Good Afternoon,
I would like to thank University of Mississippi’s Department of Social Work for inviting me to participate in today’s diversity and inclusion conference. I would also to thank each of you for allowing me to share my thoughts today. I am so grateful to be among people who are dedicated to the health and healing of individuals and groups. Let us take a moment before we begin this portion of the conference. Let us quietly review the magnificent insights and skills brought by our conveners, session leaders and facilitators, and each other. Let us remember that yours is a special profession—a discipline, a craft, and a calling. Over the next 40 minutes or so, I would like to offer collaboration, encouragement, and using several examples, I am going to encourage a different way of thinking about our work. I hope this is useful. If it isn’t, this ride will be over soon. What I am hoping to do is to ask you to draw on your strength and skills, your intellect and your heart. Given the climate, I believe that we are witness to important shifts in the world's collective and individual psyches and spirits. In the face of great challenges to our own ethics and conflict-averse natures, we need to continue as social workers to mend and heal the world. For the next hour, I would like orient ourselves with deep and unmoving moral clarity towards truth, bravery, compassion, active minds and hearts. Thanks for allowing me to share some of my insights and collaborative calls which I hope will be useful. I am particularly delighted to be here because I feel like I am among colleagues and kindred spirits. We are both dedicated to achieving the same ends—making life easier for others and ensuring they can heal and have the resources and opportunities to thrive for themselves and their families.
We live in a complicated world. This is a world rife with conflict. Previous generations, who have struggled to root out inequality based on class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality and age, look on with dismay as the battle seems to have left us more, not less, divided. We live and leisure, vote and vault, work and wail along xenophobic and biased lines, many scholars and pundits seem to have simply given up, presenting our differences as insurmountable, the lines between us as impregnable. We exist in a nation and a world still clinging to an “us” vs. “them” mentality—a nation and a world which continues to view human rights and power as a zero-sum game where granting equality to some means rescinding privileges away from others. But power and privilege based on difference and a denial of our common humanity is a fragile artifice that can only be maintained by greater and greater injustice. It also requires individuals and generations to look away, to give up, to focus only on their own material comforts and maintaining their own legitimate and illegitimate rights.
Every generation is tasked with a profound responsibility—that is to leave the world better than you found it. The generations before you have done just that, grappling with political rights, economic rights, land rights, water rights, worker’s rights, women’s rights, sexuality rights, civil rights, and immigrant rights. But the work is not yet done and so this génération of social workers has before it a similar task. And importantly, you are in a profession dedicated to securing human rights. Securing human rights for all is the most important social justice issue there is, the culmination of the legacy your ancestors have fought, died, and been memorialized for. And I believe we have arrived at a crucial axis of time where for the first time in history we can secure human rights for all and lay claim to our common humanity. We have been waiting for you.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the success of achieving human rights for all rests in an ignorance of its definition. If you ask someone about the definition of human rights they will list “freedom of speech” or freedom of religion, perhaps the right to vote. Beyond that they seemed stumped. How can we pursue this task without a concrete, understandable, agreed upon, and most importantly, achievable definition? At the most basic level, human rights are based on the principle of respect for the individual. It is a fundamental assumption that each person is a moral and rational being who deserves to be treated with dignity. In addition, human rights are inherently universal. Human rights are the rights to which everyone is entitled regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender, or where they live or their place of nativity. These are rights extended to everyone because they are alive. But what exactly are these rights? This has been debated for centuries, particularly in those heavy moments following cataclysmic events, when the world seemed ready for a new blueprint, a new future. For our purposes, a modern definition of human rights, we need only return to the period after WWII, when the cataclysm of war seemed to rupture civilization itself and there was widespread belief that a new world order was not only possible, but necessary. In that historic moment, a formal document was constructed and adopted by the United Nations that listed thirty rights to which all people are entitled. The document, adopted on December 10, 1948, was spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt, who called it an international “Magna Carta” for all of mankind. Rights include the ideas that we are all born free and equal, that we have the right to life, that we should not be subject to slavery or torture, that we are equal before the law, that our human rights travel with us wherever we go, that we are innocent until proven guilty, that we possess the right to privacy, the freedom to move, the right to asylum, the right to marriage and family, the right to a nationality, the right to ownership, the freedoms of thought and expression, the rights to assemble publicly, to democracy, and to social security. These rights also ensure workers’ rights and the right to play, the rights to food and shelter, education, a fair and free world, the right to responsibility, and most importantly, the guarantee that no one can take away our human rights. 64 years later, the definition still resonates, equality, privacy, freedom, family, democracy, security…. We consider these our birthrights. And they are, for all humans born. And so, we can ask ourselves, how hard can it be to extend these rights to all human beings, particularly when granting them to others does not take them away, or take anything away, from us?
As social workers, citizens, and community members, what can you do? First, you can accept and live by the concept of human rights and weave it into the very fiber of your work, your personal environment, and your filament. You must accept that all humans possess certain rights regardless of whether you share their heritage, their ideological frameworks, and their physicality. One need not pass “your” litmus test to be entitled to human rights. Second, many of us cannot bridge international issues but you can ensure that your communities and your profession values and upholds human rights, civil rights, and equal access to resources opportunities. Using a very local approach, investigate the ways in which your clients and communities lack human rights. Challenge paradigms and policies that deny rights to people based on culture, class, gender, and sexuality. Figure out how you can individually alter their realities by restoring their human and civil rights. Convince the people that you work, pray, play, and love with that they should become involved in and live the human rights principle. Third, you can demand that human rights be a part of educational curricula and professional standards. Fourth, you must report human rights violations, regardless of how large or small. Fifth, if you know that violations are taking place then you must reserve a portion of your life to fighting the assaults on human rights. You decide how and when but you cannot ignore the violations. To ignore is to tacitly sanction the injuries of fellow human beings. Finally, you must include in your professional and private agendas attention to human rights. This big blue ball connects all of us as we pursue our lives with dignity and love.
Why you? Why now? Because we arrive at a time where we are witness to some of the worst human rights abuses known to humankind. Our nation and world seems adept at sustaining old and creating new forms of violence against bodies, minds, and spirits. We use technologies of fear and ideologies of hate to convince each other that one’s gain is surely another one’s loss. It is a sad state of affairs. No wonder throngs of us retreat into our homes, anxiety cloaking us like an invisible blanket, steeled against emotions, ignoring the news now coming at us every second of every day for fear of the crushing blow of reality. But I am not distressed and I know there is much work to be done. And I know you are capable of doing it.
In your minds, replace fear with force and instead of the question make it a declaration of “what can I do.” Your response must be “something,” “anything,” “everything!” You must never doubt your own capabilities, bravery, and innovation. As the sages have said before me, “To save one person is to save a nation.” There are no small acts when it comes human rights activism. Across time and space, your acts on behalf of human rights stretch landscapes far and near and alter the narratives of history. Our heroes, your heroes were quite ordinary until they were called to do something extraordinary. They began with the same fear, confusion, and intimidation that you might feel. Like them, you simply have no choice, you must assume the mantle of human rights as the generations before you discover that because of age their strategies no longer work, their footsteps clomp less loudly, their booming and thunderous speeches and proclamations grow raspy, their intertwined arms loosen from muscle fatigue. But, like me, they fear not because they know you have arrived. With their minds, heartbeats, and footsteps, they keep the path visible for you. They have been waiting for you too.
The social work profession demands more and differently from us as practitioners. We must rise to higher expectations than what currently exists in our society, among ourselves and within each person—we must help people heal, empower, advance, and ascend. Not only must me understand the systems we must help our clients navigate and the resources that must be understood and accessed, we must train our focus on the larger lens—specifically, how historical and contemporary events and attitudes toward individuals and groups based on identity markers like race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and others impact the ways in which we encounter and create opportunities for those folks. While the historical landscape is littered with important moments gone fulfilled and otherwise, we arrive at a moment full of opportunity. I have been in this work for over two decades but over the past three years, I find that we are in curious times. In the past five years, we were rocking and rolling on the field of social justice and human rights. Americans across the country had had enough of inequality. Communities and college campuses pushed for greater accountability among law enforcement, judicial systems, legislatures, and individual community members. Americans challenged the violence born of racism and classism and sexism. Beamed through our tvs and computer screens, we took to the streets demanding change. Leaders and lay people forced us to confront our own complicity in unequal systems. In our private and public spaces, we reflected on our own biases, active and passive. Most of us worked hard to understand the entrenchment of systemic inequity and how we, not others, uphold these systems. Still, many of us recognized we had been victimized by these systems—that in fact, we were not inferior in capacity nor capability—we had been held back because systems that professed blindness but had become so normal that the inequities in these systems were undetectable. From different perspectives, we reconciled our privilege with other’s impoverishment. This was difficult work. For those of us who benefit from existing systems, we resisted, we said “everyone but us,” we railed against people who hinted that we had not earned our successes, we reached deep into our ugly biases—wearing them like shields, and at last, many of us pushed through to acknowledgement and then worked to change our thoughts and actions. For those of us targeted by inequality, we quite reasonably displayed our anger, retreated, critiqued, and were deeply suspicious of outsiders. An army of righteousness, we bravely called out every instance of systemic and interpersonal bias. Ours was a fractured nation, but in order to heal and fortify, we had to deconstruct the systems of inequity. As has happened historically, one human rights movement gave way to another and is our history, black human rights or #BlackLivesMatter paved the road for concentrated efforts for women, LGBTQ, and immigrant equality. We tumbled and we stumbled and we were making, what I believe to be real progress. And then. We hit the wall of resistance and fatigue. Pushed to reconcile our own morality, several Americans revealed their anxieties and frustrations at their present states and cast about for scapegoats. These folks flipped the narrative charging the oppressed as oppressors. We displayed our lowest selves as many of us tossed our national and personal values aside. Leaders and lay people’s moral compass needles spun at a dizzying rate, their voices for justice went hoarse, we became selectively illiterate with respect to our own Constitution. We used old and developed new policies and attitudes that turned against our citizens and community members in the most unholy ways. We allowed our most vulnerable populations to become even more at risk. This wave knocks many of us off our feet. But not permanently. The push for human success and equality is not over. And we as social workers will be conducting this work long after the streets have been cleaned up after marches for freedom and equality. And we are at the darkest before the dawn. And unlike the cosmological phenomena, through our efforts, we can force the dawn to rise early and often.
We are living in difficult times but of course, but as a historian I would ask us to contextualize these difficult times. Yes, we have threads of belligerence, people accepting and even worse, pushing for inequality, outright ranking certain folks based on their individual and collective identities as inferior or superior. Everywhere I go and quite often, I hear the frightened and weary concerns of those who worry about the state of our nation and in particular the fragile mental health of individuals and groups. Depression rates skyrocket, happiness quotients tank, families struggle economically, and social ills multiply. It is true, I will not debate that as I trust the work of social scientists working diligently to prove these phenomena in order to promote change. While it is hard to hear over this cacophony of discontent, as social workers, I am asking you to listen to the other symphonies--perhaps a bit muted--but no less powerful. These are the voices of the resistance and the empowered rightfully demanding that they be viewed as equal citizens and community members. If we listen carefully, the timbre of these collective voices easily push through the din of discontent and fear. Ours is a society that is once again embarking on the project of self-actualization—an understanding that we cannot, in this historical moment, rely on our local or national government to cure societal ills. We are in the embryonic stages of a new civil rights era. All historical markers point to this. In the short span of 3 years, we have witnessed millions march with their feet, dollars, and voices demanding rights and access for, among others, people of color, women, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and the under resourced. The bravery displayed is astounding, it represents the best of us—our highest selves— the culmination of a moral compass that, at times, seems to become magnetically desensitized. But a closer examination reveals that these needles are firmly pointed toward the righteous North. While I would prefer this to not be the case, historically and contemporarily people often need to be pushed out of the already filled routines of our daily lives, to scan outward to witness and to respond to a downward spiral of disconnectedness and closed hearts and minds. And millions of folks have done just that. They have picked up their feet, signs, phones, and their voices to raise a revolution for rights and humanity. Regardless of political affiliation, they have responded to inept and frightened politics. We have We can take great comfort in this. We must support these efforts in thought and action.
As you know, we have never been able to count on faraway individuals to fully address the societal circumstances inhibiting our ability to thrive. Your profession has been ground zero for listening to these clarion calls. We must listen to these calls because, in part, their need for the services provided by social workers results from our broken social, economic, and political systems. We would do well to recognize that society’s inequities imprints on our neighborhoods, families, and ourselves. I am a strong believer that individual fortitude and gifted mental health are
In order to remain committed, brave, and clear in our goals to make lives better, to navigate and eliminate personal and societal injustice, it is quite important to have guiding philosophies. Social work is not a traditional job. The work is hard and the work is satisfying. It is meant to guide and collaborate with individuals and groups to heal and thrive. I say this in every single address and workshop that I have the privilege of leading or facilitating—we must continually remind us why we are in this work and our value to this work. The intensity and the long hours, the hard-fought success can sometimes leave us spinning and unsure. To effectively anchor yourself and to remain in this work, you must have guiding philosophies. I will trust that you reach into your moral training to frame your work but without being too presumptuous, permit me to suggest a philosophy that informs my work, provides a sustainable foundation across challenging and satisfying moments in your work, and might firm your commitment when times are confusing and tough. L
This philosophy, Kintsugi, I think fits quite nicely with your work and mine. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Kintsuge’s philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise or hide or cast off. When we view our clients and communities which surround us as beings of great worth, yet broken and shattered from inequity and trauma, we see ourselves accurately. When we view healing and mending fractures as forms of beauty in the process of self and collective actualization we open up for others and ourselves the opportunity for beauty to transpire; for the Artisan’s skilled hands of repair; for a community to build. In this analogy, you are the artisans whose skilled hands mend. In this philosophy, Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. Kintsugi highlights the cracks and repairs as simply events in the lives of objects rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage. People, like these objects, are not broken. In fact, the cracks and the mending amplify its beauty, the beauty in healing, and strengthening through repair. Kintsugi is the general concept of highlighting or emphasizing imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive or an area to celebrate or focus on, rather than absence or missing pieces. Modern artists experiment with the ancient technique as a means of analyzing the idea of loss, synthesis, and improvement through destruction and repair or rebirth. I think this philosophy serves as a guide for all of us. And to quote one of my favorite songwriter, Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That is how the light gets in.
As you have discovered and will continue to discover, may you always seek frameworks to undergird your work. Over the course of your careers, new theories as it relates to observing how difference and inequality impact individual lives and communities will emerge. Old ones will lose their central focus and importance. People may file existing and no less important ideas regarding the causes of inequity as “been there and done that.” This happens all the time in social justice and I imagine social work. For example—for many years, social justice activists relied on people’s sense of decency and morality. Issues of inequality and inequity were cast in terms of good and bad. This is of course quite reasonable because inequality is inherently bad, but we have been operating on this paradigm for many decades, centuries even and that wasn’t enough to stop the problem. In fact, the good or bad paradigm exacerbated the problem—people who wanted to rectify their thoughts and actions were often stopped by mistakes. A racist comment became not something that could be fixed but indicative of an organic personal flaw and people’s guilt encouraged them to step away from social justice. Others, too angry by past racist and sexist transgressions, also stepped away from reconciliation no longer wishing to engage in this exhaustive project. Personalizing one’s own efforts against bias rarely allowed for mistakes and recovery and thus people walked away. The emptiness of the field of social justice deafeningly echoed.
But we as social workers and social justice activists could ill afford to stay off these fields. Our work and our humanity depended on continuing this work and so we are forever in search of new ways to get people to understand how inequity is established and carried across the minds and histories of folks. In addition to the crucial disciplines of social work, sociology, and history, brain science became quite critical to understanding how bias works. In particular, studies on the development and impact of implicit bias, micro-aggressions, and stereotype threat have made tremendous headway in undoing bias. Millions of folks across this land have been exposed to anti-bias training and these concepts have entered common parlance. While correctly, we might argue that the reception has been mixed, I will take it as a win that many are exposed to these ideas and are forced to weigh their impact. Of course, we have had certain segments of society virulently push against these ideas arguing they are part of liberal agenda and denying these concepts’ potency. While I am happy to explain these concepts, I have abandoned the project of defending their validity. To do so would be, for me, like debating whether the sun rises.
Still, it is important to cast out for new ways of understanding why we on very individual levels uphold biases based on difference. Over the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time studying developmental psychology in search of understanding, on real interpersonal levels, how the ways in which we form bonds with our closest people might impact the ways in which we are open to others. So again, if you will permit this tangent, I would like to discuss the ways in which we might consider Attachment Theory as a way to understand how we relate to our clients and communities and how they relate to us as professionals and community members. Let me be clear, I am not the first academic to wonder aloud about whether Attachment Theory impacts bias. What I am hoping to do is bring it forward in the social justice and social work arenas to productive aims. According to accepted disciplinary definitions, attachment theory is a concept in developmental psychology that concerns the importance of "attachment" with regard to personal development. Specifically, it makes the claim that the ability of an individual to form an emotional and physical "attachment" to another person gives a sense of stability and security necessary to take risks, branch out, and grow and develop as a person. In the 1980s, professionals began using this framework on adults. Please don’t think that I am playing fast and loose with interpersonal theories and please be clear, I am not expert in attachment theory, I hope that I am not abusing this theory to negative means and I am fully prepared to accept that this might not work but, as a social justice activist/educator, I believe it is my job to explore new frameworks that may be successfully deployed to end bias. Frankly, you may in fact be quite familiar with this and may be using it in your own practice. If so, I look forward to sharing ideas about if and how we might use this theory to end inequality. As I understand it, there are four types of attachment: secure, anxious preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful avoidant. Briefly, securely attached people tend to have positive views of themselves and their attachments. Anxious preoccupied people seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their attachment figure. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on the attachment figure. People with dismissive-avoidant attachment style desire a high level of independence. The desire for independence often appears as an attempt to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to feelings associated with being closely attached to others. People with fearful avoidant attachment style have mixed feelings about close relationships. On one hand, they desire to have emotionally close relationships. On the other hand, they tend to feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness. Briefly but hopefully not reductively outlining these 4 styles, we can perhaps frame the ways in which how we have formed our closest attachments impact how we attach, detach, or avoid people who are not like us. Clearly, this isn’t an original thought but I want to spotlight attachment theory as it might provide yet another key to unlocking why people seem to irrationally or rationally attach or avoid others.
Okay, please excuse the reductive definitions but I have been testing the ways in which we might effectively braid attachment theory in children and adults with reasons for why certain folks seem secure with people who are different from them while others seem to fear those same individuals and groups. Admittedly, this evidence is anecdotal but I am seeing that those who fall under secure attachment styles seem more open to people who hold different identities and ideas while those who seem to fall under the more challenging attachment styles seem quite resistant to those same people. So, friends, let me be clear, please don’t use this slight tangent to diagnose people’s racism or other forms of bias, that is, I don’t think it will be useful if we spot bias and then launch into an inquisition about people’s attachment styles. What I might suggest is that attachment theory might be a way that we can promote compassion and patience with those who we know struggle with difference and resort to painful thoughts and actions. Likewise, we might draw upon that same compassion and patience when we encounter folks who are suspicious of “nice folks” who are engaging in social justice or social work. We need to remember that both of these groups bring a host of secure and challenged attachments abilities framed by previous attachment experiences. Attachment theory may be used as a method of understanding but I also believe it may be a way in for folks to self-reflect on how their primary attachments might impact their ability to even moderately attach to or deal with others who share different identities and ideas. Something to think about.
Let me repeat, social workers are desperately needed. You have arrived to realities that fall far short of our societal expectations and aspirations. Whether it’s our own country-- in spaces like Charleston, Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlottesville, or around the world--Paris, Beirut, Raqqa, the West Bank or other “hot spots around the globe,” frustrated and frightened, folks are calling to respond to violence with more violence. I am quite troubled when folks frame things along a “war” paradigm. We have the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on crime… In fact, I cannot think of a societal problem which has not been framed in terms of warfare. Political figures and dangerous demagogues are calling for turning parts of the Middle East into glass, arguing for the militarization of American police systems, and for resorting to unbelievable Fascist ideas like calling for cleanses and purges against people who don’t share similar ideological positions. Our irrational anxiety and our hyperbolic responses are encouraging us to sacrifice our nation’s principal and foundational values related to freedom and diversity. To respond to these challenges, people often use military solutions and call for more “boots on the ground.” SMDH!
The phrase “boots on the ground” is all too familiar and it exists as our default solution. Often, “boots on the ground” results in destruction, debilitation, and devastation. “Boots on the ground,” means subduing, eliminating, or extinguishing the problem or worse, people. “Boots on the ground” in national instances of chronic and immediate disaster often means the militarization of recovery efforts, martial law, and viewing community members expressing distress and devastation as enemies, criminals, and those to be suspicious of. We put “boots on the ground” in times of crisis as a measure of triage to restore the local or the global power dynamics. Under the guise of efficiency, of equity, but actually from anxiety and preserving inequity, we sanction unspeakable violence against humans-men, women, and children. “Boots on the ground” often turns out to be boots in the backs and on the necks of our global and local sisters and brothers and of families that have fractured. Yes, we start off with the best of intentions, but frustration forces us quickly to lift up xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, and ultimately to deploy Draconian measures. Now please do not misunderstand my remarks. I am no naïf. I understand, though I am dismayed, that at times the military and more specifically, strikes, seems to be our only option. Because of time constraints and deep ideological disconnects resulting in the deaths of thousands requires sharp responses. And let me be explicitly clear, I appreciate the service and sacrifice made by our families in the military branches AND I wonder about and aspire to a world when the military becomes redefined and instead, principally involves itself in collaborative peace building and disaster recovery efforts in our communities near and far.
When I was writing these words, I received word about another shooting in our country and attacks around the world and I hear repeatedly in response inflammatory rhetoric coupled with demands for more “boots on the ground” which, I believe, will only result in more violence and marginalization. I lower my head in confusion and in contemplation, wondering about this great world I love, and how and why we get it so wrong. How instead of understanding, compassion, and empathy, we marginalize and blame victimized individuals or groups as “mentally ill” or “ideological extremists.” But I cannot help thinking that in addition to trying to identify motives for mass destruction and murder, are these the phrases that excuse us from the difficult work of healing our local and global communities? As social workers and social justice activists, it simply cannot be.
What if we reframed armies as not offensive entities but defensive entities who defended peace and healing? What if these new armies laid down their life-ending weapons of destruction and instead developed life-yielding and expanding tools for change and peace? What if armies were from and for the people and we viewed each other as all part of the same local and global communities—replete with magnificent different cultural beliefs, values, and goals? What if in these new armies, we cast aside the demand for dominant beliefs and resources; instead, we bore responsibility to address their anxieties, fears and pains? What if we understand “the Other” as one of “Us” in need of compassion and assistance? I think I am speaking to just such an army of peace.
Imagine if we redefined the phrase “boots on the ground?” What if boots on the ground no longer meant military incursion, intervention, or violence resulting in the destruction of homes and infrastructure and the death of our community members? Think if we exercised even just a tad bit of foresight? What if we actually paid attention to the earliest distress cues and warnings and or even better, anticipate community and individual challenges? What if “boots on the ground,” meant more than the traditional military issue boots covered in the mud and dust and devastation of violence? What if new “boots on the ground” meant the thunderous sound of heels marching in step toward establishing peace, promoting healing, and fulfilling justice? What if boots on the ground looked like the shoes you are presently wearing? Aren’t these the types of footwear we need to enter our communities and conduct important life sustaining work?
Why am I inspired to think of reframing phrases like “boots on the ground?” Well, in part, it is because I am a historian specializing in US history. I have trained a scholar’s eye on the ways in which Americans, across time and space, have dealt with stress, conflict, and difference. In most cases, we briefly try conversational persuasion and then quickly move to more brutal forms to achieve our goals. The traditional definition of boots on the ground has not and does not work. I challenge you to demonstrate how contemporary demonstrations of boots on the ground has been effective at maintaining and sustaining its mission of establishing peace. Look at the knots our current politicians have created by defaulting to the reductive and simplistic notions of “boots on the ground.” Violence begets violence—of that traditional military strategy-- I am sure. Ours is a nation built on continuous competition, war, and violence. From within and outside our borders, those who fail to subscribe to dominating ideas based on identities; are viewed as enemies to deal with. How did we get here? The phenomenal disconnect between what we hail as our national ideologies with its aspirations of equality, equity, diversity, and happiness, and our reality is nothing short of astonishing.
It is as if our aspirations always seem out of reach and then I wonder if it is because the path that leads to using traditional “boots on the ground” forks away from the destinies of equity and equality. And so, I am inspired to push for the exploration and discovery of new boots capable of treading new paths. I come to you with a new reveille, individually and collectively, to hear a different definition of boots on the ground and join the army of your profession and your passion to carve out these competing peaceful and healing paths.
In the last few days, weeks, months and years, as an educator/activist and as a citizen of this world, countless times I have lowered my head, fallen down to my knees completely in disbelief and gob smacked, whispering to myself if anything I have done mattered or whether my generation has failed; has broken its covenant to heal the world with previous generations; those who came before us, who dedicated and sacrificed their lives for freedom, for healing, and for peace. And then in moments like these, I have the privilege to find myself flanked by multitudes of new soldiers for peace, healing, disaster recovery, and conflict resolution. As I look across this room, scanning the audience, feeling the room; I am so very encouraged. I see and feel tremendous possibility and potential. Your energy, intelligence, and passion are exactly the ammunition we need to heal the world, deal with chronic and short-term disasters, and resolve conflicts. Who is better equipped intellectually, physically, and spiritually? No one. You, who are trained and called to this work. It is time. You must now assume your rightful place; replacing and standing on the shoulders of giants—those who came before you, who worked so diligently, and with strength, courage, and innovation; those who are fatigued, retired, or have passed on.
I challenge you to become this army of peace advocates, of community healers, and individuals who empower others. You are the Army of our national and global aspirations. Your mission is to follow your moral and intellectual compasses and work towards social change and development, social cohesion and the empowerment and liberation of people. Embedded in your work are principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities.” Sound familiar? It should.
To fulfill your mission of boots on the ground, what tools of peace you must carry? First and foremost, you must recall and apply the knowledge and skills that you have acquired and will continue to acquire across a lifetime of professional experience. In spaces of great challenge, and darkness, turn on your headlamp and remember, reflect, and resurrect these skills and knowledge. Do not forget to equip yourselves with compassion--the ability to have concern for the sufferings or disadvantages of others. You must use empathy- the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. When faced with fear and confusion, avoid “hard strike tactics.” Instead remember how much you value differences and how important differences are in our richly diverse societies. When lost, rely on the trajectories of faith and the belief that change can happen. Pace yourself to ensure that you have the stamina to make it so. Know that with progress, retrenchment often follows and therefore keep your heads up, chests forward and march on. You must work in concert and collaboration with each other. I think we have plenty of historical and contemporary examples of failure where “savior” mentalities or dismissing the experience, expertise, and ideas of those most impacted by society’s many challenges. Meaningfully and compassionately listen to gather all of the intelligence is also important.
And so, my dear newly minted soldiers for peace, welcome to this effort to heal our community members and solve the complex and complicated problems facing our societies. What that I hear? I hear the swelling sound of the next regiment of peaceful boots on the ground. The social workers who are brave, smart, empathic, confident, and capable of interrupting and healing injustice and inequity.
Finally, to be successful at this work, to move forth with bravery and moral clarity, I must address the subject of self-care. The mere mention of this topic encourages strangely contradictory reactions—nods in affirmation and snickers of impossibility. Yours is a profession which frequently prescribes self-care to both practitioners and clients and yet, most of us fail miserably. It is here that, with your permission, I would like to get personal. I have been working for social justice all of my life but more extensively over the past 5 years. Like you have done and will do throughout your career, I have visited exceptionally difficult spaces. For days, months, and years on end, my life was spent in spaces of confusion, fear, resistance, and anger. My work specializes in working with folks who have experienced great fractures in their communities and workspaces. 99% of my time working is spent pushing the boulders of justice, compassion, and understanding up very steep hills. Most times, in that last 1%, the boulders victoriously rest on top of the mountain. People are moved to think and behave more compassionately, to accept that bias does impact approaches and access to opportunities. People are moved to understand where their own thoughts and actions have upheld these unequal systems and interactions. Similarly, our jobs not only require expert knowledge of both problem identification and resolution but also a tremendous acceptance and transference of energies. Permit me to say that our professions are both jobs and callings. Subsequently, this work can not only be exhilarating and exhausting, it can be soul expanding and crushing.
Perhaps like many of you in this room, I learned the hard way. I am just returning from a semester of forced medical leave—forced because I resisted it at every turn, despite doctors’ insistence. I knew better, I could grind through, what did they know? What started as a simple cat scratch turned in to a life-threatening systemic infection. A proudly Type A personality, I was flattened, traditional medical treatments were ineffective and as the days and weeks passed, I descended into a space I had never been in—where I no longer exercised control over my body and I caught every normal and strange infection there was and sometimes multiple times. In the span of three months, I caught the flu three times, blew out my thyroid, and organ levels were not at proper levels. I would visit medical professionals and they were quite perplexed as to why I wasn’t responding to treatment. I appeared healthy, I was a lifelong cyclist and meditation practitioner— I should be bouncing back. And then when they asked me what I did and I told them of my work, they paused. Over the weeks and months and with the help of excellent traditional and non-traditional medical practitioners, it became quite clear that my immune system had failed because of an unknown factor that we pay lip service to but that is essential to our body, mind, and spirit survival—self-care. I am not only a believer in science, a woman of faith, and I also believe in the transference and releasing of negative energies. I did not understand how substantial that last component was. For five straight years, I fully scheduled my days with trainings, workshops, and meetings dealing with extreme and subtle forms of hatred. I ignored the warning signs of fatigue and corporeal and spiritual damage. Until I couldn’t. My 22 lb. Maine Coon cat, Albert Einstein Stollman scratched my eye and this started my descent. While the experience was and continues to be unpleasant, I thank my giant kitty. His painful act, sat me still. I could not resist. In order to come back to this work, I had to reconcile with myself what I can and cannot do. We work long hours and we must carve out time for recovery and restoration. Period. Full Stop. Self-care is now a permanent part of my daily routine. I share my story not for pity, Lord knows I saw enough of that, but so that you don’t make the same mistake. Dear Friends— we cannot expect to continue to conduct this crucial work if we are emotionally and physically laid out. I know you are strong, I am strong but this work, by definition, is among the most challenging. To not accept and work through the damage it can do, puts us at risk for not doing the work we love, are good at, and have been called to do. So, please, please, please, find out the self-care practice which works for you and be zealous in engaging. This world needs your sustained participation. We simply cannot risk losing a single social worker for you, my friends are the keys to individual and community members’ success.
Let me conclude by first thanking you for listening to me. I am so very grateful. I am also healed and energized by being in this community of healers. I hope that I have done you justice in my remarks. I know the work is as inspiring as it is tiring. A new term called “compassion fatigue” is making the rounds. It states that we are tired of having to extend compassion. To that I say, BULL. Compassion and empathy exist in bottomless wells and we can choose to draw our buckets as often as we would like. Remember this. As this day fades in your memory, please remember to carry this with you always. You are crucial to this work. We cannot end bias and move our nation’s values from being aspirational to actual. Your continued hard work and dedication, your bravery and moral clarity will have tremendous impact beyond what you can see or even perceive. Every act of social work and social justice reverberates across hearts and minds. Do not forget that you are not only social workers working day in and day out, you are the solution and with your efforts, on real individual and collective planes, you will heal this nation and world in equity, freedom, and love.
