NASW Social Work Talks - EP63: Why We Need More Black Male Social Workers

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

We speak with Dr. Anthony Estreet, LCSW-C, and Walter Palmer, JD, about why we need more Black male social workers, and how we can support people looking to enter the profession. Visit the show notes to learn more about our guests. This episode is sponsored by the University of Louisville, offering a CSWE-accredited, highly-ranked MSSW program 100% online. Learn more at louisville.edu/online.

This episode is brought to you by the University of Louisville. Welcome to Social Work Talks. I am Greg Wright. Black men have been leaders in the social work profession for generations. These include men such as George Edmund Haynes, James Dunson, and Whitney Young Jr., the first Black president of the National Association of Social Workers. Yet social work remains largely female and white. What can be done to attract more Black men to the field? Today, we talk about this with Anthony E. Street, past president of the NASW Maryland Chapter and an associate professor of social work at Morgan State University.

We also have Professor Walter Palmer, co-founder of Black Men at Penn and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Social Work Department. Welcome to Social Work Talks, Anthony and Professor Palmer. How are you? Good, thank you. Great, thank you for having us. Social work is a century old. Even though there has been a history of Black men as icons in this profession, it is still largely a white and a female one. So why are more males needed and also why are more Black men needed? some of the reason why more males are needed is because there's a lot of ways that people interact and a lot of ways that people connect with people. And one of those things could be

around gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, all that. So I think that, you know, adding to the diversity of the workforce and the profession is largely important so that the consumers that we serve have more options. When a person has limited options in a lot of what they see does not reflect their culture or values, that can create barriers to accessing care. Right now, people are talking about Black mental health and the importance of Black mental health given all of the social justice issues and the police brutality that's happening in the current environment. Yet, there's this narrative that Black social workers, Black therapists are hard to find, which is true. I think that the question around Black men is equally important

because there are just certain experiences that not everybody can relate to or understand from a cultural lens. Yes, we have icons and yes, there are more growing, but we certainly need to increase that so that we can provide adequate and culturally responsive services to the clients that we serve. If we are a profession that is reflective of diversity, then we need to be intentional about how we recruit Black men into the profession so that we can de-stigmatize the profession of being a white woman-led profession. Professor Palmer? One of the premises that I operate from is the fact that American society is a male-dominant society, and as a male-dominant society, many men have had aversion towards going into certain professions. They're very slow to go

into nursing, secretarial, social work, teaching. Over time, that has been reduced, not still at to rate them probably the way they should. I think the society is also race-based, and so for many African Americans, there's been an attempt to deny them access to a lot of fields, and so we're struggling with two different phenomenas. When I started at the University of Pennsylvania over 50 years and more ago, I was invited on campus by students, and I helped to create what I call a school without walls, meeting with Black activists and Black professionals, bringing them on campus and engaging students and faculty. And I stayed around long enough to become a visiting lecturer in almost all their schools, medicine, law, education, urban studies, and

helped to create Africana studies. And in 1969, I helped to create a required course on American racism in the School of Social Work. So Penn became the first school of social work with a graduate degree. It was required that you had to have courses on American racism. The first course was basically American racism, looking at it historical and philosophically. The second year was American racism and social justice and organizing and planning. By 2000, I helped create the Black Men at Penn. And the Black Men at Penn became the vehicle for trying to address the very issue you're talking about. And between 2000 and 2020, we still have not seen a major, major shift, even at the University of Pennsylvania, where we have these courses, required courses on

American racism. And so it's still a major, major push because it is so endemic within the culture of our society. When you are out there asking Black men to be a social worker, what are you hearing? Anthony, what do you see? So one of the things that I hear initially are, I don't want to do child welfare. I don't want to snatch kids, right? So that kind of belief and that image is still very popular, you know, in society that social workers basically snatch kids away when there's a wide variety. So after we get through that conversation, you know, the conversation about pay comes up and this pay gap when it comes to how social workers are paid in various public agencies or community-based agencies versus other professions, that conversation is very important,

When we think about attracting men and black men in particular to social work, that's one of the things we have to keep in mind. I guess in a typical sense, a lot of people want to make a living wage. A lot of people want to be able to pay for their student loans. A lot of people want to be able to be financially sound. And that creates a barrier for people. Again, going back to that original point around social workers being in child welfare or taking kids, we have to change that lens and refocus that lens to show the wide variety of opportunities there are for Black men in social work in general. I've been a social worker for 14 years now,

and I've never worked in child welfare. And I've had a great career up until this point, from being in corporate clinical world, all the way to being an associate professor now at Morgan State University. And I think that's a good point, Anthony. I think that the social work degree is fluid and i think that and i constantly tell students the thing to do is to also use it as a base right a lot of students are now using social work uh in conjunction with law social work in conjunction with a business administration social work in conjunction with clinical practice but the pay gap uh and the pay incentives are are big it's a big deal we still have a disparity between say black female social workers and white female social workers and so

black female social workers are making less than white female social workers but in black men many times are making less than black females and there's not a lot of pay into it and it's interesting right now in in the midst of black lives matter movement uh this discussion about reinventing reimagining the police and talking about using social workers as interveners and along with that That reimagination is reimagining the combat pay that needs to go with this reimagined new idea. It's great to hear Anthony say that he's found a way in which to make it work for him. And I think it's a model that people should consider. The University of Louisville offers a CSWE-accredited, highly ranked MSSW program, 100% online.

Gain the knowledge, resources, and skills to promote social justice and the well-being of others in your community. You can make a difference. Visit louisville.edu forward slash online to learn more. I'm looking at where I work. We have a Black CEO. Also, this association has had at least three Black presidents in the last decade. There are Black leaders in this profession. Anthony was also a president of a Maryland chapter. It isn't that there aren't Black faces out there, but I'm wondering why aren't folks seeing that?

Social work as a profession has this overshadowing image of whiteness. And now, you know, because I'm involved with a lot of the organizations, so NASW, CSWE, you know, they're being called upon to look at how they're addressing racism and being anti-racist so i think that some of the things is yes you know we have a lot of in the particular case of nasw yes we've had black leaders but it's oftentimes in an organization or in a corporate setting that is very white right and so the thought or the thinking is how is my voice going to matter how's my how's my voice going to make any change as an organization as a profession we need to make real tangible changes that people can see that, you know, we are trying to address the issue of racism, trying to engage African-Americans

and Black people in social work so that they can, you know, feel a part of social work. You know, at some point in time, there was a break-off where there was a creation of the National Association of Black Social Workers, where social workers felt like their voice wasn't being heard, and that, so they created a whole other organization. You know, that speaks volumes in terms of what it means to be a black person or a black male in social work and how does that then relate to your membership or your role inside of professional organizations? Because I do think there are a lot more black social workers out there. They're just not part of a lot of these membership organizations. In 1967-68, I was one of the co-founders of the National Alliance of

black social workers. And even over the years, that organization was not actually engaged in really trying to recruit black male social workers. I kind of think, or I believe, that it might be very useful if the National Alliance of Black Social Workers had a wing dedicated towards black male social workers and try to help bolster this call, because it is necessary. And it's not necessary just to be, because we want to show black faces, because there's no guarantee with black faces you're going to get people who think differently about the way in which they serve as black people but it's because it's just a central part of it and concomitant with trying to recreate the black male social workers as well as black female social workers is what is the actual

philosophical premise that they operate from trading places with white people does not achieve some of the goals we want for our freedom our liberation so it can't just be more black males more black females in social work medicine and all these other areas it's got to be for with a purpose of dedicated purpose in 1960s and 70s we were looking at the ways in which black psychiatrists psychologists and doctors practice their craft and they bought something different to the treatment of black people and that was a consideration of the life experience and the cultural experience and the the culture of racism and discrimination and

prejudice and segregation that black people lived through for 400 years and so certainly each all of those had a disparate impact on black people's mental physical emotional and spiritual being and needed to be considered when it came to the treatment modalities so is um a way to uh actually bridge that is to like have an associate membership or accepting folks as a paraprofessional i mean i think that's a great idea right but it's it's more than just creating a category for people to join the association right we have to speak to and develop content for these individuals and that means that for a person that's aspiring to be a social worker that might mean developing a mentorship thing like

for me me personally i would be glad that to mentor young african-american men that are interested in social workers i could tell them about my career and all that good stuff but in the same sense it has to be a meaningful relationship a matter of fact let me tell you my story so i started off in psychology i had every intention on going to be a psychologist the reason why i switched to social work is because i met another black man who his name was mike Green, and he's still in this area, he's still a mentor to me today, and he told me about social work, and he showed me social work, and he showed me what all could be done in social work, and that shifted my whole trajectory into social work, so I ended up getting my MSW in social work and a PhD

in social work, so mentorship matters, and representation matters when it comes to attracting Black men in social work. Professor Palmer, now you have a Black man at Penn, so are they acting as mentors? Well, that's the whole premise. The whole idea was the University of Pennsylvania existed for 100 years, had a social work program for over 100 years, and was still really white. And even today, it has no strong black presence.

What I did was I tried to create these mentorship programs. I created the ABSW student wing at the University of Pennsylvania. I created the Black Men at Penn, the John Hope Franklin Combating American Racism. I created the courses on the required course on American racism. I created the Black Alumni Activist Council. Now, the thing is, I used to tell the white deans, the University of Pennsylvania is a bastion of white racism, right? And it perpetuates it in many forms and from the top on down. And so my goal is not to take over a white institution.

That's just not, I'm not going to waste my energy doing that sort of thing. But what I want to do within the context of this institution is have a black presence. And a black presence meant not just in color, but in terms of thought and commitment to black people. And so this mentoring is critical. And I guess that's all I've been all my life. I've tried hard to be a mentor for young men and young women. I came out of abject poverty like so many of us. and I know what it's like and I've never given up on the people who unfortunately are still in that

state and I tell people all the time all that I am I owe to the poor I mean people who who helped to mentor me who helped push me who would never get to where I got right so mentorship is really it's just critical as a final question I wanted to ask you both are you hopeful I am certainly hopeful. I'm at HBCUs, right? So I see the numbers increasing in terms of Black men in social work, you know, in both the BSW and MSW area, right? You know, I go to conferences and I see, you know, more Black people and not just more Black people. I see more people who are concerned and vocally speaking out about racism and things that Black people are concerned about, right? So that certainly gives me hope. You know, I'm still very connected to the mentors that I

have, I still, you know, reach out and mentor young people in terms of career and professional advice. So I'm very much hopeful that the tides can be changed. A lot of it is social presence and letting people be seen. So that's why I've been so involved in membership organizations and trying to take leadership positions, you know, in the role of just being chapter president in Maryland, I was able to create more diversity on the board, right? So I've seen the ability to create those changes and shift the way that organizations can interact with the public and how they can, you know, create intentional messaging that we want to engage, we want to be a part, we want you to be a part, and we're here to listen. So, you know, I think that there are a

of opportunities for you know people to engage black men in social work but like you said i still think there are some challenges nonetheless yeah i'm hopeful i'm always hopeful i'm eternally hopeful internally grateful it's just not easy it's a lot of work it's um selfless work it's redeeming but not rewarding i've just started a national drive to have petitions signed all over the country and outside the country trying to get over a million people to sign a petition and i started off by i was a keynote speaker at the university of pennsylvania medical grand rounds saying that the medical community has to rise up and it has to challenge american society and the american government and so we're calling for medical people to be the driving force for us to

give millions of people to sign on requiring that the ice age president congress and senate recognize racism in america as a public health crisis and in addition to that we're asking that they create a national dialogue structure one out of the congress and goes across this entire country to bring about the debate and the dialogue uh in an open in open forms uh we're going to take a year to push this drive and so i'm hopeful that now when white doctors and white medical people are now listening to what we've been saying for the past 50, 60 years, that this is a public health crisis. Over 100 doctors already signed up. I'm glad that I hit 87. I didn't think I'd live long enough to see a lot of the things that I'm seeing now. And so I'm totally grateful and

I'm hopeful that we're going to somehow, if we don't bring it down and kill it, we're going to bring it to its knees. A wonderful conversation. I want to thank you. Thank you both. Thank you. Take good care. Bye-bye. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.