Social workers and social scientists have a duty to educate, clarify and raise consciousness when empirically unfounded conclusions that can be harmful to marginalized populations are promoted as fact. Some may read Naomi Schafer Riley’s blog for the American Enterprise Institute – No, The Child Welfare System Isn’t Racist – and deem it as just another piece written from a shortsighted perspective steeped in white privilege. Others, however, may become even more convinced that implicit bias is an overused claim in child welfare and that racism is a thing of the past.
In response, we aim to push back on assumptions that stem from lenses tainted by privilege and facilitate cultural humility and compassion in discourse on this critical issue…