anti oppression analysis

Anti-Oppressive Practice

What is anti-oppressive practice.

AOP recognizes that multiple forms of oppression can occur simultaneously within micro-, mezzo-, and macro-levels that uniquely impact marginalized people and communities . It works to eradicate oppression and challenge power structures through collective institutional and societal changes (Sakamoto & Pitner, 2005). Accordingly, AOP also promotes a deep reflection and development of a ‘ critical consciousness ’ to analyze, for example, how social work can be complicit in recreating and reinforcing structures of oppression, such as through unequal power dynamics between a social worker and service user.

Critical consciousness is the “process of continuously reflecting upon and examining how our own biases, assumptions and cultural worldview affect the way we perceive difference and power dynamics” (Sakamoto & Pitner, 2005, p. 441). Through the development of clear connections between social justice and social work practice, AOP offers a conceptual model for understanding the multiplicity of oppression, privilege, and power dynamics at a structural level.

Key Principles of Anti-Oppressive Practice

1. critical reflection on self in practice.

Social work is an inherently political role; it allows social workers to occupy a position of power and privilege via their access to resources and hierarchical structure of the social service sector. Therefore, it is crucial for social workers to be critically reflexive to avoid recreating oppressive social relations in practice (Healy, 2014).

Asking ourselves questions like, “how does my social location create positions of privilege?” and “how may social divisions impact my ability to best meet this service user’s needs?” can create the foundation for reflection on how our own biographies shape and create power differentials in our practice. It is also important to note that while social workers occupy a position of power in a therapeutic relationship, one’s identity and social locations are dynamic and heavily dependent on the context one is in. For example, a racialized female social worker working with a white male service user might navigate power differentials based on her race and gender positions that do not reflect normative service user-service provider power imbalances.

2. Critical Assessment of Service Users’ Experiences of Oppression

Critical social workers strive to comprehensively understand the diversity and multiplicity of oppression in service users’ lives. Personal, cultural, and structural processes each shape individuals’ problems, and the access they have to solutions. Critically analyzing the intersections of oppression such as gender, class, and race, allow us to understand how macro level policies, discourse, and processes impact service users’ lives. Similarly this critical analysis must also be turned inward, to understand how social work discourse and language use in framing of problems can contribute to sustain oppressive power structures (e.g. “disturbed, “at risk”) (Healy, 2014).

3. Empowering Service Users

Empowering service users is one of the central tenets of AOP and strives to create empowerment processes both at the interpersonal and institutional level. At the interpersonal level, the process of “externalizing structural oppression” is key to being able to deconstruct experiences and recognize how social forces impact service users’ lives. This process allows people to see the true nature of their circumstances by analyzing the structures and institutions that impact and influence their ability for social mobility, economic prosperity, and educational attainment. At the institutional level, “anti-oppressive social workers promote changes to the organization and delivery of services in ways that enhance anti-oppressive practice and service user control” (Healy, 2014, p. 198). Practical ways to promote empowerment include ensuring that service users’ views and stated needs are incorporated into assessment and solution options.

4. Working in Partnership

AOP prioritizes working in partnership with service users through collaborative efforts that position the service user as the expert in their own life. Consequently, service users must be included as much as possible in the decision-making processes that impact their life. This is achieved through a deliberate sharing of power and a commitment to transparency where the service user has the full information and awareness of the circumstances to make decisions in their best interest. Working in partnership attempts to balance unequal power dynamics by working against hierarchical structures to create a supportive environment where the service user is able to access the necessary resources and information to work collaboratively with a social worker (Healy, 2014).

5. Minimal Intervention

A key principle of AOP is reducing oppressive and disempowering situations in social work (Healy, 2014). Utilizing AOP in social work means minimizing opportunities of social control by strategically intervening in the least intrusive way possible in the service users’ life. Early intervention and an emphasis on preventative services contribute to minimal intervention and less disruption in service users’ lives.

Limitations of Anti-Oppressive Practice

While AOP is committed to challenging and dismantling systems of oppression and increasing understanding of structural contexts that we are all embedded in, it does present some limitations. Working from an anti-oppressive framework without a critical consciousness can create circumstances for complicity and contribute to oppressive practices in social work.

As Sinclair and Albert (2008) note, “to operate under the assumption that we need go no further than to state that our schools of social work adhere to anti-oppressive ideology and practice, allows for the perpetuation of a culture of silence which reinforces neocolonialism”. Further, AOP can facilitate this complicity in its “dualistic framing of oppression and anti-oppression in critical social work because it imposes an erroneous conceptual division between oppression and anti-oppression which is usually simplistically associated with the moral categories of bad and good” (Wong, 2004).

This allows social workers to ignore their own roles in recreating structures of oppression in their relationship with service users (Badwall, 2016). As critical social workers, it is crucial that we do more than simply situate ourselves and our efforts as on the “right” side of social transformation. We must “take political and ethical stances, but do so in a way that recognizes that we and our stances have been shaped by the very legacies that we’re struggling against ” (Chapman & Withers, 2019, p. 29).

Further limitations of anti-oppressive practice include its promotion of a robust structural analysis of factors that contribute to our lived experience, but a lack of tangible steps to engage in praxis. For example, while AOP endeavours to practice ‘consciousness-raising’ with service users as a form of empowerment, it fails to acknowledge its own role in social work as part of settler colonialism, and does not provide practical steps for the repatriation of land. While social workers call for actions to ‘decolonize’ the profession (Tamburro, 2013), social work in Canada relies on settler colonialism to function (Fortier & Wong, 2018) and therefore does not truly engage in decolonial actions. Consider, for example, that “ Decolonization as metaphor allows people to equivocate these contradictory decolonial desires because it turns decolonization into an empty signifier to be filled by any track towards liberation ” (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 7). AOP can be strengthened by incorporating perspectives that address and unsettle the relationships between colonialism and practice, and that prioritize Indigenist knowledges and goals .

Additionally, the practice of ‘consciousness-raising’ positions the social worker as knowledgeable on all forms of oppression and creates a power hierarchy in the social worker-service user relationship. This practice can be patronizing in that it functions to ‘teach’ individuals about their own experiences of oppression (Baines, 2011). To combat this, Dominelli (2002), states that social workers should engage in anti-oppressive practice and aim to provide more appropriate and sensitive services by responding to people’s needs regardless of their social status. Anti-oppressive practice embodies a person-centred philosophy, an egalitarian value system concerned with reducing the deleterious effects of structural inequalities upon people’s lives; a methodology focusing on the process and outcome; and a way of structural social relationships between individuals that aims to empower service users by reducing the negative effects of hierarchy in their immediate interaction and the work they do. (p. 6).

Journaling Prompts

In all interactions/situations, have i thought about power, privilege, and social location and how it impacts my actions , have i questioned/challenged dominant ways of thinking to transform power towards equity , have i ensured the actions i have taken are equitable, collaborative and power sharing , how can i promote anti-oppressive actions at an institutional or systemic level.

Developed by Wong & Yee, 2010, p. 11

Subject List
Take a Tour
For Authors
Subscriber Services
Publications
African American Studies
African Studies
American Literature
Anthropology
Architecture Planning and Preservation
Art History
Atlantic History
Biblical Studies
British and Irish Literature
Childhood Studies
Chinese Studies
Cinema and Media Studies
Communication
Criminology
Environmental Science
Evolutionary Biology
International Law
International Relations
Islamic Studies
Jewish Studies
Latin American Studies
Latino Studies
Linguistics
Literary and Critical Theory
Medieval Studies
Military History
Political Science
Public Health
Renaissance and Reformation

Social Work

Urban Studies
Victorian Literature
Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Anti-Oppressive Practice

Introduction, foundational resources.

Links to Aligned Professional Literatures
History of the Field
AOP-Rooted Programs
How to Effectively Prepare Students for AOP
Uptake in Human Services
Critical Reflexivity and Knowing Self
Micro-level AOP and Counseling
Mezzo-level AOP within the Profession of Social Work
Mezzo-level AOP at the Organizational Level
Mezzo-level AOP at the Community Level
Macro-based AOP that Influences Public Policy and Dominant Discourses
AOP Research
Working with Specific Populations
On Expertise and Epistemology
On the Value of AOP for Racial Disparities and Cultural Competency
On Postmodernism’s Impact on Constructions of Identity
Advanced Ethical Issues
Critiques of the Construct of Intersectionality
Thoughts on What Comes Next for AOP

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Child Welfare Effectiveness
Immigration and Child Welfare
International Human Trafficking
Find more forthcoming articles...
Export Citations
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Anti-Oppressive Practice by Ann Curry-Stevens LAST REVIEWED: 01 April 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 25 February 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389678-0203

Anti-oppressive practice (AOP) has taken root in social work as an effort to raise social justice commitments in the profession, and to improve outcomes for those it serves. AOP’s influence is strongest in Canada, the United Kindgom, and Australia (where it has been a feature of social work education for more than fifteen years), and to a much lesser degree in the United States. An abundance of writing on AOP exists and has been drawn upon for this chapter, and the field has been consolidating and strengthening since 2010. Now being articulated are the research dimensions of the field, and the evidence base of outcomes from AOP interventions are just beginning to show up in the literature. In its most accessible form, AOP is a lens through which experience is understood. The AOP lens is that of power based on group identities or affiliations (such as race, class, gender, and sexual identity), and when practitioners notice group identities, they can anticipate—for that client, their family, or their community—an array of experiences that are associated with positive or negative life outcomes (such as health, income, education, marginalization, violence, status, and social inclusion/exclusion). The simplest directive for AOP practice is to minimize power hierarchies, by assisting to build the power of those who hold a marginalized identity and/or reducing the unfair power of those of privileged status. The larger social and political context of the last generation that gave impetus to the emergence of AOP is the deepening of globalization and the rise of neoliberal policies, including cuts to social programs, rising inequality, and dominant discourse that blames individuals for their distress. In this deteriorating environment, social work has retained its divide of a more clinical orientation that is strongly aligned with counseling and psychology, and a more social justice orientation to practice that focuses attention upstream on causal and contributing features to downstream distress. That said, one of the exciting additions since around 2005 has been the articulation of more micro-oriented AOP that provides interventions for working at the individual level in ways that are aligned with the principles of AOP. Formally, the definition of anti-oppressive practice has been articulated by Lena Dominelli: “Anti-oppressive practice embodies a person-centered philosophy; an egalitarian value system concerned with reducing the deleterious effects of structural inequalities upon people’s lives; a methodology focusing on both process and outcome; and a way of structuring relationships between individuals that aims to empower users by reducing the negative effects of hierarchy on their interaction and the work they do together” ( Dominelli 1996 , cited under History of the field , p. 170). The field has numerous related frames for practice that includes structural social work, critical social work, radical social work, feminist and anti-racist social work and, more recently, the service user movement. The commonality for these fields of practice are their focus on rectifying injustice, building power of the powerless, and centering the needs of communities that hold marginalized identities, namely people of color, those in poverty, women, indigenous peoples, and other marginalized communities. While this field has mostly “grown up” around issues of gender, racism, and white privilege (and it took longer for issues of privilege to be implicated in dynamics of oppression as the essential corollary and driving feature of the issue), the work being developed in this field has relevance for various forms of oppression. Some may view this work as simply a return to the social action and community organizing efforts of both the settlement house era and, later, the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s that gave rise to structural and radical social work. Unique, however, is a more sophisticated understanding of power and its multiple dimensions, including a growing willingness of practitioners to identify their personal and political privileges. AOP holds significant implications for the professional identity of the social worker. Within AOP, social work as a profession is implicated as a part of ruling relations, and social workers themselves can no longer simply position themselves into some form of resistance practice and then believe that this choice has rendered them “innocent” as a practitioner. Anti-oppressive practice now requires all practitioners to understand themselves as implicated in sustaining relations of domination, as benefitting from the status quo, and as part of a profession that similarly is reliant on serving the interests of privileged groups, be they the ruling classes, white, heterosexual, or other communities of privilege. This understanding has been deeply informed by postmodernism and its focus on subjectivities, epistemologies, the authoring of knowledge, and knowledge claims. While this effort is more fully integrated within critical social work, the two fields (AOP and critical social work) are deeply aligned, and while AOP tends to not have as sophisticated an understanding of these issues, those on its leading edge are embracing this analysis. Issues such as the construction of identity and of expertise, as well as essentialism (and the corresponding anti-essentialist proposals), are stretching the field of AOP in important and challenging ways. These issues are addressed at the close of this chapter. The mandate for social justice practice is integrated within codes of ethics around the world, including Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States. A full listing of codes of ethics around the world can be found on the website of the International Federation of Social Workers . Social work’s International Code of Ethics holds a strong orientation to both human rights (including explicit adherence to specific United Nations conventions) and social justice. With these heightened expectations in place, providing students and practitioners with practice theories and skills to uphold these obligations is required. AOP fulfills this implicit directive.

Over the years, leading scholars have served to consolidate the field. This set of texts share features of practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of intervention, with a healthy portion of the text defining the theoretical base of anti-oppressive practice. Recent contributions tend to be more informed by postmodernism, with complexities on identity and subjectivities incorporated into the approaches. The edited collections tend to encapsulate a broader range of dimensions of AOP. For teaching, undergraduate courses are likely to favor Bishop 2002 ; Carniol 2010 ; Mullaly 2002 ; Shera 2003 ; Allan, et al. 2003 ; and Adams, et al. 2010 ; while graduate programs will find the following texts more complex: Baines 2011 , Dominelli 2002 , Fook 2002 , and Morgaine and Capous-Desyllas 2015 . Instructors looking to deepen students’ development of a critical perspective will likely find these texts most relevant: Bishop 2002 ; Carniol 2010 (particularly with Canadian students); Mullaly 2002 ; and Adams, et al. 2010 . While all have some practice elements integrated, Baines 2011 ; Dominelli 2002 ; Shera 2003 ; Fook 2002 ; and Allan, et al. 2003 are most directly tied to preparing social work students for AOP engagement in social work settings.

Adams, M., W. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda, H. Hackman, M. Peters, and X. Zuniga. 2010. Readings for diversity and social justice . 2d ed. New York: Routledge.

Snapshots from leading authors in the field are organized to cover several axes of oppression and privilege. With an introductory chapter on conceptual frameworks, a concluding chapter on strategies for change, and introductions to each section, the work comprehensively details the causes, impacts, and resistance practices that many learners need in this process. Its strength is in its diversity of voices on these topics and its accessibility for students.

Allan, J., B. Pease, and L. Briskman, eds. 2003. Critical social work: An introduction to theories and practices . Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

This Australian text envisions the profession as one that challenges oppression and privilege, and deeply integrates the political and macro dimensions of the micro experience into all arenas of practice. The fields covered in this text include working with immigrants and refugees, postcolonial work with indigenous Australians, feminist services, family practices, mental health with women, and grief work.

Baines, D., ed. 2011. Doing anti-oppressive practice: Social justice social work . 2d ed. Halifax, NS: Fernwood.

Baines’s collection significantly advances practice frameworks, building upon the earlier works of Dominelli and Mullaly. This text articulates AOP across multiple sites of practice, including at the microlevel and among mandated clients (refuting the perspective that AOP has no role with involuntary clients). The text attends to postmodern constructions of identity and the importance of a “politics of recognition” in social work.

Bishop, A. 2002. Becoming an ally: Breaking the cycle of oppression . 2d ed. London: Zed Books.

Bishop outlines the “ally model” to define the roles for privileged people in struggles to advance social justice. While not as well informed by postmodern contributions to AOP, the work astutely configures ally roles that support marginalized communities and neatly configures practice in ways that simultaneously address one’s own experiences of oppression, while also addressing privilege.

Carniol, B. 2010. Case critical: Social services and social justice in Canada . 6th ed. Toronto: Between the Lines.

Frequently an introductory text for Canadian students. Carniol details the moral imperative for social justice, implicating the power holders in relations of domination, and astutely linking these to the lives of social work clients. The text is ripe with current research, exploration of various axes of oppression, and the history and current debates in social work practice.

Dominelli, L. 2002. Anti-oppressive social work theory and practice . Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dominelli is roundly recognized as the leading scholar in AOP. Her text continues to be an excellent basis for teaching at an introductory level on this topic. This text’s forte is its pragmatic and applied elements, including focus on individuals, groups, and organizations. The introductory chapters can serve to deepen practitioners’ commitments to the centrality of oppression and privilege, and the promise that AOP provides for advancing social justice.

Fook, J. 2002. Social work: Critical theory and practice . London: SAGE.

Interspersed with critical reflection questions and abundant case examples, this text tends to structural, post-structural, and postmodern dimensions of oppression. Fook uses her own work to enliven critical reflection in the moments of engaging with the text, and thus models the critical reflexivity. Although written a decade ago, it retains a cutting edge for its focus on epistemologies and postmodern emphases on voice, authorship, and power.

Morgaine, K., and Capous-Desyllas. 2015. Anti-oppressive social work practice: Putting theory into action . Los Angeles: SAGE.

Chapters identify core practices that AOP brings into different client populations: individuals, families, groups, organizations, communities, policy, social movements and global practices. Its forte is in providing the integration that authored texts provide, alongside comprehensive insights in how AOP informs each dimension of social work practice. A short set of narratives from practitioners accompany each chapter.

Mullaly, B. 2002. Challenging oppression: A critical social work approach . Don Mills, ON: Oxford.

Mullaly brings thoughtful clarity to understanding dynamics of oppression. His text covers theory and practices at both the interpersonal and structural levels (following a similarly useful model as that his 2007 text The New Structural Social Work integrates), and expands to include the impact on oppressed bodies with an expansive chapter on internalized oppression and privilege.

Shera, W., ed. 2003. Emerging perspectives on anti-oppressive practice . Toronto: Canadian Scholars.

Twenty-eight contributions are detailed in this Canadian collection, illustrating the reach of AOP within the profession. The text reaches into theory, fields of practice (including child welfare, child care, street youth services, workplace accommodations for those with disabilities, mental health, and gerontology), and deeply into social work education. Issue-based chapters focus on identity, therapeutic discourses, empathy, cultural competence, technology, and community and global themes.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

About Social Work »
Meet the Editorial Board »
Adolescent Depression
Adolescent Pregnancy
Adolescents
Adoption Home Study Assessments
Adult Protective Services in the United States
Aging out of foster care
Aging, Physical Health and
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Problems
Alcohol and Drug Problems, Prevention of Adolescent and Yo...
Alcohol Problems: Practice Interventions
Alcohol Use Disorder
Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias
Anti-Oppressive Practice
Asian-American Youth
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Baccalaureate Social Workers
Behavioral Health
Behavioral Social Work Practice
Bereavement Practice
Bisexuality
Brief Therapies in Social Work: Task-Centered Model and So...
Canadian Social Welfare, History of
Case Management in Mental Health in the United States
Central American Migration to the United States
Child Maltreatment Prevention
Child Neglect and Emotional Maltreatment
Child Poverty
Child Sexual Abuse
Child Welfare
Child Welfare and Child Protection in Europe, History of
Child Welfare Practice with LGBTQ Youth and Families
Children of Incarcerated Parents
Christianity and Social Work
Chronic Illness
Clinical Social Work Practice with Adult Lesbians
Cognitive Behavior Therapies with Diverse and Stressed Pop...
Cognitive Processing Therapy
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Community Development
Community Policing
Community-Based Participatory Research
Community-Needs Assessment
Comparative Social Work
Computational Social Welfare: Applying Data Science in Soc...
Conflict Resolution
Council on Social Work Education
Counseling Female Offenders
Crisis Interventions
Cultural Competence and Ethnic Sensitive Practice
Culture, Ethnicity, Substance Use, and Substance Use Disor...
Dementia Care
Dementia Care, Ethical Aspects of
Depression and Cancer
Development and Infancy (Birth to Age Three)
Differential Response in Child Welfare
Digital Storytelling for Social Work Interventions
Direct Practice in Social Work
Disabilities
Disability and Disability Culture
Domestic Violence Among Immigrants
Early Pregnancy and Parenthood Among Child Welfare–Involve...
Eating Disorders
Ecological Framework
Economic Evaluation
Elder Mistreatment
End-of-Life Decisions
Epigenetics for Social Workers
Ethical Issues in Social Work and Technology
Ethics and Values in Social Work
European Institutions and Social Work
European Union, Justice and Home Affairs in the
Evidence-based Social Work Practice
Evidence-based Social Work Practice: Finding Evidence
Evidence-based Social Work Practice: Issues, Controversies...
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs
Families with Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual Parents
Family Caregiving
Family Group Conferencing
Family Policy
Family Services
Family Therapy
Family Violence
Fathering Among Families Served By Child Welfare
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
Field Education
Financial Literacy and Social Work
Financing Health-Care Delivery in the United States
Forensic Social Work
Foster Care
Foster care and siblings
Gender, Violence, and Trauma in Immigration Detention in t...
Generalist Practice and Advanced Generalist Practice
Grounded Theory
Group Work across Populations, Challenges, and Settings
Group Work, Research, Best Practices, and Evidence-based
Harm Reduction
Health Care Reform
Health Disparities
Health Social Work
History of Social Work and Social Welfare, 1900–1950
History of Social Work and Social Welfare, 1950-1980
History of Social Work and Social Welfare, pre-1900
History of Social Work from 1980-2014
History of Social Work in China
History of Social Work in Northern Ireland
History of Social Work in the Republic of Ireland
History of Social Work in the United Kingdom
HIV/AIDS and Children
HIV/AIDS Prevention with Adolescents
Homelessness
Homelessness: Ending Homelessness as a Grand Challenge
Homelessness Outside the United States
Human Needs
Human Trafficking, Victims of
Immigrant Integration in the United States
Immigrant Policy in the United States
Immigrants and Refugees
Immigrants and Refugees: Evidence-based Social Work Practi...
Immigration and Health Disparities
Immigration and Intimate Partner Violence
Immigration and Poverty
Immigration and Spirituality
Immigration and Substance Use
Immigration and Trauma
Impact of Emerging Technology in Social Work Practice
Impaired Professionals
Implementation Science and Practice
Indigenous Peoples
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Supported Employmen...
In-home Child Welfare Services
Intergenerational Transmission of Maltreatment
International Social Welfare
International Social Work
International Social Work and Education
International Social Work and Social Welfare in Southern A...
Internet and Video Game Addiction
Interpersonal Psychotherapy
Intervention with Traumatized Populations
Interviewing
Intimate-Partner Violence
Juvenile Justice
Kinship Care
Korean Americans
Latinos and Latinas
Law, Social Work and the
Mainland European Social Work, History of
Major Depressive Disorder
Management and Administration in Social Work
Maternal Mental Health
Measurement, Scales, and Indices
Medical Illness
Men: Health and Mental Health Care
Mental Health
Mental Health Diagnosis and the Addictive Substance Disord...
Mental Health Needs of Older People, Assessing the
Mental Illness: Children
Mental Illness: Elders
Meta-analysis
Microskills
Middle East and North Africa, International Social Work an...
Military Social Work
Mixed Methods Research
Moral distress and injury in social work
Motivational Interviewing
Multiculturalism
Native Americans
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders
Neighborhood Social Cohesion
Neuroscience and Social Work
Nicotine Dependence
Occupational Social Work
Organizational Development and Change
Pain Management
Palliative Care
Palliative Care: Evolution and Scope of Practice
Pandemics and Social Work
Parent Training
Personalization
Person-in-Environment
Philosophy of Science and Social Work
Physical Disabilities
Podcasts and Social Work
Police Social Work
Political Social Work in the United States
Positive Youth Development
Postmodernism and Social Work
Postsecondary Education Experiences and Attainment Among Y...
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Practice Interventions and Aging
Practice Interventions with Adolescents
Practice Research
Primary Prevention in the 21st Century
Productive Engagement of Older Adults
Profession, Social Work
Program Development and Grant Writing
Promoting Smart Decarceration as a Grand Challenge
Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Theory
Psychoeducation
Psychometrics
Psychopathology and Social Work Practice
Psychopharmacology and Social Work Practice
Psychosocial Framework
Psychosocial Intervention with Women
Psychotherapy and Social Work
Qualitative Research
Race and Racism
Readmission Policies in Europe
Redefining Police Interactions with People Experiencing Me...
Rehabilitation
Religiously Affiliated Agencies
Research Ethics
Restorative Justice
Risk Assessment in Child Protection Services
Risk Management in Social Work
Rural Social Work in China
Rural Social Work Practice
School Social Work
School Violence
School-Based Delinquency Prevention
Services and Programs for Pregnant and Parenting Youth
Severe and Persistent Mental Illness: Adults
Sexual and Gender Minority Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylu...
Sexual Assault
Single-System Research Designs
Social and Economic Impact of US Immigration Policies on U...
Social Development
Social Insurance and Social Justice
Social Intervention Research
Social Justice and Social Work
Social Movements
Social Planning
Social Policy
Social Policy in Denmark
Social Security in the United States (OASDHI)
Social Work and Islam
Social Work and Social Welfare in East, West, and Central ...
Social Work and Social Welfare in Europe
Social Work Education and Research
Social Work Leadership
Social Work Luminaries: Luminaries Contributing to the Cla...
Social Work Luminaries: Luminaries contributing to the fou...
Social Work Luminaries: Luminaries Who Contributed to Soci...
Social Work Regulation
Social Work Research Methods
Social Work with Interpreters
Solution-Focused Therapy
Strategic Planning
Strengths Perspective
Strengths-Based Models in Social Work
Supplemental Security Income
Survey Research
Sustainability: Creating Social Responses to a Changing En...
Systematic Review Methods
Task-Centered Practice
Technology Adoption in Social Work Education
Technology for Social Work Interventions
Technology, Human Relationships, and Human Interaction
Technology in Social Work
Terminal Illness
The Impact of Systemic Racism on Latinxs’ Experiences with...
Transdisciplinary Science
Translational Science and Social Work
Transnational Perspectives in Social Work
Transtheoretical Model of Change
Trauma-Informed Care
Triangulation
Tribal child welfare practice in the United States
United States, History of Social Welfare in the
Universal Basic Income
Veteran Services
Vicarious Trauma and Resilience in Social Work Practice wi...
Vicarious Trauma Redefining PTSD
Victim Services
Virtual Reality and Social Work
Welfare State Reform in France
Welfare State Theory
Women and Macro Social Work Practice
Women's Health Care
Work and Family in the German Welfare State
Workforce Development of Social Workers Pre- and Post-Empl...
Working with Non-Voluntary and Mandated Clients
Young and Adolescent Lesbians
Youth at Risk
Youth Services
Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Legal Notice
Accessibility

[66.249.64.20|162.248.224.4]
162.248.224.4

The limits of contemporary anti-oppression theory and practice

Young Chilean feminist: “Without god, without law, without husband: free, beauti

Identity is not Solidarity

Privilege theory and cultural essentialism have incapacitated antiracist, feminist, and queer organizing in this country by confusing identity categories with solidarity and reinforcing stereotypes about the political homogeneity and helplessness of “communities of color.” The category of “communities of color” is itself a recently invented identity category which obscures the central role that antiblack racism plays in maintaining an American racial order and conceals emerging forms of nonwhite interracial conflict. What living in a “post-racial era” really means is that race is increasingly represented in government, media, and education as “culture” while the nation as a whole has returned to levels of racial inequality, residential and educational segregation, and violence unseen since the last “post-racial” moment in American history – the mid-60s legal repeal of the apartheid system of Jim Crow.

Understanding racism as primarily a matter of individual racial privilege, and the symbolic affirmation of marginalized cultural identities as the solution to this basic lack of privilege, is the dominant and largely unquestioned form of anti-oppression politics in the US today. According to this politics, whiteness simply becomes one more “culture,” and white supremacy a psychological attitude, instead of a structural position of dominance reinforced through institutions, civilian and police violence, access to resources, and the economy.

Demographic categories are not coherent, homogeneous “communities” or “cultures” which can be represented by individuals. Identity categories do not indicate political unity or agreement. Identity is not solidarity. Gender, sexual, and economic domination within racial identity categories have typically been described through an additive concept, intersectionality, which continues to assume that political agreement is automatically generated through the proliferation of existing demographic categories. Representing significant political differences as differences in privilege or culture places politics beyond critique, debate, and discussion.

For too long individual racial privilege has been taken to be the problem, and state, corporate, or nonprofit managed racial and ethnic “cultural diversity” within existing hierarchies of power imagined to be the solution. It is a well-worn activist formula to point out that “representatives” of different identity categories must be placed “front and center” in struggles against racism, sexism, and homophobia. But this is meaningless without also specifying the content of their politics. The US Army is simultaneously one of the most racially integrated and oppressive institutions in American society. “Diversity” alone is a meaningless political ideal which reifies culture, defines agency as inclusion within oppressive systems, and equates identity categories with political beliefs.

Time and again politicians of color have betrayed the very groups they claim to represent while being held up as proof that America is indeed a “colorblind” or “post-racial” society. Wealthy queers support initiatives which lock up and murder poor queers, trans* people, and sex workers. Women in positions of power continue to defend and sometimes initiate the vicious assault on abortion and reproductive rights, and then offload reproductive labor onto the shoulders of care workers who are predominantly women of color.

But more pertinent for our argument is the phenomenon of anti-oppression activists – who do advance a structural analysis of oppression and yet consistently align themselves with a praxis that reduces the history of violent and radically unsafe antislavery, anticolonial, antipatriarchal, antihomophobic, and anticiscentric freedom struggles to struggles over individual privilege and state recognition of cultural difference. Even when these activists invoke a history of militant resistance and sacrifice, they consistently fall back upon strategies of petitioning the powerful to renounce their privilege or “allow” marginalized populations to lead resistance struggles.

For too long there has been no alternative to this politics of privilege and cultural recognition, and so rejecting this liberal political framework has become synonymous with a refusal to seriously address racism, sexism, and homophobia in general. Even and especially when people of color, women, and queers imagine and execute alternatives to this liberal politics of cultural inclusion, they are persistently attacked as white, male, and privileged by the cohort that maintains and perpetuates the dominant praxis.

Protecting Vulnerable Communities of Color and “Our” Women and Children: The Endangered Species Theory of Minority Populations and Patriarchal White Conservationism

The dominant praxis of contemporary anti-oppression politics operates primarily at the level of managing appearances, relinquishing power to political representatives, and reinforcing stereotypes of individually “deserving” and “undeserving” victims of racism, sexism, and homophobia. A vast nonprofit industrial complex, and a class of professional “community spokespeople,” has arisen over the last several decades to define the parameters of acceptable political action and debate. This politics of safety must continually project an image of powerlessness and keep communities of color, women, and queers “protected” and confined to speeches and mass rallies rather than active disruption. For this politics of cultural affirmation, suffering is legitimate and recognizable only when it conforms to white middle-class codes of behavior, with each gender in its proper place, and only if it speaks a language of productivity, patriotism, and self-policing victimhood.

And yet the vast majority of us are not “safe” simply going through our daily lives in Oakland, or elsewhere. When activists claim that poor black and brown communities must not defend themselves against racist attacks or confront the state, including using illegal or “violent” means, they typically advocate instead the performance of an image of legitimate victimhood for white middle class consumption. The activities of marginalized groups are barely recognized unless they perform the role of peaceful and quaint ethnics who by nature cannot confront power on their own. Contemporary anti-oppression politics constantly reproduces stereotypes about the passivity and powerlessness of these populations, when in fact it is precisely people from these groups – poor women of color defending their right to land and housing, trans* street workers fighting back against murder and violence, black, brown, and Asian American militant struggles against white supremacist attacks – who have waged the most powerful and successfully militant uprisings in American history. We refuse a politics which infantilizes us and people who look like us, and which continually paints nonwhite and/or nonmale demographics as helpless, vulnerable, and incapable of fighting for our own liberation.

People of color, women, and queers are constantly spoken of as if we were children in contemporary privilege discourse. Even children can have a more savvy and sophisticated analysis than privilege theorists often assume! “Communities of color” have become in contemporary liberal anti-oppression discourse akin to endangered species in need of management by sympathetic whites or “community representatives” assigned to defuse political conflict at all costs.

When activists argue that power “belongs in the hands of the most oppressed,” it is clear that their primary audience for these appeals can only be liberal white activists, and that they understand power as something which is granted or bestowed by the powerful. Appeals to white benevolence to let people of color “lead political struggles” assumes that white activists can somehow relinquish their privilege and legitimacy to oppressed communities and that these communities cannot act and take power for themselves.

And of course it is extremely advantageous to the powers that be for the oppressed to be infantilized and deterred from potentially “unsafe” self-defense, resistance, or attack. The absence of active mass resistance to racist policies and institutions in Oakland and in the US over the last forty years has meant that life conditions have worsened for nearly everyone. The prisons, police, state, economy, and borders perpetually reproduce racial inequality by categorizing, profiling, and enforcing demographic identities and assigning them to positions in a hierarchy of domination where marginalized groups can only gain power through the exploitation and oppression of others. The budget cuts and healthcare rollbacks are leaving poor queer and trans people without access to necessary medical resources like Aids medication or hormones, and other austerity measures have dovetailed with increasingly misogynist anti-reproductive-rights legislature which will surely result in an increasing and invisible number of deaths among women. As “diversity” has increased in city and state governments, and in some sectors of the corporate world, deepening economic stratification has rendered this form of representational “equality” almost entirely symbolic.

We have been told that because the “Occupy” movement protests something called “economic inequality” it is not a movement about or for people of color, despite the fact that subprime targeting of Blacks and Latinos within the housing market has led to losses between $164 billion and $213 billion, one of the greatest transfers of wealth out of these populations in recent history. And despite the fact that job losses are affecting women of color more than any other group.

We are told that because the “economy” has always targeted poor people of color, that increasing resistance from a multiracial cohort of young people and students, and from downwardly mobile members of the white working and middle class, has nothing to do with people of color – but that somehow reclaiming and recreating an idealized cultural heritage does. We are told that we are “tokens” or “informants” if we remain critical of a return to essentialist traditional cultural identities which are beyond political discussion, and of the conservative political project of rebuilding “the many systems of civilization—economics, government, politics, spirituality, environmental sustainability, nutrition, medicine and understandings of self, identity, gender and sexuality—that existed before colonization.”

We reject race and gender blind economic struggles and analysis, but we do not reject struggles against what is, under capitalism, naturalized as the “economy.” While the majority of Occupy general assemblies have adopted a neo-populist rhetoric of economic improvement or reform, we see the abolition of the system of capital as not peripheral but fundamental to any material project of ending oppression.

Recent statistics give a snapshot of worsening racial inequality in the US today: the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, the greatest wealth disparities in 25 years. Over 1 in 4 Native Americans and Native Alaskans live in poverty, with a nearly 40% poverty rate for reservations. From 2005 to 2009, Latin@s’ household median wealth fell by 66%, black household wealth by 53%, but only 16% among white households. The average black household in 2009 possessed $5,677 in wealth; Latin@ households $6,325; and the average white household had $113,149.

To address these deteriorating material conditions and imagine solutions in terms of privilege is to tacitly support the continual state and economic reproduction of racial and gender hierarchies, and renew racist and patriarchal violence in the 21st century.

On Nonprofit Certified “White Allies” and Privilege Theory

Communities of color are not a single, homogenous bloc with identical political opinions. There is no single unified antiracist, feminist, and queer political program which white liberals can somehow become “allies” of, despite the fact that some individuals or groups of color may claim that they are in possession of such a program. This particular brand of white allyship both flattens political differences between whites and homogenizes the populations they claim to speak on behalf of. We believe that this politics remains fundamentally conservative, silencing, and coercive, especially for people of color who reject the analysis and field of action offered by privilege theory.

In one particularly stark example of this problem from a December 4 2011 Occupy Oakland general assembly, “white allies” from a local social justice nonprofit called “The Catalyst Project” arrived with an array of other groups and individuals to Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza, order to speak in favor of a proposal to rename Occupy Oakland to “Decolonize/Liberate Oakland.” Addressing the audience as though it were homogeneously white, each white “ally” who addressed the general assembly explained that renouncing their own white privilege meant supporting the renaming proposal. And yet in the public responses to the proposal it became clear that a substantial number of people of color in the audience, including the founding members of one of Occupy Oakland’s most active and effective autonomous groups, which is also majority people of color, the “Tactical Action Committee,” deeply opposed the measure.

What was at stake was a political disagreement, one that was not clearly divided along racial lines. However, the failure of the renaming proposal was subsequently widely misrepresented as a conflict between “white Occupy” and the “Decolonize/Liberate Oakland” group. In our experience such misrepresentations are not accidental or isolated incidents but a repeated feature of a dominant strain of Bay Area anti-oppression politics which – instead of mobilizing people of color, women, and queers for independent action – must consistently purge political differences within identity categories and attack the demographic ratios of existing interracial political coalitions in order to survive.

White supremacy and racist institutions will not be eliminated through sympathetic white activists spending several thousand dollars for nonprofit diversity trainings which can assist them in recognizing their own racial privilege and certifying their decision to renounce this privilege. The absurdity of privilege politics recenters antiracist practice on whites and white behavior, and assumes that racism (and often by implicit or explicit association, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia) manifest primarily as individual privileges which can be “checked,” given up, or absolved through individual resolutions. Privilege politics is ultimately completely dependent upon precisely that which it condemns: white benevolence .

Printer-friendly version

Thanks for this! You probably

Thanks for this! You probably would notice eventually, and though I'm racialized and cisgendered typified as a white male, I can't help mentioning the 12th paragraph is a copy of the 10th paragraph. That's what allies are here for I guess :)

The Catalyst Project. Ya,

The Catalyst Project. Ya, Chris Crass, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Mickey Ellinger and Sharon Martinas got to put their privilege theory into action in Oakland during Occupy which was, well, an interesting phenomenon to deal with. I remember the decolonize split being quite negative. I myself was told to check my privilege (essentially shut up) when I respectfully questioned the Native American nationalism that was going around (thank Roxanne for that position) and when I criticized a person of color who was constantly advocating free market solutions. I haven't spoken much about it since because of the amount of grief a white male takes when criticizing privilege theory activism. It's pretty effective as far as shutting down debate. They mean well, I know that much.

What is Anti-Oppressive Practice?

Anti-Oppressive Practice is both a theory and an approach that has a very broad scope. When defined as an approach to social issues, it focuses on how larger systems create and protect the unearned privilege and power that some groups have while at the same time creating, maintaining, and upholding difficult and unequitable conditions for other groups of people (Baines, 2017). These inequitable conditions created by larger systems lead to power imbalances between them. Anti-Oppressive Practice centres the experiences of equity-deserving groups in order to build structures and systems that work for everyone.

Anti-Oppressive Practice vs Anti-discriminatory Practice

Anti-discriminatory Practice is an approach which calls for people to be treated with respect and holds that people should not be treated badly or unfairly because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, impairment, class, religious belief or age. It also champions the implementation of policies that fight against discrimination (Okitikpi & Aymer, 2012).

Anti-Oppressive Practice recognizes the oppression that exists in our society/space and aims to mitigate the effects of oppression and eventually equalize the power imbalances that exist between people. It also recognizes that all forms of oppression are interconnected in some way, shape or form (Aquil et al., 2021).

Anti-Oppressive Practice primarily traces its roots back to the realm of social work where it has been applied at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels in order to do things like mitigate power imbalances between social workers and their clients as well as the power imbalance between their clients and society at large. As it is a broad concept, Anti-Oppressive Practice draws on several different disciplines in order to deepen our understanding of the world and enable us to think more critically. These disciplines include areas like anti-racism, decolonization theory, feminism, queer theory and disability justice among others. Anti-Oppressive Practice strives to use these disciplines to give people the tools needed to better understand how power and privilege work within society at all different levels (Aqil et al., 2021). It also supports the development and facilitation of programs and practices that can shift our societal dynamics in ways that decrease and eliminate oppression (Aqil et al., 2021). Like many theories, Anti-Oppressive Practice is one that is continually evolving. In as such, it is a theory that requires continuous learning and engagement.

Equity deserving groups

Equity deserving groups are communities that identify barriers to equal access, opportunities, and resources due to disadvantage and discrimination, and actively seek social justice and reparation. This marginalization could be created by attitudinal, historic, social, and environmental barriers based on characteristics that are not limited to sex, age, ethnicity, disability, economic status, gender, gender expression, nationality, race, sexual orientation, and creed.

Oppression works at three interacting levels within our society – structural, cultural and personal (Scammell, 2016).

Sources: Baines, 2017; Scammel, 2016.

Anti-Oppressive Practice also aims to help those who engage in it to improve their skills in critical consciousness. Critical consciousness is the combination of critical action and reflection (Aqil et al., 2021). It requires that we step back and think about our practices or policies and ask probing questions about how they impact those around us and those we work with and then act on the conclusions of these thoughts in tangible ways (Department of Education and Training – Victoria, 2007). Through this sort of practice, we see changes occur not just in systems, but within individuals as well.

Microaggressions

Microaggressions are everyday, subtle, intentional — and oftentimes unintentional — interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups (Nadal in Limbong, 2020). Although these actions are labeled as being micro, they can have an extensive impact on a person’s life and can happen towards any equity deserving group.

Anti-Oppressive Practice - Part 1

How Does Anti-Oppressive Practice Intersect with Student Mental Health?
Why Should We Be Using Anti-Oppressive Practices to Support Student Mental Health on Campus?
Some Helpful Terms in Anti-Oppressive Practice
Contributors
Name * First Last
Your Email *

Anti-Oppression LibGuide: Anti-oppression resources

Anti-oppression resources
Anti-racist resources
Anti-Islamophobia
LGBTQIA resources
Anti-ableism resources
Feminist resources
Resources for DACAmented students
Allyship-Take action
Identifying our Biases
Self care resources

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ” ― Paulo Freire

Oppression: Institutionalized power that is historically formed and perpetuated over time and allows "certain groups" of people to assume a dominant position over other groups and this dominance is maintained and continued at an institutional level. this means that oppression is built into institutions like government and educational systems.

On a personal level, oppression expresses itself through beliefs (stereotypes), attitudes, values (prejudice), and actions (discrimination) used to justify unfair treatment based on distinct aspects of one’s identity, real or perceived. These can be internalized and directed towards the self or externalized and directed towards those we interact with on a day-to-day basis.

Individual Oppression: " The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate privilege & oppression. Individual (racism/sexism/heterosexism/ableism/etc.) can occur at both an unconscious and conscious level and can be both active and passive. Examples include telling a “____-ist” joke, using a racial/gender/religious/etc. the epithet, or believing in the inherent superiority of a group of people." Source : Allyship and Anti-Oppression: A Resource Guide from TriCollege Libraries.

Institutional Oppression: " The network of institutionalized structures, policies, and practices that create advantages and benefits for dominant group members. And creates discrimination, oppression, and disadvantages for subordinated (marginalized communities) group members. The advantages for dominant group members are often invisible to them or are considered entitlements or rights available to everyone as opposed to unearned privileges awarded to only some individuals or groups. Institutions may be Housing, Government, Education, Media, Business, Health Care, Criminal Justice, Employment, Labor, Politics, Religious Organizations, etc." Source: Allyship and Anti-Oppression: A Resource Guide from TriCollege Libraries.

Internalized Oppression : " When members of a target social group adopt the agent group’s ideology and accept their subordinate status, prejudices, and/or stereotypes as deserved, natural, or inevitable. " Source: Allyship and Anti-Oppression: A Resource Guide from TriCollege Libraries.

Heteronormativity: A worldview that frames heterosexuality as the standard sexuality. This is created through repetitive representations of heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships in our society. An example of heteronormativity is the assumption that people are heterosexual unless they “come out”. Another example is how non-heterosexual relationships are expected to be similar to traditional “heterosexual” relationships (i.e., labeling one partner as the “man” of the relationship, expecting couples to want marriage/children, etc).

Classism: A hierarchical system that provides or denies resources, agency, and dignity based on one’s perceived, socioeconomic class (poor/working class, middle/upper class, upper class, etc.).

Prejudice: Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually negative) towards an individual based solely on the individual’s membership of a social group. source: McLeod, S. A. (2008). Prejudice and Discrimination.

Microaggression: Everyday verbal and non-verbal slides, indignities, put-downs, and insults, whether intentional or not that people of color, women, LGTBQIA and other marginalized groups experience in their everyday interactions with others. These interactions, oftentimes appear to be a compliment but contain a hidden insult to the person receiving the comment. Microaggressions occur because they are outside of the level of conscious awareness of the perpetrator and are rooted in ideologies, such as racism, classism, sexism, colonialism, and other discriminatory belief systems. ( Source: Microaggressions in everyday life video)

We can reduce our engagement in microaggression by:

Be vigilant of your biases and fears.
Experiential reality
Be open to discussing your own attitudes and biases.
Be an Ally and work to become a co-conspirator in Anti-racist work.
21 racial microaggressions you hear on a daily basis

Ableism: A system of superiority and discrimination that provides or denies resources, agency, and dignity based on one’s abilities (mental/intellectual, emotional, and/or physical.) Ableism depends on a binary, and benefits able-bodied people at the expense of disabled people. Like other forms of oppression, ableism operates on the individual , institutional and cultural levels.

Privilege: Unearned, special advantage that a person is born into or acquires during their lifetime. It's supported by informal and formal institutions of society and conferred to all members of a dominant group. Privilege implies that whenever there is a system of oppression( such as capitalism, patriarchy, or white supremacy) there is an oppressed and privileged group that benefits from oppressions that the system puts in place.

Essential readings on white privilege:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: Written by feminist writer and SEED PROJECT (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) founder, Peggy McIntosh , it accounts her experience with privilege. "I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life".
Why talk about Whiteness: " I don't think I've ever come across anything that has made me aware of my race.

Diversity: The range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability or attributes, religious and ethical value system, national origin, and political beliefs. Source: Ferris State University-Diversity and inclusion center.

Inclusion: Involvement and empowerment , where the inherent worth and dignity of people are recognized. Source: Ferris State University-Diversity and inclusion center.

Otherwise stated, terms adapted from:

Anti-violence project

Class and classism

Classism: A hierarchical system that provides or denies resources, agency, and dignity based on one’s, or one’s perceived, socioeconomic class (poor/working class, middle/upper class, upper class, etc.). Anti-violence project

Organizations:

Center for Study and working-class life: "The Center for Study of Working Class Life is dedicated to exploring the meaning of class in today’s world. Looking at society through the lens of class clarifies many important social questions in new ways – why the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, what attacks on government programs through privatization mean, why the suburbs aren’t really a middle-class haven, how the "family values" debate impacts our lives, and much more. We are an interdisciplinary effort of faculty and staff at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, founded in November 1999."
Resource Generation: " Resource Generation envisions a world in which all communities are powerful, healthy, and living in alignment with the planet. A world that is racially and economically just in which wealth, land , and power are shared."
Class Action: "Class Action inspires action to end classism and extreme inequality by providing change-makers with tools, training, and inspiration to raise awareness and shift cultural beliefs about social class, build cross-class solidarity, and transform institutions and systems."

Books and other media

The documentary explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. Faculty: Netflix makes available a Grant of Permission for Educational Purposes.

Blackislam Syllabi : This project is curated by Dr. Kayla Renée Wheeler and was inspired by Prof. Najeeba Syeed-Miller, #BlackInMSA, and Muslim ARC. The goal of this project is to provide teachers, professors, researchers, journalists, and people interested in learning more about Islam with resources on Black Muslims to promote a more inclusive approach to the study of Islam.
Charleston syllabi: C onceived by Chad Williams ( @Dr_ChadWilliams ), Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies at Brandeis University . With the help of Kidada Williams ( @KidadaEWilliams ), the hashtag started trending on Twitter on the evening of June 19, 2015.
Fergurson syllabi: crowdsource after the events in Fergurson, Missouri.
Immigration Syllabi: The Immigration Syllabus online site is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing and eLearning Support Initiative.
Standingrock syllabi: This syllabus project contributes to the already substantial work of the Sacred Stone Camp, Red Warrior camp, and the Oceati Sakowin Camp to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatens traditional and treaty-guaranteed Great Sioux Nation territory.

Organizations:

Southern poverty law center: The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation.
Colorlines: Daily news site where race matters, featuring award-winning investigative reporting and news analysis. Published by Race Forward, a national organization that advances racial justice through research, media, and practice.

Related guides:

Anti-Oppression Lib guide-Simmons college : This lib-guide goes deeper into social justice terms.
Anti-Oppression Resources for UNLV Students : Created with the focus of well-being, this lib guide offers sources for anti-oppression and social justice work.

This guide attempts to provide general information and a starting point to learn about anti-oppression, inclusion, and privilege, as well as provide knowledge and resources to key social justice issues.

Next: Anti-racist resources >>
Last Updated: Mar 11, 2024 10:56 AM
URL: https://libguides.nyit.edu/anti-oppression

THE ANTI-OPPRESSION NETWORK

What is anti-oppression.

Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. Social oppression may not require formally established organizational support to achieve its desired effect; it may be applied on a more informal, yet more focused, individual basis.

The Anti-Oppression network seeks to recognize the oppressions that exist in our society, and attempts to mitigate its affects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our communities.

Basically there are certain groups in our society and communities that hold power over others based on their membership in those groups. For example, if you were to look at the demographics of the CEO’s of any major corporation, city council, parliament etc. you would notice that most if not all of these positions of great power are populated by white (publicly straight) males. On the flip side, if you were to look at the demographics of janitorial staff or fast food workers you might notice that these positions are populated largely by persons of colour, specifically women of colour. When studying the statistics of those receiving social assistance, or state aid, you would also notice that the vast majority of those in our communities living in this poverty are folks with disabilities and the elderly.

Personal Responsibility

Practicing anti-oppression work in real terms is not only confronting individual examples of bigotry, or confronting societal examples, it is also confronting ourselves and our own roles of power and oppression in our communities and the bigger picture.

Though you may be a person that would never think to ever say anything racist/sexist/classist etc., by not realizing the power that you hold, and how your actions affect other people you will inevitably fall into sustaining and contributing to a larger system of oppression.

The theory of kyriarchy is that all systems of oppression are interconnected and form a larger, overall system of domination. This means that individually, in some aspects of our lives, we may experience marginalization and lack of power, while in other aspects of our lives we have privilege and power.

While you may be a person a part of an identifiable group who is historically marginalized (a person of colour, for example) you may also have a role and be a member of a group that dominates in power in society (while you are a person of colour, you may also be a cisgender man, an abled person, upper/middle class, straight etc.).

The idea is that, while hierarchies are formed within systems of oppression, no single oppression holds more weight than another, because they cannot exist without each other. This also means that we all have a role in combating oppression and unequal power dynamics.

(The information above was taken – in part – from this page. It is very similar to much information online.) http://wiki.freegeekvancouver.org/article/What_is_Anti-Oppression%3F

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy

for a more comprehensive definition of oppression and other terminology check out: https://theantioppressionnetwork.wordpress.com/resources/terminologies-of-oppression/

Anti-oppressive practice

Cite this chapter.

Beverley Burke &
Philomena Harrison

993 Accesses

8 Citations

The complex nature of oppression is witnessed in the lives of people who are marginalised in this society. As social work practitioners, we have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to challenge inequality and disadvantage. Historically, the profession, in attempting to understand, explain and offer solutions to the difficulties experienced by groups and individuals, has drawn from, amongst others, the disciplines of sociology, psychology, history, philosophy and politics. This multidisciplined theoretical framework, informed by antioppressive principles, provides social workers with a tool to understand and respond to the complexity of the experience of oppression.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, UK

Robert Adams ( Professor of Human Services Development ) ( Professor of Human Services Development )

Department of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, UK

Lena Dominelli ( Professor of Social and Community Development ) ( Professor of Social and Community Development )

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Malcolm Payne ( Professor of Applied Community Studies ) ( Professor of Applied Community Studies )

Copyright information

About this chapter

Burke, B., Harrison, P. (1998). Anti-oppressive practice. In: Adams, R., Dominelli, L., Payne, M., Campling, J. (eds) Social Work. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14400-6_19

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14400-6_19

Publisher Name : Palgrave, London

Print ISBN : 978-0-333-68818-2

Online ISBN : 978-1-349-14400-6

eBook Packages : Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies Collection Social Sciences (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Find a journal
Track your research

Frameworks & Approaches

The Analysis to Action on Gender-Based Violence Project uses an intersectional, gender-based analysis lens that focuses on the lived realities of women to understand the impacts of gender-based violence. We recognize and understand that factors such as race, Indigenous identity, ethnicity, religion, gender identity or gender expression, sexual orientation, citizenship, immigration and refugee status, geographic location, social condition, age and disability influence women’s experiences. This is true in the context of gender-based violence, within the legal system, and within the criminal justice system.

We believe it is important to acknowledge that, in the Thunder Bay region, in Ontario and in Canada, women in all their diversity and transgender, queer and gender non-conforming people are overwhelmingly those who are subjected to abuse, and are disproportionately affected by patriarchal violence. We also acknowledge the diversity of women and families in this country and acknowledge the continued adverse impacts of misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and heteronormative culture.

The following are selected approaches, theoretical frameworks and lenses that are important to consider in the analyses of legal cases involving gender-based violence.

INTERSECTIONALITY

Intersectionality, first popularized in North America by Kimberly Crenshaw in 1989, is a (feminist?) framework developed to understand the complex and interacting layers of inequities caused by oppressive factors acting together on multiple facets of identity (gender, race, physical ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality and socio-economic status, among others) 1 . A central tenet is that intersecting oppressions create unique effects that are often more complex and impactful than a simple overlap might suggest.

The Oxford Dictionary defines intersectionality as “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.” 2

An intersectional approach acknowledges that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and that we must evaluate these effects from the ground up – understand the fulsome identity and lived experience of individuals in order to create inclusive policy, legislation and institutional systems.

For additional reading, please see the Feminist Intersectionality Primer from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIFAW)

“Intersectionality: What it means, how to use it, and why to care in 2020” Toronto.com
“Intersectionality” Oxford English Dictionary

Gender-Based Analysis Approach

Gender-Based Analysis is an analytical tool that we have used within our process that structurally integrates a gender perspective into the development of policies, programs, services and legislation. It helps to assess differential impact and to identify the complex social barriers all genders experience. A gender-based analysis makes possible research to be undertaken and services delivered with an appreciation of gender differences while promoting agency and self-determination. 1,2

Gender-based analysis is not a mechanism that is added to other analysis dimensions. Rather, gender-based analysis is a perspective that considers the differences between the reality of women and men, and of groups of women and men, throughout an initiative, whether it be a policy, a program, a service or a draft consultation or negotiations. 3

“What is gender-based violence?” OCTEVAW.
“ What is GBA+? ” Women and Gender Equity Canada, Government of Canada
“Working Guide on Gender-Based Analysis” Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

Anti-Oppression framework

“Being oppressed means the absence of choices.” – bell hooks, from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984)

Oppression is defined as “the systematic mistreatment of a people or group based on a belief in the innate superiority of one group or idea over another.” 1 Anti-oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and attempts to mitigate its effects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our communities. 2

Anti-oppression challenges the systemic biases that devalue and marginalize difference. It is a framework of strategies, theories and actions built on the premise that privilege and oppression exist within society, resulting in unequal access to power; this unequal access to power results in privileged groups gaining greater access to information, resources and opportunities whereas those groups that are oppressed experience the opposite. 1

This framework is important because oppression operates at different levels (from individual, to institutional, to cultural) and allows for better understanding the diverse range of lived experiences of women and children. Different forms of oppression are interconnected, such as: sexism, racism, ableism, heterosexism, classism, and ageism. Sexist experiences will differ depending on women’s experiences with other forms of oppression and privilege.

Rupra, A. (2010). “Understanding and Using a Feminist Anti-Oppression Framework.” OAITH.
Beatley Library Anti-Oppression Guide.
Chu, J. (2012). “ All Oppression is Connected .”

Anti-Racism Framework & Practice

“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.” – Angela Davis: activist, researcher, professor, author

Anti-racism is the practice of opposing and dismantling social, cultural and structural instances of racism and a commitment to actively eliminating and identifying racism that exists within social structures and society. 1 In anti-racism work, we examine the power imbalances between racialized and non-racialized peoples.

Racism affects the lived experiences of racialized peoples and Indigenous peoples. There are unearned privileges that white and white-passing people benefit from, which racialized peoples do not. Anti-racism, as part of anti-oppression, is a strong and compassionate term that acknowledges the need to actively learn, listen, and create community collaboratively, in order to refuse perpetuating racism in structural and personal ways.

Anti-racism is an active way of seeing and being in the world in order to transform it. Because racism occurs at all levels and spheres of society, anti-racism frameworks, and approaches are necessary to apply to all aspects of society. Education and activism is necessary in all aspects of society. 2

REFERENCES:

The MSW@USC, the online Master of Social Work program at the University of Southern California. “ How to be Anti-Racist ”
“ Anti-Racism Defined .” (2020). Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre.
“ Implicit Bias and Structural Racialization .” By Kathleen Osta & Hugh Vasquez, National Equity Project.

Trauma and Violence-informed Approach

Trauma-informed care understands and considers the pervasive nature of trauma and centres healing and recovery; it is an approach that recognizes and accommodates the vulnerabilities of people with experiences of trauma in order to avoid re-traumatization. Violence- and trauma- informed approaches integrates an understanding of violence and trauma into all levels of care, focuses on underlying safety concerns and avoids re-traumatization or minimizing an individual’s experiences. 1

Lived experiences of trauma and violence affect individuals in a variety of ways and can affect people of any gender, race, sex or socio-economic status. Survivors of gender-based violence deserve effective legal and social services that use trauma and violence informed approaches, in order to prevent being inflicted by further systemic harm.

Trauma-informed services recognize that the core of any service is genuine, authentic and compassionate relationships. Trauma and violence-informed approaches are not about ‘treating’ trauma – instead, the focus is to minimize the potential for harm and re-traumatization, and to enhance safety, control and resilience for all clients involved with systems or programs. 2

Goddard et al. “Making Connections: Supporting Women with Experiences of Violence, Substance Use and/or Mental Health Concerns” Woman Abuse Response Program, BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre (2013)
Government of Canada. (2018). Trauma and violence-informed approaches to policy and practice .
The 5 Principles of TIA

SELECTED Reconciliation Principles

“We call upon the federal government to review and amend the Criminal Code to eliminate definitions of offences that minimize the culpability of the offender.” (Section 5.2) 1 “We call upon the federal government to review and reform the law about sexualized violence and intimate partner violence, utilizing the perspectives of feminist and Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.” (Section 5.3) 1

In 2019, the final report on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by the National Inquiry was released. The report calls for transformative legal and social changes, in order to better protect Indigenous women and girls from various forms of harm and violence. 1

The Calls for Justice in all of Canada’s industries and institutions include having trauma-informed approaches and gendered-lens frameworks that take into account the impact of women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA individuals. We have also highlighted Sections 5.2 & 5.3 above, which call specific attention to reforming laws about sexualized violence and Criminal code around definitions that minimize offender culpability. Under these inquiry recommendations, the legal and social service sectors are responsible for ensuring that they are making necessary changes to structures and policies in the ways that are specified in the Final Report, so that they meet the unique needs of Indigenous women and girls.

For more information, see our page about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Truth and Reconciliation report.

Calls for Justice. Final Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls . (2019)

Poverty & Socio-Economic Inequalities

Poverty and socio-economic status play a clear role in survivors’ ability to access the justice system. Access to justice has traditionally referred to a range of institutional arrangements to assure that people who lack the resources or other capacities to protect their legal rights and to solve their law-related problems have access to the justice system. 1

It is important that access to justice is made affordable and that there is physical access to state and non-state justice institutions; additionally, the response must be survivor-centred and ensure the dignity and safety of the person seeking justice.

Access to justice for individuals is often assumed to reside in a criminal justice response to the perpetrator. However, survivors may identify other aspirations as their idea of justice for the harm they have experienced:

the ability to seek safety through effective protection orders
physical and mental recovery through good quality and accessible health services
the opportunity to seek a divorce and a new life free from the violence of a spouse

Often these forms of justice must be in place before someone subjected to violence feels able to embark on the process of seeking justice through the criminal law. 2,3

Albert Currie, “ Riding the Third Wave: Rethinking Criminal Legal Aid within an Access to Justice Framework ”. Department of Justice Canada
Women’s Access to Justice for Gender-Based Violence: a practioner’s guide .
United Nations Virtual Knowledge Centre. “ Access to Justice ” (2013)

Sign up for our Newsletter

Subversive Social Work

The First Institutional Social Work Agency

We work alongside individuals, organizations, and institutions to shift oppressive norms across various domains of power.

Institutional Social Work is a multifaceted practice model that functions under the notion that oppression operates structurally, disciplinary, and interpersonally to support the status quo, and the status quo supports those levels of oppression. As such, we, as institutional social workers, provide direct service and work toward structural transformation. To achieve our goals, we support grassroots community organizations while situated in a community gathering space. Mobilizing in and alongside the community allows us to be guided by the people we serve rather than the people who fund us and provides a unique perspective on social services rooted in lived experiences. We provide vendor-free joyous events for people who have only been allowed to focus on survival. We provide free diapers, stock a community freezer, economic development opportunities, tutoring, educational assistance, individualized educational plan (IEP) support, and mutual aid. Ad we do so while embracing our full selves, preferring authenticity and functionality over white normative ideals around professionalism. What we do may "look wrong" because "right" impedes our ability to be effective.

293212684_610818634017568_117261356059217878_n_edited.jpg

Why Subversive ?

We recognize that d ominant norms, values, and perceptions result in oppressive conditions, so we work to subvert oppression to facilitate holistic wellness, rest, joy, and autonomy.

We reject the traditional means of social work that have participated in harmful activities that align with toxic social zeitgeists for the past 100 years. While the field of social work has apologized for its participation or sanctioning of events such as Indian Boarding Svchools and the Tuskeegee Experiments; the field has done little toward a mainstream anti-oppressive approach. Rather than wait for the field, Subversive Social Work defects from traditions that result in disparities, and places efficacy at the forefront.

We leverage our credentials to train organizations how to identify and diffuse their points of oppression while being our authentic selves. We then use those funds to divert towards moving the mission forward

We offer Anti-Oppressive Organizational Development DEI Consultations, Evaluations, Data-Driven Program Design, Community Services, decolonial curriculum development, and Training to groups and individuals training. Perfect for schools, social services, and social entrepreneurs.

Tools for Researchers

Throughout my graduate career, I have learned that social work education for researchers fails to adequately educate Black Women for antiracist decolonized research. There was a secret language being spoken (Academese) and this world was devoid of emotion. The citations located in this section helped me find my place, maybe they'll help you. Stay tuned for article summaries.

#AbolishsocialWORK

Social Work has problems that cannot be solved. First, the field has a racist history of subjugating Black people. In the modern sense, social work serves as a social police force that incessantly snd nefariously shapes the lives of Black Women and Children. The field is also a major contributor to the Prison, Nonprofit, and Medical Industrial Complexes. Because of rotten roots, social control, and state collusion, we must abolish Social Work as a profession and return it to the people.

Tools for Students

If you are a student of Sakara, then you are in the right place. In this section, you will find all that you need to be succesful this semester. This includes: a) my schedule and an appointment link, b) information about writing expectations, and c) tools for taking notes and exams. Please use what benefits you.

Making the world a better place together. Eradicate oppressive norms, rules, and values.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Donations?

Enter email below..

Thanks for submitting!

Continuum on Becoming a Transformative Anti-Oppression Organization

Adapted by AORTA from Crossroads Ministries “Continuum on Becoming an Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization”

This resource is best accessed by downloading the PDF (above), but text is posted below for screen-reader accessibility.

Exclusionary Institution

Intentionally and publicly excludes or segregates people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, poor and working class people, and/or disabled people.

Intentionally and publicly enforces oppressive belief systems throughout institution.

Institutionalization of oppression includes formal policies and practices, teachings, and decision making on all levels.

Openly maintains the dominant group’s power and privilege (white people, men, straight people, cisgender people, rich and middle class people, able bodied people).

Tokenizing Institution

Tolerant of a limited number of “token” people from oppressed social groups so long as they have “proper” perspective and credentials.

May still secretly limit or exclude oppressed people in contradiction to public policies.

Often declares, “We don’t have a problem” as a way to silence critiques of oppressive dynamics.

Continues to intentionally maintain dominant group’s power and privilege through its formal policies and practices, teachings, and decision making on all levels of institutional life.

Monocultural norms, policies and procedures of dominant culture viewed as the “right” way.

Engages issues of diversity and social justice only on club member’s terms and within their comfort zone.

Compliance Institution

Makes official policy pronouncements regarding commitments to “diversity.”

Sees itself as “non- oppressive” institution with open doors to all people.

Sponsors “diversity trainings.”

Carries out intentional inclusiveness efforts, recruiting “someone of color,” “a LGBTQ person,” “a disabled person,” etc. on committees or office staff, but not those who “make waves.”

Little or no change in culture, policies, and decision making.

Is still relatively unaware of continuing patterns of privilege, paternalism and control.

Affirming Institution

Develops an analysis of systemic oppression.

Sponsors anti-oppression trainings and ongoing study on a range of topics.

New analysis of institutionalized power, privilege, and oppression.

Develops intentional identity as an “anti- oppressive” institution.

Begins integrating anti-oppression politics into organizational policies and governance documents.

Actively recruits and promotes members of groups have been historically denied access and opportunity to certain some sectors of the organization.

Begins to develop accountable relationships to oppressed communities.

Institutional structures and culture that maintain power and privilege critiqued but still intact and relatively untouched.

Transforming Institution

Commits to process of intentional institutional restructuring, based upon anti-oppression analysis and identity.

Audits and restructures all aspects of institutional life to ensure full participation of people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, poor and working class people, LGBTQ people, women, and disabled people including their worldview and cultures.

People more impacted by systemic oppression are involved in determining organizational structures and practices.

Actively recruits, promotes, and retains members of oppressed groups to all areas of the organization.

Commits to struggle to dismantle oppression in the wider community, and builds clear lines of accountability to oppressed communities.

Implements structures, policies and practices with transparent decision making and power sharing on all levels of the institution.

Transformative Institution

Future vision of an institution and wider community that has overcome systemic oppression.

Institution’s life reflects full participation and shared power with diverse racial, gender, and economic groups.

Members across all identity groups work in horizontal relationships to determine the organization’s mission, structure, constituency, policies and practices.

Actively works in solidarity in larger communities (regional, national, global) to eliminate all forms of oppression.

Members across all identity groups are full participants in decisions that shape the institution.

A sense of restored community and mutual caring.

Anti-Critical-Race-Theory Laws Are Slowing Down. Here Are 3 Things to Know

Is it the beginning of the end of “anti-critical race theory” legislation?

Starting in 2021, state lawmakers introduced a wave of such proposals, many modeled off a 2020 executive order signed by then-President Trump forbidding federal employees from receiving training on a number of “divisive concepts,” including the idea that any race was inherently superior to another, or that individuals should bear guilt for things that happened in the past. Some of these bills explicitly name-checked critical race theory—an academic framework for analyzing structural racism in law and policy.

Education Week recently updated its ongoing tracker of these laws , and concluded the pace of newly introduced legislation has slowed. The organization has counted just 10 bills that would affect K-12 education so far in 2024, of which two have passed.

Analysts from the National Conference of State Legislatures who track trends in state-level proposals said their data generally matched EdWeek’s, and that momentum on this topic seems to have flagged.

But other issues around what schools can teach or discuss have replaced the interest in “divisive concepts” and critical race theory, including “parents’ rights” bills allowing parents to withdraw their children from lessons they object to; bills that specifically take aim at gender identity or students’ use of pronouns; and bills that aim to restrict library materials and other curriculum content. (EdWeek’s bill tracker does not look at those topics.)

Some analysts see the slowdown on critical race theory legislation as a sign of fatigue with this element of the ongoing battle over who should shape curriculum.

“There’s only 50 states and only a subset that are sort of safe Republican ones where politicians can vote for these without worrying about being held politically accountable, so it can’t keep going forever,” noted Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “You can only signal-call so long, so it’s not that surprising that once people have done their pass and proven themselves to the true believers in their largely solid, gerrymandered, state-legislated districts, things would run out of steam in some way.”

It’s also possible, he said, that the wave of headlines about book restrictions and attacks on librarians have brought some of these issues home locally in ways that have made some constituents uncomfortable.

Here are three things to know about where states stand on these anti-critical race theory laws.

1. Action seems concentrated in a handful of states

So far, no state that had not already considered such a proposal in prior years has seen a lawmaker introduce one in the 2024 legislative cycle. Overall, 44 states have considered legislation or regulations to curb how issues of race and gender can be taught since 2021, and 18 of them have enacted policy.

Most of the 2024 legislation has been introduced in states where previous proposals have failed to pass. Missouri lawmakers, for example, have introduced four bills this year that would variously prohibit the teaching of certain “divisive concepts” related to gender and race, prohibit the teaching of The New York Times’ 1619 Project—an exploration of slavery’s role in shaping American policy—and prohibit teachers from requiring students to create projects that compel students to lobby or engage in activism on specific policies or social issues, among other things. The state had some 20 bills on these same topics in 2023, none of which passed.

Two new laws have passed so far in 2024, in Alabama and Utah—expanding restrictions those states already had on the books (see No. 3, below).

2. Already-passed laws are here to stay—for now

The 2024 session also brought an early test of these laws’ durability.

In New Hampshire, Democrats attempted to strike statutory language added as part of a 2021 budget law that forbids teachers from teaching about gender and race in specific ways. But on March 14, lawmakers voted 192-183, largely along party lines, to indefinitely postpone the bill, effectively killing it.

Attempts to undo the laws could come through the courts. Lawsuits from various combinations of parents, teachers, students, teachers’ unions, and civil rights organizations have been filed in at least six states— Arizona , Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma , New Hampshire, and Tennessee. The lawsuits generally allege that the laws are impermissibly vague and violate students’ and teachers’ rights to free speech or due process.

The latest lawsuit, filed just this week by two students and their teacher in Little Rock, Ark., takes aim at that state’s executive order and legislation that forbid “teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies,” including critical race theory. State officials had cited those rules when determining that the newly developed AP African American Studies course would not count for credit .

3. A few new laws suggest a pivot toward targeting DEI programs

Two newer laws signed this year suggest that diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, programs could be the latest target.

These anti-DEI laws gained traction after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year that bans affirmative action in college admissions, and appear to be aimed mainly at higher education institutions. But several would also prohibit DEI efforts in K-12 schools and districts.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law that prohibits public universities and schools from sponsoring any diversity, equity, and inclusion program or maintaining a DEI office, or from requiring students or faculty to attend training or affirm the “divisive concepts” the state already had forbidden from teaching.

Similarly, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in January signed a law aimed mainly at public colleges and universities but also covers other state institutions, including public schools. It prohibits districts from training staff or students on “discriminatory practices,” including any that rely on personal identity characteristics as a marker of moral character, promote resentment, or assert that an individual is inherently privileged or oppressed, among other things. And it prohibits districts from establishing an office, division, or employee who coordinates activities related to those practices.

Here, too, Henig sees the possibility of overreach.

“People’s attitudes about Harvard and Columbia and Penn as these elite, distanced institutions are different if it starts playing out at Michigan State and your local community college,” he said. “I think there’s some of that same friction when it comes closer to home.”

Sign Up for EdWeek Update

Edweek top school jobs.

Ahenewa El-Amin leads a conversation with students during her AP African American Studies class at Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Ky., on March 19, 2024.

Sign Up & Sign In

Trump Wants to Strengthen Anti-Racism Protections … for White People

I f Donald Trump is elected to a second term in November, his allies plan to end this country’s long-standing oppression of a major marginalized group in America: white people.

Trump’s supporters inside and outside his campaign are making plans to use civil rights laws to counter what they perceive as “anti-white racism,” Axios reported Monday. These include programs that seek to combat racism within the government and corporate America, such as those that provide economic opportunities to marginalized and minority groups. Some of these programs began after the pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020, while others go back decades.

”As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, told Axios.

At the center of this push is former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Since leaving the White House, Miller co-founded America First Legal as a conservative “long-awaited answer to the ACLU.” The group has spent its time filing legal actions ranging from a civil rights complaint over the NFL’s mandatory policy of having teams interview minority candidates for head coaching positions to another complaint that Kellogg’s allegedly sexualized and politicized Pop-Tarts in a marketing campaign.

If elected, one can only suspect that Miller and his allies would have the full force of the federal government to pursue their racist agenda. And Trump voters would likely welcome this, considering 58 percent of them believe that people of color have advantages over white people, according to a CBS News poll from 2023.

And it’s not just Miller: There are a host of right-wing legal minds preparing for day one of a new Trump administration so they can execute a wish list of horrors. The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, already has published Project 2025 , a long playbook that includes not only dismantling anti-racism efforts but also taking aim at reproductive and LGBTQ rights. There’s no telling what more damage Trump could do with a Cabinet full of America’s top racist and fascist minds.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

Advanced Search
Journal List
Behav Anal Pract
v.15(4); 2022 Dec

Anti-Oppressive Restorative Justice: Behavior Analysis in Alternatives to Policing

Worner leland.

Upswing Advocates, Chicago, IL USA

August Stockwell

The history of American policing, behavior criminalization, and carceral justice is rooted in racist practice dating back to the 1700s. In addition to racially disproportionate punishment doled out by these systems, they are not designed to support behavioral punishment of harm or reinforcement of prosocial behavior for socially significant change. One alternative to this retributive carceral justice system is restorative justice. This article offers a conceptually systematic examination of restorative justice for behavior change, an examination of the functional utility of various restorative approaches, alignment of restorative justice with behavior analytic ethics, and suggestions for incorporating anti-oppressive practices.

Introduction

Since the 1700s, American policing has historical roots in maintenance of order as it pertains to property and capital interests. In addition, its roots lie in the formal slave patrol, which existed to capture, return, and punish enslaved people, who were viewed as property, and to deter revolts of enslaved people via organized terror (Reichel, 1992 ; Walker, 1998 ). Racism can be seen in modern American policing, which disproportionately targets Black, Indigenous, and Latine people, whether it be through use of stop-and-frisk (Pierson et al., 2020 ), marijuana-related arrests (American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], 2020 ), many misdemeanor arrests (Stevenson & Mayson, 2018 ), nonlethal force used by police (Fryer, 2016 ), or lethal force used by police (Edwards et al., 2020 ). 1 In addition to the harms of lethal and nonlethal force and of systemic racism in policing, racism and colorism can also be seen in the judicial system and the use of the carceral system as a means of managing criminalized behavior (Enns et al., 2019 ; Horowitz & Utada, 2018 ; Hochschild & Weaver, 2007 ; Monk, 2019 ; U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2017 ). In addition to disparate harms of systemic racism in the carceral system, the probability for physical, mental, and social harms of prison exist for all, irrespective of race.

The carceral system is a system based on retributive justice and is not a system with the capacity to enact socially significant behavior change for those it deems criminal. In a retributive carceral justice approach, “crime” is defined as engagement in a behavior or behaviors which are in violation of preestablished rules of the state, which leave little consideration for harm, or lack thereof, caused by behavior. Through this system the focus of justice lies in deciding whether a rule has been broken and determining who has broken the rule. In this system, aversive control and social isolation are utilized to attempt to deter criminal behavior and prevent future instances of behavior (Zehr, 1985 ).

In addition, the criminalization of behavior is malleable, and whether or not a behavior is criminalized can shift over time (Duff et al., 2010 ). Thus, some less harmful behaviors have the potential to be criminalized whereas more harmful behaviors may not be. This is not to indicate that currently criminalized behaviors are free from harm, but to note that harm is not directly tied to the criminalization of a behavior (Albonetti & Hepburn, 1996 ; Millie, 2011 ). In addition, factors such as racism in the criminal carceral justice system may affect the punitive measure (typically sentence time or monetary fine amount) prescribed when one is convicted, so that a Black juvenile female may spend nearly 3 months in detention for failure to turn in homework and attend school while on probation for prior assault and theft charges (Cohen, 2020 ), whereas a white adult male may spend 3 months in jail after being convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault (Grinberg & Shoichet, 2016 ).

The Functions of Using Restorative Justice Practices

One alternative to policing and carceral justice is restorative justice. There are many definitions of restorative justice, and different practitioners across a variety of processes and professions utilize the term “restorative” as a part of emerging methodologies. One definition of restorative justice is that of a justice mechanism with a specified process in which all affected parties of an offence participate collectively in resolution and is centered on values of repair of harm and repair of community after a harm has been enacted (Daly, 2015 ). It has been noted that direct restoration of a relationship may not be feasible or desired after an offence, and as such alternative terms such as “transformative justice” and “innovative justice” are emerging as well to better describe these practices (Daly, 2015 ; Johnstone & Van Ness, 2007 ).

When comparing a retributive justice approach like our current carceral system to a restorative approach, there are clear delineations in approach that can be examined through a conceptually systematic behavioral lens. Unlike in a retributive justice approach, in a restorative justice approach, “crime” is defined as a behavior resulting in interpersonal harm or violation, and the focus of justice is on communal problem solving and identification of needs and obligations for repairing that harm. In this system, an offence is addressed through a lens of functional contextualism that considers the moral, social, economic, and political factors contributing to the behavior causing harm. In a restorative justice system, social supports and skill building are utilized to attempt to deter criminal behavior, and acknowledgement of harm, amends and reparations, community support, and focus on the behavior’s harmful consequences are utilized to attempt to decrease future engagement in that harmful behavior (Zehr, 1985 ).

Principles of modern restorative justice include centering the victim of offences, offenders accepting responsibility for the offence, opportunities for dialogue for perspective taking, repairing harms through amends or reparations, decrease of future harm through skill building and access to resources, and community reintegration of both victims and offenders (Liebmann, 2007 ). In addition, although the terms “victims” and “offenders” are frequently utilized in the restorative justice literature, these are mentalistic labels that assign a role instead of focusing on a behavior, and which also serve to ignore both interlocking contingencies of harm as well as structural and systemic harms of oppression. As such, restorative justice language is shifting in some spaces from the terms “victim” and “offender” to “those who have been harmed” and “those who have enacted harm” in a given context. It acknowledges that these roles are context-dependent and have the potential to change across situations and time, such that an individual in a given context may be harmed, and in another context be the one causing harm (Gavrielides, 2017 ).

Restorative Justice Approaches

There are many different approaches to restorative justice that may be taken, and each serves a slightly different function. These approaches include, but are not limited to, victim offender mediation, sentencing circles and healing circles, conferencing, and community panels or peer juries (Strong & Van Ness, 2015 ). Victim offender mediation is typically utilized when there is a person who has been harmed, and a person who has caused that harm. In this mediation, an impartial third party helps to facilitate the restorative process, and this mediation may happen directly with all parties meeting in person, or indirectly with the mediator acting as a go between, based on the preference of the person who was harmed (Reno et al., 2002 ). Circles may be used when there is a person who has been harmed, and a person who has caused that harm, and when these parties need ongoing communal support. Healing circles may be created for those who have been harmed, whereas separate healing circles may be created for those who have enacted harm, recognizing that trauma or learning histories of harm may affect one’s enactment of harm on others. Separate sentencing circles are utilized for other decision-making and follow-through components of the restorative process, such as the person who caused harm accepting responsibility and making amends (Strong & Van Ness, 2015 ).

Conferencing (a type of circle that involves both the person who was harmed and the person who enacted harm, as well as the community) may be utilized if that harm may be directly or indirectly felt by a larger community. In conferencing the entire community comes together to work through the restorative process with the aid of a facilitator, and often components of community integration may take place immediately following the conferencing event (Strong & Van Ness, 2015 ; Stuart & Pranis, 2006 ). Community panels or peer juries may be utilized, especially in instances where there is not a clear victim of the harm that was caused, or if the harm indirectly affected the community at large instead of an individual. Community panels and peer juries provide a restorative process that gives agency to the community to identify the harms caused and the need for the reparation of harm, and provides the person who enacted harm with a space to take responsibility and make amends (González et al., 2018 ; Strong & Van Ness, 2015 ).

Restorative Justice and Behavior Analytic Ethics

Just as behavior analysts recommend the least restrictive procedures for client behavior change and avoiding reinforcement, which requires excessive motivating operations for successful change (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 4.09, 4.10), so are behavior analysts capable of examining the restrictiveness of a carceral setting, and imagining alternatives rooted in humanity and efficacy. Many principles of restorative justice are in alignment with ethical behavior practice, and behavior analysis may be a valuable support for some components of a restorative process. Much like in ethical behavior analytic practice (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 2.02), restorative justice establishes a hierarchy of parties to which it is responsible. Those who have been harmed may feel entirely left out of, or even abused by, the processes of the carceral justice system (Zehr, 2015 ). However, in restorative justice, the primary beneficiary of any component of the process is the person who was harmed, or in some instances the community that was harmed.

Much like in ethical behavior analytic practice, which is individualized and centers the client by involving them directly in program planning and consent (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 4.02, 4.03), in restorative justice the needs of the person harmed (including information and truth-telling, empowerment, and restitution) are centered and drive the justice process (Zehr, 2015 ). Behavioral technologies, such as goal setting and task analysis creation, may be meaningful to those who have been harmed in selecting specific, measurable, and achievable asks of restoration and future harm prevention of those who caused harm. Contingency management and behavioral support for those who enacted harm in completing the asks made of them by a person harmed may also assist in meeting the needs of those who have been harmed.

After the person or people harmed, the next most affected beneficiary of a restorative justice process is the person who enacted harm. Much like behavior analysts utilize reinforcement instead of punishment whenever it is possible to do so, and include reinforcement for alternative behaviors when punishment of a harmful behavior is necessitated (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 4.08a, b), restorative processes focus on the use of or development of perspective taking and empathy building to meet the needs of those who enact harm. These needs include accountability, which addresses harm and responsibility by transforming shame into committed action, and providing support for the personal healing of past harms and self-destructive behavior, support to build one’s own competencies and prevent future harm, support for community integration, and the potential of a space that acts as a temporary support of restraint from continuing to enact harm (Zehr, 2015 ).

All operant behavior, including harmful behavior, serves some type of function and may be maintained by more than one function in a given context. Much like behavior analysts support clients by first conducting assessments (including a functional assessment if there is a goal of behavior reduction) and collecting and displaying data to inform decision making (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 3.01), behavior analysis has the potential to make a meaningful contribution to components of support for a person who enacts harm by using needs assessments and functional behavior assessments to inform material supports and behavior change plans for those working to reduce their own harmful behavior. As behavior analysts note the environmental supports needed to support behavior change and advocate for the removal of environmental constraints for a client (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 4.06, 4.07b), so too would this environmental assessment and advocacy benefit a person who enacted harm and is attempting to reduce their own harmful behavior. Behavior analysts would also likely be equipped to assist in the design of research on the impact of the provision of core environmental supports (including, but not limited to, clean water, food, housing, clothing, health care, mental health care, community, meaningful work or ways to contribute, and other social supports and forms of environmental enrichment) on the future rates of harmful behavior at both the ontogenetic and cultural levels. And just as behavior analysts may support clients in building conceptually consistent functional replacement behavior (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 4.01) via targeted support with clearly defined measurable goals that, when met, signal the discontinuation of services (Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), 2019 , 4.11), so may behavior analysts assist in creating skill building support for functionally related and ancillary behaviors that meet goals identified by the person who was harmed as well as assessment-identified needs for the person who enacted harm.

It is important to note, however, that all the suggestions detailed above do not account for the totality of a restorative process. They are merely one facet of support that may be meaningful in a restorative justice path. In addition to these supports, community support and healing for those who have been harmed is a crucial component of the restorative process that, although probably not in the scope of most behavior analysts, is still the foremost critical component of a restorative justice path.

Building Anti-Oppressive Restorative Justice Practices

Although restorative justice as a justice movement often focuses on operant interpersonal harm, it is important to acknowledge the impact of systemic cultural harm. Considering alternatives to policing requires the acknowledgement of American policing as a direct result of colonization and oppression of Indigenous peoples. When considering restorative practices, it must be recognized and addressed that many current modalities and processes utilize (and often systematize or commodify) sacred Indigenous practices, while simultaneously erasing historical origins and disinvolving Indigenous peoples’ implementation, consultation, or supervision of these modalities (Malik, 2018 ). Considerations for anti-oppression in restorative justice include the identification of which Indigenous peoples’ land the practice is taking place on, and the intentional centering and inclusion of those peoples in restorative practice building. This also includes accountability and restoration at all levels, and should address reparations for past disinvolvement, appropriation, and colonization at the systemic level (Malik, 2018 ) for both Indigenous peoples and enslaved peoples and their descendants.

Another consideration for anti-oppression in restorative justice involves a careful assessment of both the topography and function of the restorative process as it is being enacted, with careful consideration for whom it is being enacted by. Many processes are labeled as restorative, and the carceral justice system has begun to engage in the use of what it calls restorative justice practices. Although on the surface these practices may appear topographically similar to other restorative justice practices, functionally they are often different. Frequently these practices may solely be a precursor to, or a component of, imprisonment, serving to make the carceral justice more palatable to the general populace while failing to address the harms of the carceral system which remain (Agnihotri & Veach, 2017 ). To build an anti-oppressive system of restorative justice requires disinvestment from the current carceral system.

Finally, anti-oppression in restorative justice requires a conceptually systematic understanding of cultural contingencies, and the potential for recreation of or reenactment of harm in new endeavors. As many calls for police abolition and prison abolition involve suggestions for the reallocation of crisis response to the helping profession fields, it is critical that we consider the ways in which racism is also present in these spaces and how racist power hierarches can perpetuate harm from helping professionals toward the people they serve (Bussey, 2019 ; Ford, 2019 ; Miller & Garran, 2017 ; Sylvestre et al., 2019 ). To endeavor to build restorative justice systems and social support systems which do not further perpetuate oppression requires vigilant anti-racism. They also require practitioners to operate from a place of humility, to graciously accept feedback when cultural, colonial, or oppression-based harms occur, and to swiftly shift behavior. To commit to restorative justice practices and the reduction of harm is to commit to accountability and restoration at all levels (Malik, 2018 ).

Declarations

We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. No research involving human participants and/or animals was conducted for this article. As such, no informed consent was needed or utilized for this article.

1 It is of note that Latine/Latinx people of all races may be misrepresented in the data, with Afro-Latinx people often coded as Black and non-Black Latinx people coded as white. As noted by the ACLU ( 2020 ), “This miscoding likely leads to an underestimation of the true rate of racial disparities experienced by people of color at the hands of police. Arrests of Latinx individuals coded as white in the data likely artificially inflate the number of white arrests, leading to an underestimation of the disparity between Black and white arrest rates.” In addition, although not directly captured in these data, the ACLU notes that “in addition to Black and Latinx groups, racial bias in policing and drug enforcement may negatively affect other racial or ethnic groups, such as Native and Indigenous populations, Arab and Middle Eastern populations, Asian populations, Pacific Islander populations, and those with multiple racial/ethnic identities (e.g., biracial), among others. The UCR (2020) data classifies individuals’ race as “Black,” “white,” “Asian,” “American Indian or Alaska Native,” “Native Hawaiian,” or “unknown . ”

This article is being published on an expedited basis, as part of a series of emergency publications designed to help practitioners of applied behavior analysis take immediate action to address police brutality and systemic racism. The journal would like to especially thank Robin Williams for their review of this article. The views and strategies suggested by the articles in this series do not represent the positions of the Association for Behavior Analysis, International or Springer Nature.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Agnihotri S, Veach C. Reclaiming restorative justice: An alternate paradigm for justice . CUNY Law Review. 2017; 20 :323. [ Google Scholar ]
Albonetti CA, Hepburn JR. Prosecutorial discretion to defer criminalization: The effects of defendant's ascribed and achieved status characteristics. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 1996; 12 :63–81. doi: 10.1007/BF02354471. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (2020). A tale of two countries: Racially targeted arrests in the era of marijuana reform. Author.
Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). (2019). Professional and ethical compliance code for behavior analysts . https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/BACB-Compliance-Code-english_190318.pdf (Original work published 2014)
Bussey, S. R. (2019). Imperialism through virtuous helping: Baldwin’s Innocence and implications for clinical social work practice. Journal of Progressive Human Services . 10.1080/10428232.2019.1617016.
Cohen, J. S. (2020). Grace, black teen jailed for not doing her online coursework, is released. ProPublica . https://www.propublica.org/article/grace-black-teen-jailed-for-not-doing-her-online-coursework-is-released
Daly K. What is restorative justice? Fresh answers to a vexed question. Victims & Offenders. 2015; 11 (1):1–21. doi: 10.1080/15564886.2015.1107797. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Duff RA, Farmer L, Marshall SE. The boundaries of the criminal law . Oxford University Press; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
Edwards, F., Lee, H., & Esposito, M. (2020). Risk of being killed by police use-of-force in the U.S. by age, race/ethnicity, and sex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821204116 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
Enns PK, Youngmin Y, Comfort M, Goldman AW, Lee H, Muller C, Wakefield S, Wang EA, Wildeman C. What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World Volume. 2019; 5 :1–45. doi: 10.1177/2378023119829332. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Ford, J. S. (2019). S ystemic medical racism: The reconstruction of whiteness through the destruction of Black bodies . [Master’s thesis] Georgia Southern University. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses/403
Fryer, R. G. (2016). An empirical analysis of racial differences in police use of force. Harvard University & National Bureau of Economic Research . 10.1086/ 10.1086/701423
Gavrielides T. Collapsing the labels “victim” and “offender” in the Victims’ Directive and the paradox of restorative justice. Restorative Justice. 2017; 5 (3):368–381. doi: 10.1080/20504721.2017.1390998. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
González T, Sattler H, Buth A. New directions in whole-school restorative justice implementation. Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2018; 36 (3):207–220. doi: 10.1002/crq.21236. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Grinberg, E., & Shoichet, C. E. (2016). Brock Turner released from jail after serving 3 months for sexual assault. CNN . https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/us/brock-turner-release-jail/index.html
Hochschild JL, Weaver V. The skin color paradox and the American racial order. Social Forces. 2007; 86 (2):643–670. doi: 10.1093/sf/86.2.643. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Horowitz, J., & Utada, C. (2018). Community supervision marked by racial and gender disparities African-Americans, men overrepresented in probation and parole population . Pew Charitable Trusts. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-andanalysis/articles/2018/12/06/community-supervision-marked-by-racial-and-gender-disparities
Johnstone G, Van Ness D. Handbook of restorative justice . Willan Publishing; 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
Liebmann M. Restorative justice: How it works . Jessica Kingsley; 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
Malik, A. (2018). Restoration and relationship in the public school system. Rubenstein School Leadership for Sustainability Project Publications. 9. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/rslspp/9
Miller JL, Garran AM. Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping professions (2nd ed.) Springer; 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
Millie A. Value judgments and criminalization. British Journal of Criminology. 2011; 51 :278–295. doi: 10.1093/bjc/azr009. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Monk EP. The color of punishment: African Americans, skin tone, and the criminal justice system. Ethnic & Racial Studies. 2019; 42 (10):1593–1612. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2018.1508736. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Pierson, E., Simoiu, C., Overgoor, J., Corbett-Davies, S., Jenson, D., Shoemaker, A., Ramachandran, V., Barghouty, P., Phillips, C., Shroff, R., & Goel, S. (2020). A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States. Nature Human Behaviour, 4. 736–745. [ PubMed ]
Pierson, E., Simoiu, C., Overgoor, J., Corbett-Davies, S., Jenson, D., Shoemaker, A., ... & Goel, S. (2020). A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States. Nature human Behaviour , 1–10. [ PubMed ]
Reichel PL. The misplaced emphasis on urbanization in police development. Policing & Society. 1992; 3 :1–12. doi: 10.1080/10439463.1992.9964653. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Reno, J., Marcus, D., Leary, M. L., & Turman, K. M. (2002). Guidelines for victim-sensitive victim-offender mediation: Restorative justice through dialogue.
Umbreit, M. S., & Greenwood, J. (2000, April). Guidelines for victim-sensitive victim-offender mediation: Restorative justice through dialogue. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime. https://www.ncjrs.gov/ovc_archives/reports/96517-gdlines_victims-sens/welcome.html
Stevenson M, Mayson S. The scale of misdemeanor justice. BUL Rev. 2018; 98 :731. [ Google Scholar ]
Strong KH, Van Ness DW. Restoring justice: An introduction to restorative justice. (5th ed.) Routledge; 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
Stuart B, Pranis K. Peacemaking circles. In: Sullivan D, Tifft L, editors. Handbook of restorative justice: A global perspective (pp.121–133) Routledge; 2006. [ Google Scholar ]
Sylvestre P, Castleden H, Denis J, Martin D, Bombay A. The tools at their fingertips: How settler colonial geographies shape medical educators’ strategies for grappling with Anti-Indigenous racism. Social Science & Medicine. 2019; 237 :112363. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112363. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
United States Sentencing Commission. (2018). Demographic differences in sentencing: An update to the 2012 Booker report. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 30(3), 212-229.
Walker S. Popular justice: A history of American criminal justice (2nd ed.) Oxford University Press; 1998. [ Google Scholar ]
Zehr H. Changing lenses: A new focus for crime and justice . Herald Press; 1985. [ Google Scholar ]
Zehr H. The little book of restorative justice . Good Books; 2015. [ Google Scholar ]

Election 2024
Entertainment
Newsletters
Photography
Personal Finance
AP Investigations
AP Buyline Personal Finance
Press Releases
Israel-Hamas War
Russia-Ukraine War
Global elections
Asia Pacific
Latin America
Middle East
Election Results
Delegate Tracker
AP & Elections
March Madness
AP Top 25 Poll
Movie reviews
Book reviews
Personal finance
Financial Markets
Business Highlights
Financial wellness
Artificial Intelligence
Social Media

Why Trump’s alarmist message on immigration may be resonating beyond his base

Former President Donald Trump will continue to hammer the White House over its border policies during an event being held Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan (AP video: Mike Householder and Joey Cappelletti)

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio. Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric appears to be making inroads even among some Democrats, a worrying sign for President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)

Copy Link copied

Migrants wait to be processed by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol after they crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, Oct. 19, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The video shared by former President Donald Trump features horror movie music and footage of migrants purportedly entering the U.S. from countries including Cameroon, Afghanistan and China. Shots of men with tattoos and videos of violent crime are set against close-ups of people waving and wrapping themselves in American flags.

“They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.”

In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time, casting migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America. Hitting the nation’s deepest fault lines of race and national identity, his messaging often relies on falsehoods about migration . But it resonates with many of his core supporters going back a decade, to when “build the wall” chants began to ring out at his rallies.

FILE - Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary, arrives as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, July 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

President Joe Biden and his allies discuss the border very differently. The Democrat portrays the situation as a policy dispute that Congress can fix and hits Republicans in Washington for backing away from a border security deal after facing criticism from Trump.

But in a potentially worrying sign for Biden, Trump’s message appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March .

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem.

Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based racial justice activist, was among those who expressed frustration with Biden’s immigration policies and the city’s approach as it tries to shelter newly arriving migrants. She argued Democrats should be focusing on economic investment in Black communities, not newcomers.

“They’re sending us people who are starving, the same way Blacks are starving in this country. They’re sending us people who want to escape the conditions and come here for a better lifestyle when the ones here are suffering and have been suffering for over 100 years,” Boyce said. “That recipe is a mixture for disaster. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”

Migrants wait to be processed by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol after they crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, Oct. 19, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state . Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s tons and tons of people and they’re giving them medical and money, phones,” she said, complaining those who went through the legal immigration system are treated worse.

Priscilla Hesles, 55, a teacher who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, described the current situation as “almost an overtaking” that had changed the town.

“We don’t know where they’re hiding. We don’t know where they’ve infiltrated into and where are they going to come out of,” said Hesles, who said she used to take an evening walk to a local church, but stopped after she was shaken by an encounter with a group of men she alleged were migrants.

Immigration will almost certainly be one of the central issues in November’s election, with both sides spending the next six months trying to paint the other as wrong on border security.

The president’s reelection campaign recently launched a $30 million ad campaign targeting Latino audiences in key swing states that includes a digital ad in English and Spanish highlighting Trump’s past description of Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists.”

The White House has also mulled a series of executive actions that could drastically tighten immigration restrictions, effectively going around Congress after it failed to pass the bipartisan deal Biden endorsed.

“Trump is a fraud who is only out for himself,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz. “We will make sure voters know that this November.”

Trump will campaign Tuesday in Wisconsin and Michigan this week, where he is expected to again tear into Biden on immigration. His campaign said his event in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids will focus on what it alleged was “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

The former president calls recent record-high arrests for southwest border crossings an “invasion” orchestrated by Democrats to transform America’s very makeup. Trump accuses Biden of purposely allowing criminals and potential terrorists to enter the country unchecked, going so far as to claim the president is engaged in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”

He also casts migrants — many of them women and children escaping poverty and violence — as “ poisoning the blood ” of America with drugs and disease and claimed some are “not people.” Experts who study extremism warn against using dehumanizing language in describing migrants.

There is no evidence that foreign governments are emptying their jails or mental asylums as Trump says. And while conservative news coverage has been dominated by several high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally, the latest FBI statistics show overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year , continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

Studies have also found that people living in the country illegally are far less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes.

“Certainly the last several months have demonstrated a clear shift in political support,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the immigrant resettlement group Global Refuge and a former Obama administration and State Department official.

“I think that relates to the rhetoric of the past several years,” she said, “and just this dynamic of being outmatched by a loud, extreme of xenophobic rhetoric that hasn’t been countered with reality and the facts on the ground.”

Part of what has made the border such a salient issue is that its impact is being felt far from the border.

Trump allies, most notably Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have used state-funded buses to send more than 100,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities like New York, Denver and Chicago, where Democrats will hold this summer’s convention. While the program was initially dismissed as a publicity stunt, the influx has strained city budgets and left local leaders scrambling to provide emergency housing and medical care for new groups of migrants.

Local news coverage, meanwhile, has often been negative. Viewers have seen migrants blamed for everything from a string of gang-related New Jersey robberies to burglary rings targeting retail stores in suburban Philadelphia to measles cases in parts of Arizona and Illinois.

Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard to the border, placed concertina wire along parts of the Rio Grande in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court orders, and has argued his state should be able to enforce its own immigration laws.

Some far-right internet sites have begun pointing to Abbott’s actions as the first salvo in a coming civil war. And Russia has also helped spread and amplify misleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security as part of its broader efforts to polarize Americans. A recent analysis by the firm Logically, which tracks Russian disinformation, found online influencers and social media accounts linked to the Kremlin have seized on the idea of a new civil war and efforts by states like Texas to secede from the union.

Amy Cooter, who directs research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, worries the current wave of civil war talk will only increase as the election nears. So far, it has generally been limited to far-right message boards. But immigration is enough of a concern generally that its political potency is intensified, Cooter said.

“Non-extremist Americans are worried about this, too,” she said. “It’s about culture and perceptions about who is an American.”

In the meantime, there are people like Rudy Menchaca, an Eagle Pass bar owner who also works for a company that imports Corona beer from Mexico and blamed the problems at the border for hurting business.

Menchaca is the kind of Hispanic voter Biden is counting on to back his reelection bid. The 27-year-old said he was never a fan of Trump’s rhetoric and how he portrayed Hispanics and Mexicans. “We’re not all like that,” he said.

But he also said he was warming to the idea of backing the former president because of the reality on the ground.

“I need those soldiers to be around if I have my business,” Menchaca said of Texas forces dispatched to the border. “The bad ones that come in could break in.”

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers David Klepper in Washington and Matt Brown in Chicago contributed to this report.

Church archdeacon calls for ‘anti-whiteness’

Dr Miranda Threlfall-Homes also insisted she was ‘not anti-white’ but still faced accusations of ‘seeking to divide’ and ‘racism’

The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes insisted she was 'not anti-white'

A Church of England archdeacon has called for “anti-whiteness”, in comments which have been criticised as divisive.

The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, also called for people to “smash the patriarchy” but insisted her comments were “not anti-white, or anti-men”.

Her statement prompted an angry reaction, with one person asking if it would be “safe to attend church” if Dr Threlfall-Holmes “holds racial prejudice against white people”.

Just weeks ago, the church announced it would be hiring a “deconstructing whiteness” officer as part of a new 11-person “racial justice unit” being set up by the Diocese of Birmingham.

Senior clergy have also faced criticism for calling for the church’s £100 million slavery reparations fund to be increased to £1 billion.

Dr Threlfall-Holmes wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “I went to a conference on whiteness last autumn. It was very good, very interesting and made me realise: whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender.

“So yes, let’s have anti-whiteness, and let’s smash the patriarchy. That’s not anti-white, or anti-men, it’s anti-oppression.”

In response, users of X suggested that if the Cambridge-educated priest wanted “anti-whiteness” then she should “lead by example and resign”.

Some described her comments as “racist” and one asked: “Why do you seek to divide when your job description is literally to bring people together?”

Her words were criticised as “divisive” and “nonsensical” and one user said it would appear she had “given up Christianity to join a new and sinister cult”.

I went to a conference on whiteness last autumn. It was very good, very interesting and made me realise: whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender. So yes, let's have anti whiteness, & let's smash the patriarchy. That's not anti-white, or anti-men, it's anti-oppression. — Miranda Threlfall-Holmes (@MirandaTHolmes) March 21, 2024

Dr Threlfall-Holmes, who was appointed archdeacon last year, also holds a role advising church leaders on implanting safeguarding reforms.

Last October she revealed she was attending a conference on “waking up to and addressing whiteness in the Anglican church”.

The day-long “Racial Justice Conference” in Birmingham was organised by Reconciliation Initiatives, a charity working in partnership with Coventry Cathedral to help churches “contribute to reconciliation in wider society”.

The aims of the conference included: “To encourage white participants to take next steps in facing their own whiteness, and in addressing institutional racism within Anglican churches and provinces.”

The charity also runs a four-week “Being White” course aimed at clergy and lay members who “identify racially as white” to help them address “the ways we are caught up in a system of white superiority and white advantage in UK society”.

‘A way of viewing the world’

When asked about the apparent contradictions in her comments, Dr Threlfall-Holmes told The Telegraph: “I was contributing to a debate about world views, in which ‘whiteness’ does not refer to skin colour per se, but to a way of viewing the world where being white is seen as ‘normal’ and everything else is considered different or lesser.”

Dr Threlfall-Holmes, a historian, added: “I do however understand that this is not a definition that is widely shared as yet outside of academic circles, and regret that Twitter [X] was perhaps not the best place for a nuanced argument.”

She praised the comments of the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd Dr Michael Volland, who last week defended the decision of his diocese to oppose a “deconstructing whiteness” officer on the basis that the phrase can be “misleading” and “has nothing to do with knocking or demeaning people who have white skin”.

The use of such terminology has previously been criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury , who said it was similar to language used in the television sitcom W1A, which satirised BBC managerial jargon.

The Rev Dr Ian Paul, who is a member of the General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council, has warned that “importing” such language from the culture wars in the US risks “alienating ordinary members of the Church of England”.

Church of England,
West Midlands,
Culture wars,
Facebook Icon
WhatsApp Icon

IMAGES

Anti-Oppression Workshop Series for Public Health Practitioners
Anti-Oppression
Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression (ARAO)
Anti-Oppression
PPT
Engaging with the Anti-Oppression Anti-Racism(s) Framework

VIDEO

Faking Oppression
Anti Oppression Series: Somatics and Social Justice, Embodied Critical Consciousness as a Foundation
Anti Oppression for Everyone
Use Your Oppression
Anti-oppression in the Therapy Room
【霸下英雄Heroes Anti oppression】EP12 日軍包圍小鎮激怒隱藏功夫高手，雙方展開激烈鬥爭。主演：王千源

COMMENTS

PDF GROUNDING IN AN ANTI-OPPRESSION FRAMEWORK
LESSON 1: Introduction LESSON 2: Creating a shared understanding LESSON 3: Starting with ourselves LESSON 4: Anti-oppression work and supporting survivors. POINTS TO CONSIDER. As with each of the sections of this training guide, it is essential that trainer/s reflect on their advocacy program, community, and training cohort and adapt, revise ...
Anti-oppressive Social Work Practice Theory
Abstract. In this chapter on anti-oppressive theory and practice (AOP), we ask what knowledge, theory, ethics and skills (practices) are necessary in order for social work not to be complicit or active in the kinds of state-linked atrocities that have headlined in many nations in the recent past. We argue that critical and AOP theories provide ...
Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP)
Similarly this critical analysis must also be turned inward, to understand how social work discourse and language use in framing of problems can contribute to sustain oppressive power structures (e.g. "disturbed, "at risk") (Healy, 2014). 3. Empowering Service Users. ... Anti-oppressive practice embodies a person-centred philosophy, an ...
Principles of anti-oppression: A critical analytic synthesis
In this paper we discuss Principles of Anti-Oppression and offer a description and analysis of the ways in which these principles emerged in a support group designed for Black women.
Anti-oppression as praxis in the research field: Implementing
Many analyses of anti-oppressive research currently focus on the relationship between the researcher and research participants (Daniel, 2021; Glumbíková et al., 2018; Pollack, 2004), but Potts and Brown (2015) encourage us to examine the relationship between researchers as a cite of transformational and anti-oppressive possibilities.
PDF An Integrated Anti-Oppression Framework for Reviewing and Developing Policy
inclusive spaces. At the same time, we are still challenged by how to consistently integrate anti-oppression practice in all aspects of our work. To address this concern, we created a framework that organizations can use to develop policies with an integrated anti-oppression analysis. This frame-work is included as Appendix E.
Engaging in Anti-Oppressive Public Health Teaching: Challenges and
Anti-oppression has recently grown in use and is more well known in particular areas of public health that have a legacy—albeit complex and at times, flawed—of aligning their work with anti-oppressive practice, for example, research about the impacts of racism on health (Devakumar et al., 2020) and community-based participatory research ...
Remaking Social Work by Applying an Anti-oppressive Lens
Abstract. Anti-oppressive social work has become a central topic among social work scholars, guiding the analysis of practices, services, and policies. Both theoretical and empirical studies highlight the importance of raising awareness about the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, mandates of social workers, guiding a process of reflexivity ...
Anti-Oppressive Practice
Introduction. Anti-oppressive practice (AOP) has taken root in social work as an effort to raise social justice commitments in the profession, and to improve outcomes for those it serves. AOP's influence is strongest in Canada, the United Kindgom, and Australia (where it has been a feature of social work education for more than fifteen years ...
Critical Anti-Oppressive and Strengths-Based Practice
It then locates an anti-oppressive practice (AOP) approach within the broader perspective of critical theory and critical social work through identifying key dimensions of critical analysis for practice. AOP has emerged as a dominant practice approach in critical social work. The chapter provides an overview of strengths-based approaches and ...
The limits of contemporary anti-oppression theory and practice
But more pertinent for our argument is the phenomenon of anti-oppression activists - who do advance a structural analysis of oppression and yet consistently align themselves with a praxis that reduces the history of violent and radically unsafe antislavery, anticolonial, antipatriarchal, antihomophobic, and anticiscentric freedom struggles to ...
Anti-Oppressive Restorative Justice: Behavior Analysis in Alternatives
Behavior Analysis in Practice - The history of American policing, behavior criminalization, and carceral justice is rooted in racist practice dating back to the 1700s. ... Finally, anti-oppression in restorative justice requires a conceptually systematic understanding of cultural contingencies, and the potential for recreation of or reenactment ...
Intersectionality as a Useful Tool: Anti-Oppressive Social Work and
Sakamoto I., Pitner R. O. (2005). Use of critical consciousness in anti-oppressive social work practice: Disentangling power dynamics at personal and structural levels. British Journal of Social Work, 35, 435-452. Crossref. ISI. ... An Intersectional Analysis of Asian Americ... Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar. Capturing Practice Wisdom ...
Anti-oppressive practice
Anti-oppressive practice is an interdisciplinary approach primarily rooted within the practice of social work that focuses on ending socioeconomic oppression.It requires the practitioner to critically examine the power imbalance inherent in an organizational structure with regards to the larger sociocultural and political context in order to develop strategies for creating an egalitarian ...
Considering the ways in which anti-oppressive practice principles can
Anti-oppressive practice orientations within research offer a lens by which analysis of the worldview, assumptions, and motivations of the researcher can occur. The researcher pays attention to their experience and understanding in relation to power dynamics, and in particular privilege .
What is Anti-Oppressive Practice?
Anti-Oppressive Practice is both a theory and an approach that has a very broad scope. When defined as an approach to social issues, it focuses on how larger systems create and protect the unearned privilege and power that some groups have while at the same time creating, maintaining, and upholding difficult and unequitable conditions for other groups of people (Baines, 2017).
Anti-Oppression LibGuide
Ableism: A system of superiority and discrimination that provides or denies resources, agency, and dignity based on one's abilities (mental/intellectual, emotional, and/or physical.) Ableism depends on a binary, and benefits able-bodied people at the expense of disabled people. Like other forms of oppression, ableism operates on the ...
what is anti-oppression?
what is anti-oppression? Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. Social oppression may not require formally established organizational support to achieve its desired effect; it may be applied on a ...
Anti-oppressive practice
A critical analysis of the ethical implications of recent legislation, trends in social work thought and policy such as user empowerment, feminism and anti-oppressive practice. Humphries, B. (ed.) (1996) Critical Perspectives on Empowerment (Birmingham, Venture). Interrogates the concept of empowerment and raises questions about the political ...
Frameworks & Approaches
"Being oppressed means the absence of choices." - bell hooks, from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984) Oppression is defined as "the systematic mistreatment of a people or group based on a belief in the innate superiority of one group or idea over another." 1 Anti-oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and attempts to mitigate its ...
Anti-Oppressive Organization Development
We recognize that dominant norms, values, and perceptions result in oppressive conditions, so we work to subvert oppression to facilitate holistic wellness, rest, joy, and autonomy. We reject the traditional means of social work that have participated in harmful activities that align with toxic social zeitgeists for the past 100 years.
Continuum
Develops an analysis of systemic oppression. Sponsors anti-oppression trainings and ongoing study on a range of topics. New analysis of institutionalized power, privilege, and oppression. Develops intentional identity as an "anti- oppressive" institution. Begins integrating anti-oppression politics into organizational policies and ...
Anti-Critical-Race-Theory Laws Are Slowing Down. Here Are 3 Things to Know
Here are three things to know about where states stand on these anti-critical race theory laws. A Flourish map. 1. Action seems concentrated in a handful of states. So far, no state that had not ...
Trump Wants to Strengthen Anti-Racism Protections
Trump Wants to Strengthen Anti-Racism Protections … for White People. If Donald Trump is elected to a second term in November, his allies plan to end this country's long-standing oppression of ...
Anti-Oppressive Restorative Justice: Behavior Analysis in Alternatives
Anti-Oppressive Restorative Justice: Behavior Analysis in Alternatives to Policing - PMC. Journal List. Behav Anal Pract. v.15 (4); 2022 Dec. PMC9744972. As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health.
Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric makes inroads with some Democrats
In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time, casting migrants as dangerous criminals "poisoning the blood" of America. Hitting the nation's deepest fault lines of race and national identity, his messaging often relies on falsehoods about migration.
Church archdeacon calls for 'anti-whiteness'
Opinion & Analysis Sections. UK Edition US Edition News ... That's not anti-white, or anti-men, it's anti-oppression. — Miranda Threlfall-Holmes (@MirandaTHolmes) March 21, 2024.