Week 9

I know we've been talking about Jane Addams for a couple of weeks now, but I still find her insanely fascinating. I really like that she emphasized experience as being the key to knowledge and good practice. That's definitely a key aspect of the program at Penn, which I think is great. You can only learn so much by reading and watching video examples; the best way to really learn is through experience. Making mistakes is part of learning, so while budding social workers may be nervous about making mistakes, it really is one of the best ways to learn. I also think the idea of sympathetic knowledge is extremely interesting and important for social work. I do think that learning is an inherently social activity, and that mutual, engaged learning comes through relationships with others. Society as a whole tends to see groups of people as abstract and we can't learn from them if we see them that way. Through relationships, we can see those groups as concrete and then we can learn from them. I think that it is completely vital for social workers to see their relationships with their clients as mutually beneficial. Of course, as social workers, we want to help our clients and teach them skills that they can use, but it's so important that we realize how much our clients can teach us.



When doing some further research on Jane Addams, I found a poem written by Kevin Coval on Jane Addams Day in 2006. It's a very long poem and has many different facets, but I think it encompasses much of what Jane Addams did for the city of Chicago and the lasting effects that she had as well.

remains. Jane Addams town

Jane Addams is dead
like Fred Hampton
who chicago shot
sleeping in bed
next to his pregnant wife.

for she is ghost,
haunting the utopian.
the city and house
built by her faith
encompassed in c.r.e.a.m.
(cash rules everything
around me). ask uic,
depaul, uofc, area 21
planners who dictate
and red line and run
over Pilsen, pave over
Maxwell St, who forget
what we look like
when we work with our hands,
when we hunger and live in tenements,
when we labor in unsafe conditions
and livable wages get transported abroad
and the communities left without labor
become the unsafe conditions of crack(s)
and crevices and guttered alleys before rehab

and who bought all the land after 1968
and who benefits from university village
and who wants Latin Kings locked in privatized cages
though they are sixteen year old boys who got left behind
in CPS (the chicago prison system), and the renaissance
in 2010 will be repealing brown v. board and the schools
will again look like the city and their will be no crossings;
no Devon Ave., no Rogers Park, no Little Village / Lawndale taqueria
no Hull House mash up collage, where 2000 immigrants a week
play music, sip coffee, watch theater, read books, organize labor
and their lives, together in the kitchen close enough to smell
each others funk and taste each others foreign sauces,

there will be no one left if the planners remain undeterred.
if the giants sleep undisturbed.

this is conjecture.

if Jane Addams were a Black man
she’d be dead by white hands, at least
bound and gagged like the boss
did Bobby Seale.

you can’t go into white folks homes
and get them cleanin up the place
unless they pay you for domestic work
or invite you in for finger foods.

Jane Addams’s birth right wrote her among the wealthy.
her and Ellen Gates Starr and Florence Kelly and a bunch
of their homegirls; white women who flipped, deemed crazy
and prescribed bed rest, who moved into each other, out
side of marriage and single family homes, who questioned the nature
of domesticity. the home maker is maker of culture
and the culture is broad like the people are broad
shouldered, hulling hours in jobs that should be valued like the jobs of bosses
and the fate of bosses and the people are the same cuz we live
in the same house, where we hull and haul our bodies into public space
where all bodies should be clothed and fed and coddled and caressed freely
by the hands of doctors and cooks, lovers and communists, american these hands,
immigrant and chained, dirty and clean finger nailed, raw and stubborn, the
home and public space blurred, or extended like the good and goods a citizen should be offered.
whose america are we living in anyway and who has the courage to say what could be

who constructs the chicago we call sweet
who tastes the candy, who is paying the dentist
who lines pocket books green
who blue-lights corners of brown neighborhoods
who oversees west side stoops where children double dutch
who sends fabled blue collars over seas, who pioneers
who has déjà vu, who sees colonial too, like double dutch
who is from the place they are from
who knows what their neighbors want for Christmas
who knows if their if neighbors celebrate Christmas
who is family, who counts nepotism and legacy
who is confined to the grave and gravity
who is brave, who has bravado, who aches for zion
who has been told no and never
who wakes before the sun / for their sons
who lives though death is certain

Algren said
since it’s a ninth inning town…
it remains Jane Addams’ town
cuz the ballgame is never over.

and we need heroes
who stand up to giants,
who carry a big bat to home plate
though the pitcher is throwing money
balls and the umps are in on the fix.

Chicago remains Jane Addams town
cuz Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn
dream here and Haki Madhubuti builds
institutions and Lavie Raven teaches
in a high school mothers made
by refusing to eat until the children
of Little Village had the same quality
education gold coast children deserve.

it remains Jane Addams town
cuz Marc Smith is at the Green Mill
and Nikki Mitchell’s at the Velvet Lounge
and there are men and women who can’t go
cuz they work the third shift and their lovers
will miss them until morning, when they will
pass like elevated trains close enough to touch
but never at the same station cuz there is work
to be done, and Studs Terkel refuses to quit
and my father is in a basement trying,
and the Cubs put on uniforms every season,
and Rami Nashashibi is the Muslim Martin King,
and Beth Richie wants the world to stop beating
Black women and their daughters, stop dictating
their bodies locked. start freedom.

Sun Ra, Ana Castillo, Ang 13, Ken Vandemark,
Koko Talyor, Sam Cooke, Rick Kogan writes here,
Stuart Dybek, Patricia Smith, Cap D, Lupe Fiasco,
and names never spoken, faces covered in knit wool
tucked beneath the Kennedy, faces forlorn and worn
wandering Michigan Avenue, Lavel blind between
red and blue lines at Jackson, Oba Maja passing out
poems at the six corners of Damen and North Ave.,
David schizophrenic in front of the Wicker Park
post office holding out cups asking for change

who is asking for change

it remains Jane Addams town
cuz of the people
working for change
and the people
are working for change
and the people never really change
but stay working, toiling in the death
of industry, though the light dims
the people who work for change
know tomorrow is
ahead of them.

One of the passages that spoke most to me was "you can’t go into white folks homes and get them cleanin up the place unless they pay you for domestic work or invite you in for finger foods." It's undeniably true that, had Jane Addams been anything other than white, she would have been met with many more hurdles than she had to deal with (not that she didn't deal with any hurdles). To change white people's minds and to get them to care about other people, change has to be enacted by white people, generally speaking. That's a horrible reality that we have to deal with and hopefully change sooner rather than later.

Week 8

I think the speech by Abraham Flexner in 1915 regarding Social Work as a profession is very intriguing. I'm always fascinated by how opinions can change based on the current political and social climate. I looked up the whole speech online and Flexner concluded that social work is not a profession because it does not have clear cut boundaries and it collaborates with other fields in a way that most professions do not. He also says that social work is in touch with many professions, even though it is not a profession in and of itself. Flexner was careful to say that he didn't think that social work was useless, but he thought that social work needed to abandon social reform and focus more on research. Since Flexner's speech (though I doubt because of it), I do think that social work has started to focus at least a bit more on research, but without abandoning social reform. I doubt that we are focusing on research as much as Flexner would have liked, but I also don't think that we need to abandon social reform to do so. Of course, today Social Work is pretty widely accepted as a profession. The breadth of Social Work, which Flexner critiqued as a reason that it was not a profession, is the very reason that I think social work has reached "profession" status. The definition of a profession, per google, is a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification. Perhaps back in 1915, Flexner could allow himself to believe that Social Work did not required prolonged training, but I doubt he would be able to say that now with the amount of training that we receive.
   I also think it's interesting that this attack on Social Work had a very gendered approach. Social work was (and generally still is) seen as "women's work". To make social work a profession, then, it needed science, which could be seen as a masculine trait. While I agree that having some sort of scientific evidence is important (we need to make sure we aren't harming our clients, after all), I don't believe that research was needed in order for social work to be considered a profession.  This speech was clearly a product of its time, though, and I think it's important to remember that. I really do wonder what Flexner would think of social work now - are we a profession in his eyes now? Since we still focus so much on social reform and our boundaries are more flexible than ever, I think that he would still be wary to call us a profession, even though we do focus more on research now.

Week 7

We did our presentations this week and I learned about so many interesting museums in Philadelphia that I hadn't visited before. I have heard of a lot of them before but I haven't had the opportunity to visit any of them. This class has been really eye opening to me because it's helping me to realize the importance of critically thinking about everything that is presented to the public, regardless of the medium. My undergraduate university did teach me to critically think about everything, however, I never realized how unfortunate it is that other people don't critically think about what they see, especially in the media. I think that's something that we're seeing a lot in the current political discourse in this country, especially in regards to Trump and Carson.
My group visited the Constitution Center, which was truly a surreal experience. The way America's history is presented at the center is such a glorified and sugarcoated version of what actually happened in our history. For me, it all culminated in the multimedia presentation called "Freedom Rising" (video below). The Constitution Center claims that Freedom Rising is the story of "We the people", which they loudly proclaim multiple times throughout the performance. This "version" of history that is presented pervades our entire society and is so damaging to the minds of children and students.
Freedom Rising Video
When researching "Freedom Rising" after our visit, I found an interview with the CEO of the Constitution Center who stated "“I defy you to find a roller coaster that when people get off it, they feel as good as they feel at the end of Freedom Rising.” That truly does describe how the constitution "teaches" America's history to school groups and tourists. You'd think that a $185 million dollar building would be a huge institution in Philadelphia, but that's not really the case. The staff at the Center told our group that the majority of people who visit the Center are either school groups or foreign tourists. 
One of the main things that my group discussed while at the Constitution Center was the lack of acknowledgement of diversity issues. There was one very small plaque acknowledging that the constitution was not created to include African-Americans and there was another small plaque regarding the lack of women in both the Constitution and the Declaration. It worries me that children visiting this museum (and being taught in the US school system) only get this one view of America's early history. The US school system does not, for the most part, teach students to critically think, so I fear that the students who see this information take it as 100% truth, without realizing how this information is presented in such a biased manner.

Week 6

These photos are from Jacob Riis' project titled "How the Other Half Lives". This project, which later turned into a book, highlighted the dangerous conditions that poor immigrants were subject in the 19th century in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Riis' assumption was that if people were made aware of what was happening in the shadows of society, people would be moved to provide more assistance for this disadvantaged population. In fact, Riis' book actually did lead to improved conditions on the Lower East Side, even in a time where society was becoming increasingly skeptical of social welfare.
    The Social Darwinism that was emerging at this time believed in pretty much the opposite of what Riis believed. Social Darwinism believed that society would perish if these poor were allowed to continue to exist and made a strong argument to not provide any assistance at all. It doesn't necessarily surprise me that some people thought this way back in the 19th century, but sometimes I wonder if Social Darwinism is truly dead. According to Social Darwinism, essentially any attempt to improve society is wrong.

  In 2011, Herman Cain said "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself" (shown in the video above). This statement exudes Social Darwinist philosophy - placing the blame of any inadequacy solely on the individual, and not allowing any critique of the system itself. Though Social Darwinism is perhaps not regarded as a widely acceptable ideology today, the theory seems to be becoming more acceptable in American politics. We can certainly still see this in the current presidential election. Many (if not all) of the Republican candidates want to limit or completely eradicate some governmental programs aimed at helping these disadvantaged populations. Though they claim that they "want to turn the power over to the states", this is a horrifying possibility. As social workers, I think that we need to get even more involved in government and have our voices be heard.

Week 5

Even though we haven't talked about this in class directly, I'm going to talk about the shooting in Oregon for a little bit. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that for such a "progressive" country that we claim to be, that we can have mass gun fatalities every few months. On what level does that make sense? I read an article this week that there are already 310 million guns in circulation in the United States, which is almost one for every U.S. resident. I know that, because the 2nd amendment exists, that we could never outlaw gun ownership in the US, but there are so many other things that we could do to cut down on gun violence, and we don't seem to want to do anything. And even though mass shootings come around with distressing regularity, deaths from mass shootings are essentially "drops in a vast ocean of suffering" (as the article put it). Research shows that requiring universal checks for gun licenses can work, so why do we not implement laws like that on a federal level? Connecticut has a permit-to-purchase law that it introduced in 1995 and research estimates that the law reduced gun homicides by 40%. More "good guys" with guns are not the answer AND people with guns are more likely to kill themselves than to kill others. For every gun murder, there are almost two gun suicides, and firearm suicides are on the rise. And the demographics of gun murders versus gun suicides are vastly different. Young black men are more likely to be both victims and perpetrators of gun murder, but those who commit suicide via firearm are likely to be older, white males. And it's so easy to say "just keep guns out of the hands of people with a mental illness", but the vast majority of mentally ill people are never violent to others. The link between mental illness and gun suicide is much more powerful. Another thing regarding this most recent mass shooting that has bothered me is that now people (including many republican presidential candidates) are posting on various social media sites "I am a Christian". Apparently this most recent shooter targeted victims who were Christian. My problem with this movement is not that people are posting "I am a Christian", but that if the tables were turned and Muslims had been targeted and people started posting "I am a Muslim", many people would be saying "Why do they always have to make it about religion?". I don't care what religion, sex, race you are - you should not be targeted because of it and you have the right to be proud of your identity. I do think that it is very hypocritical to claim that "even persecution happens in America against Christians". Even though it might in isolated incidents, it is NOTHING like the institutional racism, sexism, and religious persecution that minorities face in our country every day.
              Back to things we actually talked about in class, I think it is so interesting that when Jim Crow laws were first questioned and brought to the Supreme Court, that they were deemed constitutional because they 1) Didn't disadvantage one race more than another and 2) "racial instinct might lead to violence if people are allowed to mix indiscriminately". One of the reasons I find history so interesting, is because laws can change depending on the current social infrastructures and opinions at that time. It floors me that a legal document could support and disseminate racism so directly. Of course, no law so blatantly racist could ever be passed today (or at least, I hope not), but institutional racism still exists and is perpetuated by some laws, especially drug laws. This institutional racism has been entrenched in our society since the very beginning. As Stern says in chapter 5, even when social welfare movements were beginning to gain traction, society wasn’t responsive to the needs of black families until much later. Even Settlement Houses, which were seen as a catalyst to kick-start social change, tended to lump the problems of blacks with those of other immigrant groups.
             The idea of a "culture of poverty" was also really interesting to me. I firmly believe that no one should have to live in poverty and that thinking that it's that person's fault, rather than looking at structural issues is a horrendous mistake. I know people that, even today, say things like "oh well if he/she would just get a job, then they wouldn't need to rely on the government any more". Sometimes I have to take a step back and remember that people can actually believe things like that (and worse) because it is so shocking to me. One of the reasons that I love the video below is that I think that it can really humanize people who are homeless for those people who often don't really see them as human. These people aren't "bad" people like society often views them - they are human and deserve the same respect that everyone else deserves. I'm usually a quiet and reserved person, but lately I've been getting more and more riled up when people say things about social issues that are just so wrong and I have to learn to keep myself in check sometimes. It's interesting, because I would say that most of us in the SP2 program have a pretty similar view about social issues (the beauty of being aspiring social workers!), so I don't feel like I have to hold in my political feelings, which is so freeing. I grew up in a relatively conservative household on my dad's side, so besides being able to talk to my mother about political issues, I've rarely had the opportunity to voice my opinions and I'm absolutely loving it.