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   Journal of Student Social Work, Volume II   53

REFLECTIONS OF RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
IN SOCIAL WORK

This article focuses on select reflections of a White social work stu-
dent’s thoughts on racism within a historical, societal, and systems con-
text. Topics discussed include prejudice, privilege, and power differen-
tials within the White as helper, Black in need dichotomy. Research and 
personal outlook are interwoven to conclude that as agents of change, 
White social workers hold a unique responsibility in working towards 
an anti-racist agenda and confronting their own racist ways of knowing. 

Jamie Favaro

To-day the ferment of his striving toward self-realization is to the strife of 
the White world like a wheel within a wheel: beyond the Veil are smaller 
but like problems of ideals, of leaders and the led, of serfdom, of poverty of 
order and subordination, and, through all, the Veil of Race. Few know of 
these problems, few who know notice them; and yet there they are, awaiting 
student, artist, and seer, - a field for somebody sometime to discover. 

–W. E. B. DuBois

The acknowledgement and unlearning of racism are especially salient 
to White individuals working within the social work profession. 

Due to an unequal power structure that categorizes Whites as helpers and 
people of color as clients1, Whites must be pro-actively cognizant of the 
way in which societal and interpersonal contexts affect the multiracial 
practitioner/client relationship. Borrowing terminology from Belenky, 
Blythe, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986), this article focuses on a racist way of 
knowing to describe the distinct way in which Whites in the United States 
have cultivated their own reality and conclusions regarding the intersection 
of race, power, and privilege. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate 
that without a conscious understanding of one’s own racist ways of knowing, 
White social workers are primed to disservice their clients of color through 
various forms of racism. 

To embark on this conversation about race, I would first like to 
acknowledge the simplification of the Black/White dichotomy corroborated 
by this paper when race is, instead, a complex social construct. The 
following article is by no means designed to function as a review of social 



work literature or the state of racism in America. Rather, it is a heart-mind 
journey (Seldon, 2000) – reflections of unlearning racism, the questions 
and challenges it has posed in personal experiences and the professional 
practice of social work.

A Question of Covert Repression
While working in the South Bronx during my first year field placement, 

I confronted a daily turmoil involving, of all things, hair. In an agency 
where I was most often the only blonde, blue-eyed individual, I experienced 
heightened sensitivity to a culturally induced skewed beauty standard2 
when male clients would express an allure towards my blond hair in front 
of their female companions. This experience, which occurred regularly with 
multiple clients, unleashed an inner dialogue and maelstrom within me. I 
became exceedingly alert to my own fears toward repressing clients and 
wondered: Is my hair color covertly repressive to a client of color? How 
does my Whiteness affect my practice? This internal argument was the 
catalyst for an intense and unremitting journey within my consciousness – a 
journey of reflection on racist identity and privilege. 

Issues of race can be controversial and problematic to self-identity. To 
be labeled racist invokes defensive fears in all of us. As a White individual, 
I have come to acknowledge that I am aligned with the perceived class 
elite and the politically powerful which entitles me to a wealth of privileges 
regardless of my moral conviction or personal history (Steinhorn & Diggs-
Brown, 2000). As McIntosh (1989) suggests, I was socialized to downplay 
my own racial issues and understand White people’s way of thinking as 
normative, neutral, and ideal. Despite a liberal education that focused on 
the damaging ideology of hierarchy and oppression, without self-reflection 
and a personal confrontation of my own racist schemas, I only superficially 
considered myself part of a racist structure.

When we think of White supremacy, visions of Klansmen and skinheads 
may pervade our definition; we rarely think of ourselves as the vehicle for 
oppression. Seldon (2000), however, reminds us that “Prejudice + Power 
+ Privilege = Racism” (p. 26). Because most of my peers are White, and 
most of our collective clients are people of color, I have become particularly 
interested in how race and social work intermingle. In 2000, Whites composed 
close to 70% of Social Work students enrolled in Master’s level Social 
Work programs in the United States (Lennon, 2002). Thus the continuation 
of the White as helper, Black in need dichotomy is something I have had to 
critically examine to bring an anti-racist agenda into my practice.

McMahon and Allen-Mearnes (1992) define anti-racist social work 
as “helping people reflect on their situation so that they can understand 
the oppressive system they are in and working with them to change it” 
(p. 538). In contrast, I have chosen to tailor my own model of anti-racism 

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   Journal of Student Social Work, Volume II   55 

in a direction towards the self rather than the client. For me, anti-racism 
encompasses both pro-active critical examination and recognition of 
individual and institutional involvement in perpetuating racist structures.  It 
also includes an analysis of the subtlety and complexities of racial dynamics 
in the historical, political, economic, social, and cultural realms of power 
structures. To be anti-racist is to move towards incorporating racial and 
social justice into all facets of personal and professional development.

Examining Whites In the Victim Role
In my opinion, the most interesting race-based conversation among 

social work students revolves around the fear of the walk from the subway 
station to their placements. I have been privy to thought processes in which 
students acknowledge and then minimize the racist undertones of their fears 
and proceed to externalize racism by suggesting their fears of criminality 
are statistically founded. 

In fact, the criminalization of people of color highlights the legacy 
of slavery inherent within the criminal justice system3. To illustrate this 
point, we can turn to drug sentencing statistics: “Blacks make up 12% 
of the United States’ population and constitute 13% of all monthly drug 
users… but represent 35% of those arrested for drug possession, 55% of 
those convicted of drug possession and 74% of those sentenced to prison 
for drug possession” (Butterfield, 1995, p.A8). Additionally, the media 
disproportionately focuses on crimes committed by Black men while the 
dangers people of color face are rarely highlighted (Glassner, 1999; Reiman, 
2001). 

In understanding how criminal injustice and skewed media portrayals 
exacerbate stereotypes about people of color, I am reminded that “a person is 
evaluated, either favorably or unfavorably, not because he does something, 
or even because he is something, but because others react to their perceptions 
of him as offensive or inoffensive” (Quinney, 1975, p. 67). To maintain a 
racist status quo, skewed perceptions supported by criminal injustice and 
media images fulfill and perpetuate the dominant culture’s need to place 
themselves in the inculpable position of victim. Therefore, students’ fears 
of walking through a neighborhood with the credence that one is in danger 
sanctions little need to critically examine negative schemas towards people 
of color and the poor. Focusing on the systematic, institutional structures 
responsible for the cause and maintenance of crime, poverty, and second 
class citizenship will make walking through an agency’s neighborhood take 
on an entirely different meaning.

White Social Workers as Averse Racists 
By nature of the liberal principles presented in the Code of Ethics of 

the National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 1999), social workers 



present themselves as socially progressive, and it is against this philosophy 
to internalize a racist identity or embrace a racist thought pattern. By 
externalizing one’s own racist lens, however, Whites fall into what Gaertner 
and Dovido (2000) identify as aversive racism. Aversive racists are described 
as those who “sympathize with the victims of past injustice; support public 
policies that, in principle, promote racial equality and ameliorate the 
consequences of racism; identify more generally with a liberal political 
agenda; regard themselves as non-prejudiced and nondiscriminatory; but, 
almost unavoidably, possess negative feelings and beliefs about Blacks” 
(Gaertner & Dovido, p. 289). 

Furthermore, a study of White graduate students showed race-
related guilt to be an evident manifestation when talking about Whiteness 
(Arminio, 2001). Arminio found that often, guilt was associated with efforts 
at indemnification; privilege was used to avoid recognizing racist patterns 
and as justification for not seeing oneself as part of the system. Research 
teaches us that by externalizing racist and negative thought patterns, fears 
are manifested in apprehension, discomfort, and uneasiness (Gaertner & 
Doivido, 2000). Considering the impact of racism on the White mentality, 
White social workers hold a unique responsibility for self-reflection and 
critical thinking about one’s prejudices, privileges, and the implications of 
both. By the definition of our work, a great disservice is committed if we 
do not take a proactive stance towards combating externalized racism and 
confronting how covert fears present themselves in practice.

Venturing Beyond A One-Dimensional Reality
One of my most disturbing experiences as a social work student occurred 

during a first year required class, Human Behavior and the Social Environment 
in which the 1986 CBS documentary The Vanishing Black Family: Crisis in 
Black America (Wolff) was shown. The film showcased African-Americans 
living in Newark, NJ, depicting young men as irresponsible sex-crazed 
pimps and two generations of women as quintessential Welfare mothers. 

A student interrupted this video and stated that she was offended with 
the content of the film. She labeled it “racist propaganda” and was unsure 
why the class was viewing it. This comment provoked other students to 
voice disappointment and anger toward the film’s failure to address the root 
causes of poverty. I remember the professor, outwardly flustered, attempting 
to conclude the discourse by stating it was taking away from the film’s 
message, and that we would understand its greater meaning if we continued 
to watch the entire movie. 

The film’s agenda was to document the disappearance of the Black 
nuclear family. However, the content did not acknowledge the destruction of 
the Black family as an essential component of American slavery (Marable, 
2000). Without historical connections or context, reality is one-dimensional. 

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   Journal of Student Social Work, Volume II   57 

For social work education to function in a one-dimensional manner, which 
presents race-based material void of the historical and political contexts, 
our ability to be critical thinkers is injured.  

Despite one student asking if we could stop the movie to continue the 
discussion, the class sat agitated while the professor, obviously bothered, 
fast-forwarded through the two-hour film to make up the time we had lost 
talking. While the professor did set aside the last twenty minutes of the 
following class, one week later, to discuss the film, I felt like we were 
silenced and frustrated from the previous experience. The discussion lacked 
the original passion and productivity that was generated by the experience 
of watching the film. One week later, this discussion seemed deflated and 
decontextualized. I sense that many students yearn to discuss context and 
impact, but without a catalyst or encouraging environment, conversations 
dealing honestly and frankly with race are not permitted to exist. 

I am saddened that my experience of social work education has minimally 
challenged my understanding of power and inequality. It has demonstrated a 
general lack of energy in its dialogue, unequivocally ignoring and therefore 
supporting a White supremacist status quo4.  If “a major objective in social 
work education is to impart knowledge that helps students engage in critical 
self-reflection about power and inequality” (Millstein, 1997, p. 491), then 
we must welcome the potential volatility of such discourse. White students 
unable to engage and gain proficiency in race-based dialogue within an 
academic environment will be less likely to initiate internal reflection or 
dialogue as professionals.

I sometimes listen to social work students’ call for more diverse faculty 
and student body citing the predominantly White student composition, yet 
I rarely hear a request for anti-racism class or field assignments. While 
acknowledging the importance of diversity in thought within any healthy 
community, I must also highlight that the presence of diversity in itself 
is not sufficient to imply a lack of racism. Academic institutions, such as 
the Smith College School of Social Work, have challenged themselves to 
create and implement an anti-racism field assignment, requiring students 
to recognize racial dynamics within their field practice (Basham, Donner, 
& Everett, 2001). While this is an intriguing window into the psyche of 
social work education’s response to the conception of an anti-racism field 
assignment, I challenge all institutions to continue to question how anti-
racism assignments could fit into their curriculum, particularly through the 
full cooperation between faculty, students, and field instructors. If class or 
field assignments were designed to incorporate anti-racism in their agenda, 
what would they look like? How would the faculty and field advisors 
execute and evaluate them? How would the students receive and develop 
through them? 



Call for Anti-Racism as a Critical Component of 
Social Work Education

Social work academia as an institution has an obligation to demand 
reflective, in-depth materials regarding anti-racism as a baseline for 
students pursuing social work. For cultural competence standards to truly 
be addressed, existing social work literature must be critiqued for its 
thoroughness and ability to address concerns in an unveiled, shameless 
manner. Critically examining not only issues of race, but those of class, 
ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and societal 
definitions of deviance should be what sets social work apart from other 
professions.

While the Code of Ethics of the NASW (1999) provides multiple 
principles for the creation and maintenance of a culturally competent 
practice, the existing social work literature geared toward the promotion 
of social work’s specific responsibilities in unlearning racism, is at best, 
inconsistent. I have found texts, such as Allen-Mearnes & Garvin, 2000; 
Burgest, 1985; Vacc, DeVaney, & Brendel, 2003; Vacc, DeVaney, & Wittmer, 
1995, that range from one paragraph on cultural competency to entire 
chapters on self-awareness. To dedicate a section or chapter to the issue of 
race perpetuates the illusion that discussion and examination should exist 
within a designated box or timeframe. McMahon and Allen-Meares (1992) 
believe, “The literature of a profession is the text of what that profession 
believes is important for knowledge and practice” (p. 537). It would be 
my hope that future social work literature dealing with issues of race be 
multifaceted, highly developed, thorough, and seamless in composition. 

For social work to achieve self-respect, I feel it must aspire to be not only 
anti-racist but also pro-actively vigilant in the process of achieving racial 
and social justice. It is for this reason that academic curricula’s treatment 
of social justice must be examined for integration and thoroughness 
of anti-racist training and policies. Ultimately creating an anti-racist 
climate. Social work must acknowledge that accessing higher education 
is a privilege that prevents people of color from empowering their own 
underserved communities. To achieve social justice, social work should 
confront the institutional structures that contribute to the disproportionate 
racial composition of its graduates.
 
Reflections on Racial Consciousness

Like McIntosh (1989), I struggle with my own position within the system 
of dominance and oppression from which I benefit. It was in social work 
practice that I first had to confront my own intellectualization of prejudice 
and meet head-on my own racist ways of knowing. I spent most of my first 
year of my Master’s program attempting to pick up the pieces of a shattered 
White knowledge base. My sensitization to the complexity of these issues 

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58   Journal of Student Social Work, Volume II   



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   Journal of Student Social Work, Volume II   59 

Endnotes
1 I have chosen to focus on the Black/White duality due to a legacy 
of slavery and White superiority that has economically exploited and 
politically underdeveloped Black America. For the purpose of this paper, 
the term African-American is used to distinguish the descendants of the 
North American slave trade from that of Black which is used as an umbrella 
term to include African-Americans as well as those who wish to identify as 
recent generation Blacks, Caribbean-Americans, Haitian-Americans, and 
so on. The term “people of color” is used to identify those who are not 
Caucasian or of West European decent.

has made them salient in life to the point that I am sometimes alienated by 
my own awareness. Through the equally invigorating and exhausting time I 
have spent unlearning a history authored by Whites, I have increasingly felt 
more detached from my social work peers. I have come to understand that 
silence creates a vacuum, and the absence of antiracist awareness personally, 
politically, and academically signals the presence of covert racism. 

Reflecting on this progress, I acknowledge a previous clandestine 
discomfort with my own Whiteness, which undoubtedly influenced my 
competency in working with clients of color. Through the process of 
thinking, writing, and editing this article, I have been forced to confront 
my own fears of defensive intellectualization as well as attempt to enmesh 
a continually transforming view of my own cultural competence and 
understanding of racist ways of knowing. During my deepest and most 
painful thought processes around racism, I often roll around the phrase 
“ignorance is bliss”. I sometimes think this because I am feeling fatigued, 
sad, and dejected. I am able to think this because, as a White individual and 
even as a White social worker, I can survive and thrive unaware as Whites 
have done for generations. However, I feel a profound responsibility to 
enter into the pain and discomfort of identifying and acknowledging my 
racist ways of knowing and to welcome and truthfully confront problems 
that arise interpersonally, politically, and in practice. My personal journey 
towards an anti-racist ideology has led me to feel more powerful as an 
individual, and as a social worker, than I ever have before. 

W.E.B. DuBois believed that racism should not just be a burden on the 
backs of nonWhites but had to be thoroughly acknowledged by progressive 
Whites as well. It would not be until this White awareness, that antiracist 
politics and attention to the needs of the oppressed could be addressed 
(1924). Social work, as a profession, has dedicated itself to the mission of 
social change and is therefore obligated to be a leader in anti-racist policies, 
academia, training, and practice. 
 



2 Research highlights the pervasive nature of a distorted beauty standard that 
favors Eurocentric ideals and supports what Malcolm X in 1963 referred to 
as “brainwashed”, “slavemaster worship” (Hill, 2002; X, 1999, p. 166).

3 Statistics show that 64% of the prison population is people of color and 
32% of Black men could expect to serve in federal prison at some time in 
their life (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001).

4 I suggest that social work, as a profession, exists under what Helms (1990) 
terms pseudo-independence. In the Helm’s model of White racial identity 
development, pseudo-indepedence exists as a stage which devotes much of 
its time to helping the other and inadvertently supporting a belief system 
which perpetuates Whites as superior instead of transforming the dominant 
paradigm. In this stage, Whites are used as the normal model, while the 
focus of interaction revolves around assisting Blacks in transforming their 
lives to look like that of Whites (Helms).

References
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Multicultural Counseling & Development, 29(4), 239-252.
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commitment: The anti-racism field assignment. Journal of Teaching in 
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Belenky, M. F., Blythe, M. C., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). 
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New York: Basic Books. 

Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2004). Criminal offender statistics. Retrieved 
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Burgest, D. R. (1985). Social casework intervention with people of color. 
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Butterfield, F. (1995, October 5). More Blacks in their 20’s have trouble 
with the law. The New York Times, p. A8.

DuBois, W. E. B. (June, 1924). Opinion. Crisis, 28, 55-56. 
Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2000). Are racial stereotypes really 

fading? The Princeton trilogy revisited. In C. Stangor (Ed.), 
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Glassner, B. (1999). The culture of fear: Why Americans are afraid of the 
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Helms, J. E. (Ed.). (1990). Black and White racial identity: Theory, 
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Hill, M. E. (2002). Skin color and the perception of attractiveness among 
African Americans: Does gender make a difference? Social Psychology 

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Quarterly, 65(1), 77-91.
Lennon, T. M. (2002). Statistics on social work education in the United 

States: 2000. Alexandria, VA: Council on Social Work Education. 
Marable, M. (2000). How capitalism underdeveloped Black America (2nd 

ed.). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. 

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analysis of recent literature. Social Work, 37(6), 533-539.
Millstein, K. (1997). The taping project: A method for self-evaluation and 

“informed consciousness” in racism courses. Journal of Social Work 
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National Association of Social Workers. (1999). Code of ethics of the 
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Quinney, R. (2000). Conflict theory of crime. In P. A Adler & P. Adler 
(Eds.), Constructions of deviance: Social power, context, and 
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Reiman, J. (2001). The rich get richer and the poor get prison: Ideology, 
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Seldon, H. (2000). The de-radicalization of anti-racism. Sage Race
Relations Abstracts, 25(1), 26-35.

Steinhorn, L., & Diggs-Brown, B. (2000). By the color of our skin: The 
illusion of integration and the reality of race. New York: Plume.

Vacc, N. A., DeVaney, S. B., & Brendel, J. M. (2003). Counseling 
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Jamie Favaro is a second-year Master’s student at the Columbia 
University School of Social Work concentrating in Clinical Practice 

within the Health, Mental Health, and Disabilities field of practice. She 
is currently an intern at the Upper Manhattan Mental Health Center in 
New York City. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Wells 

College. Her email address is jsf2103@columbia.edu. 

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