While it seems like it should be an indisputable statement that we are currently living in a society that is riddled with inequalities and was created by unequal power structures, this has become an increasingly divisive statement. As an organisation, we have a strong belief in the need for equitable support for anyone accessing social care or social work support and that everyone has the fundamental right to dignity and a life free of discrimination. Because of this we were excited when we were approached by the Anti-racism Oversight Group for Social Work to conduct a survey on Anti-racism in the Social Work Workforce.
I am proud of what we have been able to achieve within the scope of the survey and I feel like I have been able to bring some of my learning from books such as: White Fragility by Robin Di Angelo, Why I No Longer Talk To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge and How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi into the survey. We have received positive feedback in the drafting process of the survey from lived experience groups and in the survey responses we have received some positive comments, in particular from people who identified as Minority Ethnic, on how the survey was drafted and the fact that it was being done in the first place.
It has been an interesting journey doing this work, including a personal internal debate on if I am the right person to do this or if I am qualified enough to run and analyse this survey in the least biased way possible and to represent all findings with the utmost care and respect that this survey deserves and needs. As a White person, my views and engagement with racism will inherently be different to someone from a Minority Ethnic background. While I try to educate myself as much as possible on anti-racism, racist beliefs, microagression and other forms of discrimination, I will always be privileged enough to not experience discrimination based on my ethnicity directly, meaning there will always be parts of racism that I may not be aware of and may not fully understand.
I am also aware that I am bringing my own biases from other communities I am part of into this context. One example for this is the use of the term “ally”. I have seen it misused in relation to the LGBTQA+ community and women. Because of that I have developed a strong aversion to the word and have purposely fought to remove that language from our survey and didn’t include it in the write up, unless it is part of a direct quote. This might not mirror the feelings of other people involved in the communities I am part of or represent how Minority Ethnic individuals feel about the term, but it shows how personal biases can impact the writing and drafting of the survey and analysis.
Looking at the survey responses now and working on the write up is creating a new challenge for me. While the survey results to me are not surprising, in the sense that while largely positive and aware of the need for anti-racist action, there is a significant discrepancy in the responses on the awareness of racism in social work as a whole and within one’s own organisation between White respondents and Minority Ethnic respondents. Among White respondents, the survey results could be read partially as a “I know this is a problem in general but it is not a problem for me or the organisation I work for”. To me, this is a direct reflection of how hard it is for individuals and organisations to examine our own role and own behaviour when it comes to racism. The risk that comes with this attitude is that we might deem fighting racism and supporting colleagues from Minority Ethnic groups as ‘not our responsibilities because we are not part of the problem’. This, however, makes us complicit in racism. We are all responsible for reflecting on our own individual behaviours and what our contributions are to upholding racism. I am using we here because doing the reflections and working towards not being complicit is something that we all need to continuously do, in order to do better and to create safe spaces and working environments for people from Minority Ethnic groups.
This leads me back to my own moral struggle around this survey. I feel like I go between thinking that someone from a Minority Ethnic background might be better placed to provide an analysis, as they would be able to incorporate lived experience of racism in the analysis. At the same time, I believe that there is a fine line between empowering individuals with lived experience to be able to share their own experiences and pushing the emotional labour of having to educate the Ethnic Majority about the unintentional and intentional harm that they cause to individuals of Minority Ethnic groups.
To me at this point, I have decided that this survey and write up maybe should come from a White person. Because eradicating the discrepancy in understanding of the extent of racism and lack of understanding of the importance of the anti-racism work needed within social work in Scotland should not be the burden of Minority Ethnic people. This is an opportunity for us to reflect as a predominantly White workforce on the biases within our perception of how frequent an occurrence of racism is, as well as to engage and challenge our peers who might not see the importance or relevance of anti-racism work in Scotland.
