Encounters with Privilege and Multiculturalism

NARRATIVES

Encounters with Privilege and Multiculturalism

A middle-aged. White male college professor teaches social work to students from multiculturalbackgrounds. The meaning and assumptions of privilege are examined by exploring diversity in every class.Just as social work practitioners "start where the client is," this social work educator "starts where the studentis" and learns that variation and difference are the core of humanity.

byRichard Holody

Richard Holody, DSW, is anAssistant Professor of SocialWork, Department ofSociology and Social Work,Lehman College (CUNY),Bronx, NY.

After almost two de-cades of child welfare practice inboth public and private agen-cies, I now teach baccalaureatelevel social work at an urbancollege. There is a chapter in thecourse outline for the socialwork practice sequence which,following the textbook (Compton& Galaway, 1994), is entitled"Practice Across Difference."There, I tell my students thisstory:

As a foster care super-visor, I am entering a court-room to testify in a proceed-ing, initiated by me, thatseeks to terminate the legalparental rights of two peoplein order that their son may be"freed" to be adopted by an-other family. That's my job:to act in the best interests ofthe child. And to this point,I and my worker and myagency have done all that canbe reasonably and profes-sionally expected to providerehabilitative services to thebirth parents of the child.Those efforts brought no ob-servable change in the func-tioning of the parents. So Iwill now, and with confi-dence, testify that the agencymade reasonable and diligentefforts to reunite the familyand has no alternative but to

seek the remedy of termina-tion and adoption.

Taking the stand, I no-tice that the other people inthe courtroom are myagency's attorney, the child'slegal guardian, separate law-yers for each of the parents,a court reporter, a bailiff, andthe judge. All are white; allbut two of the attorneys aremale. I am a white male.

The parents, neither ofwhom are present, are Afri-can-American and PuertoRican, respectively.

1 then ask my class todiscuss this vignette and seek toreconcile what may seem to becompeting truths: the reality ofthe parents' inability to care fortheir child and the demographicdescription of the legal pro-ceeding.

Well into the semester, Ihave gained a measure of trustfrom my class. They accept mydescription of the parents' in-ability to provide satisfactorycare for their children as accu-rate.

But my class is uncom-fortable leaving matters there,letting the wheels of justice turninexorably toward the inevitableconclusion of the adoption ofthe child by another family.They are briefly assured when

REFLECTIONS: WINTER 1998 17

ENCOUNTERS WITH PRIVILEGE AND MULTICULTURALISM NARRATIVES

they leam that the adoptive fam-ily is demographically approxi-mate (African-American andDominican) to the child's fam-ily of origin. But one student,frightened by the phrase "termi-nation of parental rights," main-tains that "there's just some-thing wrong" about what is hap-pening in this story. Her class-mates agree.

Unlike in court, in theclassroom I am the only Whitemale. There is a White femalestudent, but the others areAfrican-American, Caribbean-American, Puerto Rican, and im-migrants from the DominicanRepublic, Equador, and Jamaica.Even the White female studentis an immigrant from Ireland. Inthis evening course, the studentsare mostly in their 3O's, havejobs and families, and for themost part have been recipientsof the social service delivery sys-tem they seek to enter as gener-alist practitioners. They are se-rious, about their studies andtheir commitment to profes-sional helping. After consider-able discussion, including nosmall amount of student self-disclosure about encounterswith police, lawyers, child pro-tective service workers, and oth-ers, one student asks, "So, what

is tbe point of the story?" I tookthat to mean, what should Ilearn from the case vignette thatwill, a) help me get a good gradein this course, and b) better pre-pare me to be a practitioner inthe real world?

In both the courtroomand in the class, I representprivilege in a multiculturalworld. My testimony, because Iam authorized to speak for theagency, will — did — lead to thetermination of parental rights.My answer, because I was hiredto teach this course, will — does —command attention.

I struggle in my re-sponse. The points are, I say,first, that the story is true, thatis, it describes an unsatisfyingand conflictual reality they toowill face as practitioners; sec-ond, that whatever societal in-justices, historical and contem-porary, deprived the parents ofaccess to resources and oppor-tunity, the social worker's job inthis case is clearly defined: totestify in behalf of the best in-terests of the child; and third,that the world of the justice sys-tem is not the world of the so-cial service system and whensocial workers are testifying ina court, we "play by their rules":court testimony must be certaineven when we know that thetruth of case activity may beambiguous. The students takenotes, silently. Perhaps they areas dissatisfied with the answeras I am.

I thought long and hardabout teaching that class after Ileft it — in ways that I hadn'tthought about my teaching be-fore. I thought about what Icould have done differently. I

could have helped the class criti-cally examine the socio-culturalconstruction of the terms "pa-rental inability" and "best inter-ests of the child." More impor-tantly, I could have clarified thatthe lessons that I derived fromthe vignette constitute my truth.When in the following semesteranother student asks, "What isthe point?" I need to reject theimplicit ascription of privilegeand respond, "Let us togethersearch for answers."

Such strategizing abouthow the class could have gonebrought me face to face withwhy I had changed careers, whyI had left child welfare practiceto become a teacher. Some mo-tivations are obvious: new chal-lenge, different professionallifestyle, the coincidence of op-portunity and desire, the feelingof "I think my practice has givenme something to share." WhatI am learning from my studentsis that teaching satisfies anothermotivation: it provides a chanceto reflect, to scorn easy answers,to learn. The diversity of mystudent population demandsthat the understanding of socialwork that satisfies me must besubjected to a permanent pro-cess of re-examination, like turn-ing a kaleidoscope again andagain, challenging the viewer,each viewer, to see that changeis reality. In practice, I guardagainst privilege by "startingwhere the client is." I must nowlearn to "start where the stu-dents are," not only to help themto a new level of academic ac-complishment and professionalgrounding, but to explore to-gether the meaning of socialwork.

18 REFLECTIONS: WINTER 1998


Encounters

1 he very existence ofinstitutionalized educationraises the issue of privilege,from the distribution of a courseoutline telling the students whatwill be studied (and by implica-tion, what will not) through the"testing" of students (to deter-mine if they have learned whatteachers have decided theyare to learn). My privileged roleas teacher was questioned in oneof my first teaching assign-ments, a course about the his-torical development of socialwelfare services in this country.Many students, including, butnot exclusively, immigrant stu-dents, are barely aware of thebroad outlines of U. S. history.They don't just confuse Franklinand Theodore Roosevelt; theyare genuinely surprised to hearabout the Civil War and Recon-struction Era, about discrimina-tion against the Irish and otherEuropean immigrants, andabout the Great Depression. Itis a "content" — not "process"—- driven course, with a conse-quent emphasis on "what hap-pened when."

"On the test, do youwant us to give you what yousaid in class and what the booksays? Or can we give our ownopinions?" This question hasbeen asked in each of the sevensemesters I've taught the course.I first thought, there is no "opin-ion" about who founded theChildren's Aid Society, or whenthe settlement house movementwas prominent in this country,or that there were two NewDeals.

But the persistence of thequestion made me realize: thereis an opinion as to who thinksthese questions, as opposed toothers, are important. I thinkthat they are, because that iswhat I was taught; that is myunderstanding of the develop-ment of social welfare servicesin the United States. If I taughtfrom Abramowitz (1988) or Gor-don (1994), I would think othernames, dates, trends, and dy-namics were important, and mytests would look quite different.And I remember that when Itaught from Jansson (1988), mytests were different than when Iteach from Trattner (1992). Theline between historical fact andopinion blurs.

I have now added a newessay question to the final ex-amination. "Discuss the title ofthe textbook. From Poor Law toWelfare State." I tell the studentsthis question a week before thetest and add that there is no spe-cific answer I am looking for, no"right" answer, other than theessay must be grounded in spe-cific material from the text andclassroom discussions. Somestudents begin their essay bysaying, "I'm not sure if this iswhat you want, but . . . " A fewothers reveal a deep anger at theabuses of the modern welfarestate in the United States: "Thetitle shows how it was betterwhen we did not help the un-worthy poor"

The majority of students,however, write essays about thepersistence of poverty and thechanging role of government inaiding the poor and disadvan-taged. Or they write about thepeculiar American circum-

stances — great wealth, consti-tutional freedom, complex sys-tem of governnnent — and howthey combine to structure thecurrent welfare delivery system.One gives a cogent argument,supported by historical refer-ences, for the "lie" of a welfarestate in a country so scarred byracism and sexism.

My answer to the persis-tent question is now: "I want ananswer that is thoughtful andreflects what you have learnedin this course. I need to knowwhat you think, and what youthink includes what you knowand how you know it, and whatyou believe and why you be-lieve it." It is an answer that Ihope liberates us, if only a little,from the conceit that their roleis only to anticipate what privi-lege dictates "the right answer"to be. They are learning to de-velop their own points of view,drawing selectively on materialsfrom the course to support it.

In teaching them to de-velop their own views, I haveoften used analogies to helpthem consider different viewsand deepen their understandingof complex issues. For example,in teaching the course entitled"Human Behavior and the So-cial Environment," I lead discus-sions about parenting—whatworks and what doesn't. Inevi-tably we confront corporal pun-ishment: Is it effective? Doespotential long-term harm (un-resolved conflicted feelings to-ward the punishing parent) out-weigh the possible good (short-term change in the behavior ofthe child)? Is spanking the ex-pression of a frustrated parentor a legitimate attempt to de-



crease unwanted behavior?Many students have shared thatthey were "whupped" and theylearned to respect their parentsas a result. Many of these stu-dents were raised outside of theUnited States and before pas-sage of American laws concern-ing the definition, reporting,and investigation of child abuse.

My students have al-ways been suspicious of statu-tory definitions of child abuseand neglect. Ghild rearing, theyargue, is culturally determined.To label one set of parental prac-tices as abusive or neglectful isto impose one culture over an-other. This position has somesupport in the social work litera-ture on multiculturalism: "Fun-damentally, multiculturalismpresents a paradigm that . . .incorporates the existence ofequivalent cultural realitieswithin society" (K. H. Gould,1996, p. 37, emphasis added).When I first taught the course, Iwould respond:

"Suppose you grew upin a country where there wasno speed limit on the high-ways. Then you moved tothe United States, drove 75miles an hour on the high-way, and were stopped by thepolice. Do you tbink it wouldbe an acceptable defense tothe charge of speeding to saythat in your country it is ac-ceptable to speed?"

This analogy always"worked"; students saw that inany society there are standardsof conduct and behavior, andthat being raised in a differentsociety does not excuse devia-

tion from the standards in theplace where you are. It is notthat one argument is privileged,but rather a recognition of tbeneed for common standards,based on new knowledge (e.g.,tbe reality of the Battered ChildSyndrome as a recognized diag-nosis) and the (presumably)cross-cultural value of tbe rightof every child to be free fromphysical harm.

Recently, however, onestudent noted, "Of course, thepolice don't arrest everyone forspeeding." The class knew whatshe meant: laws are enforceddifferentially, prejudicially. Myanalogy revealed more than Ithought.

Later, I wondered how Icould have made such a sillymistake. I realized that while Iwas trying to force the studentsto look at only the one aspect ofthe issue that concerned me, thestudent said, in effect, "Let'skeep looking at the whole pic-

ture." I made the mistakeMaluccio (1991) warned against:I gave only "intellectual ac-knowledgment" to the social,class, and ethnic construction oftbe problem of child abuse and

ignored the ethical imperative tofigbt "conditions of racism andoppression" (p. 608). This is a"mistake" of privilege that turnsteaching into a game of"gotcha."

I now see that class dis-cussions of social welfare policyformulation, such as child abuselegislation, must include—con-sidering that society's strugglefor consensus does not end withpassage of legislation but con-tinues through implementationand enforcement, stages that canreveal the hidden preconcep-tions and value preferences thatlie behind even seemingly non-controversial laws. The stu-dents' questioning of tbe cul-tural assumptions behind statu-tory definitions of child abusereveals, in Giddens's (1979)words, how "domination [by theprivileged] is concealed asdomination . . . [and] the needto sustain legitimacy [occurs]through the claim to representthe interests of tbe communityas a wbole" (p. 193).

Perhaps we stray too farafield in this baccalaureate-levelclass. In any case my studentsdo not appear interested in cri-tiquing privilege per se. Theyaccept the need to draw some-wbere a line that preventsbodily harm to children, but tbatseems less interesting to themthan the stories, from the di-verse cultural backgrounds oftheir fellow students, of the va-riety of ways of raising children.As I listen to their discussion, Irealize not only how much stu-dents learn from eacb other buthow fundamental is process toboth education and practice.Privilege provides predeter-



mined answers; multiculuralismallows for exploration ofcomplexity.

I also have used analo-gies to clarify values in socialwelfare policy. In discussing therationale for proving eligibility,for example, we considered thatscarce resources require amethod of assuring that they aredispensed only to those who aremost needy and that the Ameri-can value of "rugged individu-alism" requires the separation ofthe "worthy" from the "non-worthy" poor. Inevitably, wemust confront the issue of fraud."I see this woman all the time,"one student said, "cashing herwelfare check and I know sheworks!" Others in the classagreed this is outrageous. Iwould ask if they are as upsetby middle-class income taxfraud. Some would say "yes,"but clearly without the samelevel of anger.

So, my analogy: "What'sdifferent about poor peoplecheating from, say, the notion ofDonald Trump fudging his in-come tax deductions? Surely thepoor person needs whatever ex-tra can be obtained, whereas wecan be sure that Trump'slifestyle would be little changed

if he paidmore to thegovernment."

My stu-dents againagree. Andyet: "Don'tyou under-stand? We seethe welfarecheating! It'sdone by ourn e i g h b o r s !

What does that cheating sayabout WS who live in the samehousing projects, shop in thesame bodegas, maybe even arein receipt of public assistance orfood stamps too?"

Upon reflection, I havewondered if the contrastingverbs — "cheating" vs. "fudg-ing"— unintentionally under-mined the analogy. Perhaps mychoice of verbs also reflected myprivileged status: a Whitemiddle class male has more op-portunity to cheat on his incometax returns than to fudge on hisapplication for public assis-tance.

The more critical lesson,I now believe, is for me to un-derstand the source of the stu-dents' anger. They are, in a way,"more American" than I am.They believe in the values of in-dustry, struggle, commitment,responsibility, and community.Yes, they believe that hard workprovides its own reward, butalso should provide more thanindolence and deception. Itdoes matter that their neighborcheats. It matters to them per-sonally and it matters to the soulof the community in which theylive. Their proximity to thecheating heightens their concern

and inflames their response.Isolated from their struggles, Ican blithely say, "Oh well, tocheat is human." For peoplewho live in housing projects,utilize underfunded municipalservices, and struggle againstthe oppression and injustice,these values matter in a way Ihave not experienced. I can onlylearn from them, accepting theirchallenge to probe deeper intothe biases to which my privilegeblinds me.

The incident from socialwelfare policy may also illus-trate how analysis will differwhen the behavior under studyreflects one's own community,when the "other" is in fact us.In my practice class, I lookfor a way to help my studentsto confront a culture unliketheir own as the basis for theirterm paper assignment, abiopsychosocial assessment.This was not an easy task, giventhe many nationalities repre-sented in class. I decided on theNew Zealand film. Once WereWarriors.

My students had likelynot seen the film, and almostcertainly have never had en-counters with contemporaryMaori culture. The film por-trays, in brutally realistic scenes,wife battering, rape, suicide,and alcohol-driven violence. Itconcludes with the hero, Beth,finding the hope and strength inher Maori culture to defend her-self and her children. The film'sharsh language and raw depic-tions require that I alert the classbeforehand to the film's inten-sity and that some time is spentafter to process their reactions.

Well, what do you think.



I ask when the lights wereturned on. "It was like seeingscenes from my childhood," anAfrican-American man stated.A woman from Jamaica com-mented on the influence ofreggae on contemporary musicin New Zealand. A Latino man,struggling with his own recov-ery from substance dependencyand past criminal acts, quietlysaid, "Too close to home, man.Too many things I've seen. Toomany things I've done." Somestudents planned to meet towatch the film again, together.An older African-Americanwoman planned to buy the tape:"This film must be seen bygroups in my church to under-stand what drinking and vio-lence is all about."

I was moved beyond allexpectation by the commonalityof human experience; by howmy students could see them-selves in others even throughthe barriers of unfamiliar cul-ture. I realized that again I hadrevealed my privilege. I had setup the Maori as "the other," ascertainly they were for me whenI first viewed the film. But mystudents, even when admittingthey could not understand all ofthe Maori historical and cul-tural references, saw the Maorias themselves.

The challenge of explor-ing the meaning of culture didnot end with that classroomepiphany. Perhaps my studentssimply ignored the differencesbetween themselves and the fic-tional family, seeking only toidentify what was common orfamiliar because that was easier

to do. Or perhaps their identifi-cation with the family derivedfrom the parallel oppressionsexperienced by the urban Maoriand themselves in their lives inthe city. I don't know.

Final Thought

The paleontologist StephenJay Gould (1996) wrote that the"deepest meaning of the Dar-winian revolution" is "to under-stand variation itself as irreduc-ible, as 'real' in the sense of'what the world is made of" (p.3). He argued that we misun-derstand variation in nature be-cause we prefer to understandevolution as progress towardssomething — an ideal, an es-sence, greater complexity, ahigher average — because "wecrave progress as our best hopefor retaining human arrogancein an evolutionary world" (p.29). We can only understand thenatural world we live in whenwe consider the totality of na-ture, e.g., the dominant exist-ence of bacteria, and not simplyextract for consideration andapproval the development ofone species. Homo Sapiens.

Though Gould is carefulto distinguish natural evolutionfrom social and cultural change(pp. 217-230), I think an analogyis possible: the deepest meaningof human life is variation, diver-sity of experience not the pref-erence of privilege. Effectivesocial work, both in practice andin education, requires constantchallenging of privilege and ex-ploration of difference. •

REFERENCES

Abramowitz, M. (1988).Regulating the lives ofwomen. Boston: SouthEnd Press.

Compton, B. R. & Galaway, B.(1994). Social workprocesses. Belmont, CA:Brooks/Cole Publishing.

Giddens, A. (1979) Centralproblems in social theory .Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

Gordon, L. (1994) Pitied but notentitled New York: TheFree Press.

Gould, K. H. (1996) Themisconstruing of multi-culturalism: theStanford debate and so-cial work. In P.L. Ewalt,E.M. Freeman, S. A.Kirk, & D. L. Poole, (eds.)Multicultural Issues insocial work . Washington.DC: NASW Press.

Gould, S. J. (1996). Full houseNew York: HarmonyBooks.

Jansson, B. (1988). The reluctantwelfare state. Belmont,CA: Wadsworth.

Maluccio, A. N. (1991). Theoptimism of policychoices in child wel-fare. American Journal ofOrthopsychiatry, 606-609.

Trattner, W. I. (1992). Frompoor law to welfare state.New York: The FreePress


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Encounters with Privilege and Multiculturalism

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