merriam Webster. It is the difference between “that hurt” and “that fucking hurt”. The profanity makes a bold statement; it lets people know that you are in pain and need to be taken seriously. While earning my BSW I felt issues of oppression, racism, and injustice were not approached as seriously as I would have liked. I discovered that my social work education was not going to prioritize social justice and it really hurt.
“Radical” made my mom uncomfortable and that is exactly the reason I used it. As I search for my own identity as a change agent and social worker, I embrace radical but with a slight hesitation. It is like a curse word– it fires people up but also loses power if it’s used carelessly. I reserve the word radical for the times when I need to make a statement that challenges the norm. It’s for when things don’t just hurt, they fucking hurt, and they need to be heard.
What do you think? Are you a radical? What does that mean to you?
Rebecca Stahl is a RISE Member and recent BSW graduate of the NYU Silver School of Social Work
Event Round-Up: June 2010! June 11, 2010
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Around the beginning of each month, we’ll be posting a few of the many, many events that are happening in the upcoming weeks and that we think that RISE members would be interested in. We’ll let you know if any RISE members we know about are planning on going, but leave us a comment if you plan to go and let us know if you’d be interested in meeting up with other RISE members at the event, or if you’d like to write a report-back for this blog! Also, feel free to post any other events you think RISE members should know about in the comments, and shoot us an email at blog@riseconference.org to suggest events for next month’s round-up.
Looking for more events? Try the NY Activist Calendar or the NYC Protest Calendar.
TONIGHT! 6/11/10, 7pm: Picture the Homeless Dance Party!
Picture the Homeless is having a dance party tonight to benefit homeless New Yorkers’ trip to the US Social Forum in Detroit. $10 at the door for great music, food, and people at PTH’s Bronx office, 2427 Morris Ave [very-near 4 or D to Fordham Road], Bronx. For more information, call them at (646) 314-6423.
6/13/10, 1pm: Free Screening (with RSVP) of “The Coca-Cola Case”
“The Coca-Cola Case,” a move about Coca-Cola’s trampling of labor rights in Columbia, is being screened on Sunday at the Peace Pentagon. Admission is free if you RSVP at this link. For more information on the campaign to hold Coke accountable for its actions in Columbia, check out the Killer Coke campaign, which sent an organizer to sit on RISE’s Community Organizing panel in 2009!
6/14/10, 6:30pm: Rally to Protect the Rights of Homeless LGBT Youth
Join the Ali Forney Center in Union Square on Monday evening for a rally in solidarity with homeless LGBT youth. Check out the Facebook event here. RISE member Kate Barrow will be going to the rally, so leave a comment if you’d like to meet up with her!
6/14/10, 6pm: Haiti Rejects Poisoned Gift from Monsanto
Seeds for Haiti and the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York are hosting Haitian activist Chavannes Jean-Baptiste who will discuss Haitian farmers’ Struggle for Food Sovereignty through Sustainable Agriculture. Monsanto has donated 60 tons of unwanted hybrid corn seeds and 2 tons of vegetable seeds to Haiti, and small farmers are organizing to oppose these plans and to promote their own sustainable solutions instead. The talk will be held at Martin Luther King Labor Center–SEIU/1199, 310 W 43rd St, Manhattan, and you can email info@bassinzim.org for more infomation. RISE member Shane Crary-Ross is going to try to make it to this event, so leave a comment with your email address if you want to meet up with her!
6/17/10, 2pm: Hearing on Hunter Child Care Cuts
The New York State Supreme Court will be holding a hearing on Hunter College Child Care cuts at 60 Centre Street, Room 422. For more information, check out www.defendhunterchildcare.org, and if you decide to go to the hearing make sure to leave time to get through the metal detector!
6/22/10-6/26/10: US Social Forum, Detroit, Michigan
While this isn’t a NYC event, we wanted to post it because it would be a true round-up of June 2010 events without the US Social Forum. Activists from around the country will meet in Detroit to build relationships, learn from each other’s experiences, and share analysis of the problems our communities face. Are you planning on going? Leave us a comment, we would love to hear about your experiences on the blog when you get back.
6/27/10: Manhattan Pride March
The Audre Lord Project is looking for volunteers for the Pride March on the 27th, as well as for other Pride Month events in June. Check them out at www.alp.org!
6/29/10, 7:30pm: Reading is My Window
Books Through Bars presents a reading from Reading is My Window: Books and the Art of Reading in Women’s Prisons, as well as a discussion with the author, at Freebird Books, 123 Columbia Street, Brooklyn. The book “offers the first analysis of incarcerated women’s reading practices, and it foregrounds the voices and experiences of African American women, one of the fastest growing yet least acknowledged populations in U.S. prisons.”
Hope you can make it to one or more of these events, and let us know in the comments what we missed!
NASW Meeting Recap June 2, 2010
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Last week I met with the NASW-NYC for a long conversation about their history, their current work, and how RISE fits in (or doesn’t) with that.
We solicited feedback from our RISE listserv, so we could represent our members thoughts as part of this meeting, and we promised to report back on how things went.
This has been trickier than I expected.
The NASW was an early supporter of RISE last year. They provided technical assistance in the early stages of the conference, helped us to advertise, and moderated a panel at the conference. I received a great deal of guidance from their staff at various points, and am very appreciative of their support.
So, part of me is hesitant to rock the boat in any way.
But the bigger part of me doesn’t want to write a fluffy post about the meeting.
So, this is my personal opinion on an informal and unofficial meeting with NASW staff.
Those who responded told us they wanted more professional support for community organizers. To this, the NASW pointed out that the majority their staff are actually trained community organizers, and that they are open to providing continuing education classes or other professional development. However, they also stated that their most successful events are clinically focused.
The NASW was interested in possible collaborations on specific progressive campaigns. However, their current focus seems to be more on working conditions for social work professionals, such as loan forgiveness and licensing. These are important issues for our field, but they are not the only ones.
The NASW is open to hearing from you on these important issues. Because of the respect I have for the individuals who work there, I want tell you that this is a great opportunity for shifting the focus of our field. The challenge is, individuals and organizations are not the same thing. Organizations are slow and hard to move – for many reasons.
As RISE matures out of its infancy, we struggle with how to avoid replicating this problem. We ask ourselves: how can we structure RISE to best achieve the social transformation we are fighting for?
As we ask these questions, I remember one of my favorite quotes from The Revolution Will Not Be Funded:
“The purpose of the work is liberation, not to guarantee the organization’s longevity.”
So, how do you think an organization can strike a balance between longevity and liberation?
Kate Barrow is a RISE Member and a social worker
RISE is recruiting April 6, 2010
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RISE needs more conference organizers!
RISE 2010 is going to be even bigger than last year and we need at least 4 more organizers to make this happen.
We are looking for passionate, committed people who want to become more involved with organizing this year’s conference. We need people who can commit to meeting twice per month (generally in lower Manhattan on Thursday evenings), for a minimum of three months. The positions descriptions are listed below, and we are also open to people who would like to help out in a more general capacity.
To become a RISE organizer, email kate@riseconference.org by April 14, 2010, indicating which position you are interested in (or if you are interested in a general conference organizer role), why you would like to become involved with RISE and any comments about your availability from now until October, 2010. As an anti-racist and anti-oppression collective, we are committed to recruiting people of color, particularly women of color, transpeople, and genderqueer people as organizers. (more…)
Presenter Spotlight: Quai Nystrom, MSW November 27, 2009
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A couple of weeks before the conference, RISE organizer Josie Harris had a chance to speak with Quai Nystrom, MSW, who presented on “Addressing Disparities and Intersecting Oppressions for Gender-Variant Individuals in Health Care” at RISE. Here’s Quai on what brought her to RISE, her values as a social worker and an activist, and how social workers can incorporate social justice into their practices.
Why did you decide to participate in RISE?
I saw RISE as a space for social workers and other service providers to consider how social systems often do not take into account life experiences that are impacted by oppression. Since service providers are often enlightened by individuals who share their life experiences and the conference is interdisciplinary it seemed like a great place to do a workshop where participants can reflect on their unique place in identifying trends in social issues and to support efforts to respond to them. I also have a personal connection to the topic I’m presenting on as a gender non-conforming woman who is interested in health care.
How do you define social justice, and how do you work towards it?
I view social justice as engaging in acts that bring injustice to the forefront and secure inclusive equity. In other words, I believe social justice is only possible when people become aware of privilege and oppression they experience as well as injustices of people who have different life experiences from them. Often well-intentioned work can generate or play into injustices when the focus rests on a sole form of oppression. I work towards social justice by supporting folks to find their own way to express social injustice and celebrate strides towards healing from, resisting and subduing oppression.
What are your personal guiding values as a social worker?
With an understanding that most folks have transactions with social workers because they encountered adversity in some form or another I believe I must offer opportunities for people to speak about their experiences from their personal and cultural perspectives. I believe the people and communities I come into contact with can shed the most relevant light on their needs and resiliency. I learn from them. I believe my role is not only to support folks in finding means to get needs met, but also to provide a place for them to explore institutional, cultural, interpersonal and internalized barriers. I try to be considerate of the power I have as a service provider and communicate to people I work with that when I make a mistake they have a right to call me on it. Lastly I make an effort to allow transactions with individuals to be holistic. I encourage people to share all the complexities of their experiences without replicating social systems that force people to contend with social issues in a fractured way.
What was the impetus for your project, “Exploring Health Care for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals?”
People’s perceptions and expectations of gender have a great influence on social and professional interactions, yet we do not often spoken about it. Health care is an example where this silence has a deep impact on consumers’ quality of life. I did the project so that I would be better equipped to discuss the disparities in health care for gender-variant individuals.
In your paper, “Gynecological Health Care for Gender-Variant Individuals
Identifying Unmet Needs and Raising Awareness of Poor Treatment,” you discuss how gender variant individuals are an invisible population and in order to treat them with ethical care and competency that their needs and presence needs to be made visible. The project that you created, which sought to ascertain the state of health care for gender variant individuals is a great example of how social workers can take an active approach to social justice. What are your thoughts on other action type initiatives that social workers can do to not only work towards social justice but also actually incorporate social justice in their practice like you have?
Social workers can assist people to build perspectives and find their words or unique means to express and respond to injustice. Social workers can support them in placing those difficulties into a context that affords social injustices to be identified.
What do you hope that conference participants will come away from your session with?
I hope that conference participants will come away from the session with a greater ability to be responsive to experiences of gender-variant individuals, particularly of those who experience additional oppressive circumstances such as coming from a disadvantage community. I also hope participants will be able to use material from the session to dissect other social injustices and feel inspired to support those who resist oppression.
You can download materials from Quai and Vaughn’s session here.
