Summary

Social work faculty must prepare students to practice in a diverse and polarizing social and political environment. The US National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics requires that social workers “… take action against oppression, racism, discrimination, and inequities and acknowledge personal privilege …\ engag(e) in critical self-reflection (understanding their own bias and engaging in self-correction), recogniz(e) clients as experts of their own culture, commit to lifelong learning, and hold institutions accountable for advancing cultural humility.”However, when white social work students are asked to examine their whiteness and privilege and learn about others’ lived experiences, they often feel and express personal guilt, uneasiness, and defensiveness, known as “white fragility.” White fragility manifests in the classroom as self-justifying, denial, deflection, and anger towards faculty members and BIPOC students. Two cisgender female social work educators, one Black and the other white, use the podcast “Seeing White,” and accompanying assignments as a powerful tool to help students to manage their fragility and sit in the uncomfortable space needed to grapple with their socialization as white persons. Seeing White is produced and narrated by John Biewen, who is white. With leading racial identity scholars and historians, Biewen engages, unpacks, and discovers the purposely untold history of race and the creation of whiteness in America. Throughout, Biewen talks with Chenjerai Kumanyika, a colleague of color and professor of critical cultural media studies who helps Beiwen unpack his whiteness.The poster will describe the courses, the podcast, accompanying assignments, student comments, and pre-work each faculty member did to explore their racial identities before working with students. It will also include an interactive space for people engaging with the poster to share and suggest teaching tools they have found effective in helping students unpack their privilege, respect diversity, and move past fragility to social action.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

podcast, social work education, whiteness, privilege, white fragility, Black, white, race, USA