If ‘What is to be done depends on what you think is going on ’ (Howe, 2008:9), it follows that models, concepts, or lenses that re-produce categories, divisions, and fragmentation will fail to challenge racial oppression. Oppression produces a problem that we reproduce in trying to manage the problem. A way of managing the psychological impact of multiple oppression is psychological compartmentalisation.
Racism and other forms of social inequality function through divisions based on difference. Oppressive social structures produce, and reproduce, compartmentalisation and divisions – hierarchies are a classic example. See the Institute for Race Relations research on ‘ fatalities and racism’. And, because no one is just their race, and people impacted by racism are also simultaneously impacted by other forms of inequality and oppression, we need a method to understand the holistic impact of multiple oppression – that method is the Black feminist theory of intersectionality.
Intersectionality and social work professional#
This is a fact borne out by numerous Serious Case Reviews where failure to assess the impact of racism and scrutinise professional unconscious bias were major factors (Bernard and Harris, 2018).
0 kommentar(er)
