Stop Whitewashing Social Work History: Tell the Truth – Kelechi Wright, LCPC & Kortney Carr, LCSW

Episode 49 Guests: Kelechi Wright, LCPC, LPC; Kortney Carr, LCSW, LSCSW Host: Shimon Cohen, LCSW

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In this episode, I talk with Kelechi Wright and Kortney Carr. Kelechi is a full-time doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the School of Social Welfare. She has expansive clinical experience in mental health with BIPOC communities. Her research focuses on immigration, criminal justice and the criminalization of immigrants. Kortney is a third-year doctoral student at the University of Kansas and a Professor of Practice in the School of Social Welfare. She has a lengthy practice background in community mental health, mental health, and private practice, with an emphasis on trauma. Her research focuses on how Black men have survived social isolation in the U.S. We talk about their article, co-authored with Dr. Becci Akin, The Whitewashing of Social Work History: How Dismantling Racism in Social Work Education Begins With an Equitable History of the Profession, published in an open-access, special double issue of Advances in Social Work. This article should be required reading in all social work programs! It is an interrogation of how social work history – what gets to be told as history, who tells it, what gets valued, what’s considered evidence, what’s considered professional, who is considered a social worker – all of it – is racist and whitewashed. They talk about how social work history often focuses on social work being created by privileged White women who helped the poor and oppressed, but does not talk about Black social welfare leaders and community organizers and activists who did this work in their own communities and beyond, and who should be held up as social work and social welfare leaders and founders. This inaccurate history portrays White people as saviors and Black people as passive receivers. To continue to teach this whitewashed history perpetuates white supremacy, which has serious consequences for social work students, faculty, social workers, and especially communities where we practice. As Kelechi and Kortney explain, we need an accurate telling of history so that our foundation is solid and our present and future are built