The shoe on the other foot: considering oppression for BIPOC social workers

ABSTRACT

As the Social Work profession reconciles with the profession’s history of overt and covert harm toward people of color, it seems to have missed the crucial conversations surrounding the harm perpetuated toward BIPOC colleagues within its profession (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2021). Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are essential to the profession. BIPOC social workers have the ability to relate to clients who have been marginalized and systematically oppressed because they, in part, live it themselves. Within the profession, BIPOC social workers experience several racial and systemic inequities. With a projected faster than average change in employment from 2020 to 2030, the profession will be challenged with obtaining and retaining valuable BIPOC social workers. Therefore, it is essential to establish innovative solutions and preventative measures to ensure sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Grand challenges
• BIPOC
• social workers
• compensation
• leadership
• upward mobility
• bilingual
• cultural taxation

Disclosure statement

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