Training Human Service Professionals: Using Intersectionality as a Strategy for Eliminating Anti-Black Racism

ABSTRACT

As the country continues to reckon with the historical and present-day realities of systemic oppression, particularly as it impacts Black individuals and communities, it is critical that human service organizations advance beyond statements condemning forms of anti-Black racism. Institutional efforts to address anti-Black racism must embody learning as integral to becoming more than a compliant organization, that represents symbolic change, to one that focuses on structural change. This article uses intersectionality along with Patricia Hill Collins’ Matrix of Domination as frameworks to explore a strategy for ongoing workplace learning that can be deployed to address and eliminate anti-Black racism within human service organizations. Collins’ Matrix of Domination explains the ways that systems marginalize groups in a society. A fully inclusive organization embodies shared power among different groups that reflects its mission, policies, and practices. Training to address and eliminate anti-Black racism is a vital activity that organizations should deploy in order to contribute to a just society.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-black racism
• intersectionality
• human services
• organizational learning
• DEI training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).