"The pandemic lays bare what we already knew," Associate Professor Tina Sacks said in a radio interview about the impact of racial inequity during the pandemic and the vaccine rollout.
In the wake of the George Floyd protests, Dean Linda Burton asked the Berkeley Social Welfare community "What is going to be different tomorrow given that all you are responding to today has been within eye- and ear-shot for centuries?"
While injustice has indeed been in plain sight for centuries, it has come to the foreground in new ways this past year. How has Berkeley Social Welfare responded to the current racial reckoning? And as we look forward, how do we balance calls for immediate change with the "long game" of addressing structural racism and creating equitable policies and institutions?
Looking over the year
One aspect of the school's educational response involved bringing in a series of speakers to discuss issues of structural inequality, policy, and advocacy. In Dean Burton's words, "I want us all to be aware of and know the history of racism and social injustice in this country and what it looks like in everyday life."
Ambassador Attallah Shabazz, the eldest daughter of Malcolm X, and sociologist Crystal Fleming, the author of How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide, were both invited to speak to Berkeley Social Welfare in Fall 2020. Other speakers included social entrepreneur Trabian Shorters, social justice philanthropy expert Edgar Villanueva, president and CEO of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Marco Davis, and Ty-Ron Douglas, UC Berkeley's Associate Athletic Director for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.
Social welfare students organized events as well: CalARC arranged for an evening with Melanated Social Work, and the Asian and Pacific Islander caucus organized a speaker series including Julian Chun-Chung Chow and former faculty member Susana Fong. Val Sierra helped organize UC Berkeley's Inaugural Indigenous Sound Studies Symposium.
Over the past year, our faculty have contributed to public conversations around social justice and equity. Some of that has taken the form of public-facing scholarship, as with Erin Kerrison's talks on "Imagining a Future without Police" and "Community Surveillance in the Time of COVID-19: Civilian and Police Officer Adaptations for Staying Safe," Tina Sacks's lecture "Social Safety Net Crisis: Lessons from a Pandemic," Kurt Organista's talk "California Latinxs, COVID-19 & Pandemics: Making Vulnerability of 'Essential Workers' Visible, and Linda Burton's article "COVID-19: Health disparities and social determinants of health." Doctoral student Demond Hill's op-ed, "A Letter from my Inner Black Child," will be published by the Greater Good Science Center and he was invited to contribute to the GGSC podcast series to speak about the importance of play as a liberatory tool for Black children and adults.
Faculty members also made their voices heard through the media: Anu Manchikanti Gómez was quoted in The Atlantic on the pandemic's anticipated disparate impact on birth rates, Tina Sacks spoke with NBC Bay Area, Today, and CNN about racial disparities in health care and vaccine access, and Adrian Aguilera spoke with KQED's Forum and with New York Magazine about digital equity in mental health care.
Faculty research has never been separate from issues of social justice — it's the nature of the field, and a concern for equity has guided the school since its inception. Although the intersection between equity and race is addressed in most of our faculty members' work, it is foregrounded in Erin Kerrison's work on legal epidemiology (particularly the effect of policing practices on communities of color), Tina Sacks's examination of structural racism in medical care, and Adrian Aguilera's and Kurt Organista's work on behavioral health in Latinx communities.
Our doctoral students are adding to the academic conversation as well. Demond Hill presented his research on "Moving Towards Freedom: Locating Liberation in Black Youth Workers and Community-Based Education Spaces" to the school in October and published an article entitled "'Traditions Are Not for Me': Curriculum, Alternative Schools, and Formerly Incarcerated Young Black Men's Academic Success." The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected Monica de la Cruz as a Health Policy Research Scholar for her work on ways to ameliorate family poverty as a means to positively impact children's health, specifically for communities of color.
Looking ahead
The history of social work and the history of UC Berkeley are not separate from structural racism. Part of the path forward will involve fully understanding those legacies, which is one reason why Lecturer and Field Consultant Jennifer Jackson, Tina Sacks, and MSW student Shatesha Morris have begun an oral history project to record the experiences and accomplishments of Black alums, faculty, and staff. The project is still in a pilot phase, but we look forward to seeing it grow.
The school's sports, wellness, and social justice initiative is another facet of the effort to explore issues of race. Sports provides an incredible opportunity to examine issues of race. Colin Kaepernick is only one figure in a line that includes 1968 Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Venus and Serena Williams, Muhammed Ali, Wilma Rudolph, Jackie Robinson, and so many others. Both in individual interactions and individuals interacting with institutions and groups, sports offers a lens into the tensions faced by athletes — especially athletes of color — face in the sports industry and in other social structures.
Social work with athletes and their families also provides opportunities to recognize strengths and address behavioral health struggles. Both current and former athletes can carry with them a number of circumstances including adverse childhood experiences, chronic pain, and challenges in transitioning to new employment after an athletic career has ended — all of which fall within the purview of social welfare. Among pre-collegiate athletes, sports can provide a framework for a strengths-based approach in schools and community organizations. In the words of Dr. Emmett Gill, founding member of the Alliance of Social Workers in Sports, "sports is a form of social work" and an MSW can create and enrich opportunities in working with athletes.
As a first foray into this promising field, Berkeley Social Welfare offered a full day of programming during the Women in Academic Development symposium in April. Presenters included Dean Linda Burton, Lecturer and Field Consultant Robert Watts III, Cal Head Women's Basketball Coach Charmin Smith, Cal Cameron Institute Interim Director of Operations Bobby Thompson, and Dr. Robert Turner, whose lab at George Washington University studies athletes' neurological and psychological health.
Conversations around racial justice are also informed by hiring practices — by who has a seat at the table. Since 2012, six of the eight senate faculty members hired have been women of color. Three newly-created faculty positions will focus on marginalized communities: Native Americans, Latinx populations, and Anti-Racism in America. These appointments will be completed by June 2022.
Thanks to John Wilson and Beclee Newcomer Wilson's generous gift the school will also create a permanent postdoc position focusing on issues of social justice as well as an annual lecture series.
Of course, recruiting and training a more diverse social welfare workforce is also key. In her essay "Social Work Needs More Men of Color," Dean Burton shares her thinking about the need for more men of color in social work along with some of the community organizations we are currently building ties with.
Dean Burton's vision of the work ahead of us is grounded in education, in research, in policy, in practice, and in advocacy. As she wrote in a message to the school community last summer:
"We can contribute to advancing human capital by personally being knowledgeable about the antecedents, processes, and outcomes involved in the pandemics and providing others with those skills. We can also use our understanding of the issues and our social capital to facilitate the necessary people being at the table as decisions and policies are made about our future. In doing so, we have to be able to ask a broad range of questions about "structural violence." For example, we can ask the hard-hitting questions about defunding the police, but we also have to ask questions like, 'Why are those in marginalized populations all too often NOT included in clinical trials to evaluate medications that save people's lives?' You see, social justice and equality are greatly compromised by us not asking those under-the-radar questions that also result in the senseless deaths of many who are on the margins."
Building a more just world is a long game, and Berkeley Social Welfare is a work in progress. But the work to be done is anchored in the core strengths of the school and we — leadership, faculty, researchers, students, and staff — are committed to increasing structural equity both within and beyond the School.