Then and Now

Hurricane Katrina 2005

Great Flood 1927

Week by week, our class becomes more engaging and interesting.  This week I thoroughly enjoyed our class discussions and the honest sharing by fellow classmates.  I am choosing to blog this week about our reading and class discussion regarding the great flood of 1927.  I’ll have to be honest, I felt a bit silly not know anything about this flood, especially as Professor Gerstenblatt unfolded its absolutely devastating story.  While this flood was one of our country’s greatest natural disasters, it was also disastrous economically, politically and racially.  Several times during my reading of this text, and our time in class discussing it, I couldn’t help but compare certain details to one of “our” natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina; also devastating on many levels.  Just as the Mississippi flood of 1927 exposed class divisions in America, so did Katrina nearly 80 years later.  Just think about how much destruction we saw in the press and as we discussed in class, just how much WE DIDN’T SEE.  Just how is it that we continue to make the same mistakes we did almost 80 years ago?

The following is a link with a cool story about the music inspired by the 1927 flood.  It is a history of sorts, starting with a song written by Charley Patton in 1929 and his influence on musicians for decades to come.

http://www.wbez.org/story/2011-05-18/when-levee-breaks-ripples-great-flood-86719

It’s clearly a black and white matter…NOT REALLY…

I found the Zinn writing Drawing the Color Line to be very thought provoking.  Never have I thought about the black/white “issue” quite like this before.  How has this thing called “racism” remained so ingrained in our nation’s culture over such a long period of time?  The idea of tracing it back to the very beginnings of slavery and the coming of the first whites and blacks to North America really makes sense.  And, that from the beginning, economics played an important role in slavery and ultimately, racism.  I agree with Zinn that racism is “a complex web of historical threads,” (Zinn 2003, p. 38) and not “natural”; that this was originally a system created due to the desperate settles starving to death, the incredible helplessness felt by displaced Africans, the drive to maximize profits by slave traders and plantation owners, the temptation of superiority for poor whites, strong control measures to discourage escape and rebellion, and the legal and social punishment when blacks and whites collaborated.  It is unfortunate that the situation created by slavery never allowed for black and white to embrace each other simply as fellow Americans – without a history of subordination, monetary incentive for exploitation and enslavement, and the desperation for simply surviving.  Fear, power, and greed can be the root of terrible things.  What really puzzles me though is why the struggle continues some 350 years later.

Additionally, I found interesting the idea that, even before slavery, the color black was “distasteful.”  The definition, from the Oxford English Dictionary (before 1600) as quoted in the text was in no way positive, as opposed to the Elizabethan poetry description of the color white and its connection with beauty.  This got me thinking about what the definitions of both black and white might be today.  The following are the links to the definitions of each from the on-line Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white

What are your thoughts on how they compare to the definitions referred to in our reading?  Take note of the following examples from Webster’s current definition:

 Black:  very dark in color (his face was black with rage)

White:  notably ardent : passionate (white fury)

Welcome to my Social Identity...

This was an interesting exercise which, quite honestly, I found a little more difficult than I anticipated.  I fully expected to just run through it in a matter of a few minutes.  Once finished, I left it on my desk.  I have now gone back two different times, looked it over again, and made changes.  As you will see, I think often about my spiritual life and physical/emotional development.  These are also the areas in which I desire to learn more about and I believe have the strongest effect on me personally.  Interestingly enough, and as supported by our readings, I think least about the things I take for granted, my race, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, age, national origin, and first language. 

What did you guys learn from this exercise?  Any surprises?

Linked Together - Human Rights AND Social and Economic Justice

There is so much great information in Chapter 3 of the Lum text that it was truly hard to decide which way to go in my blog writing this week.  However, as I got to the section on "Principles," I knew that I had found my subject!  Throughout the reading, I continued to relate what I was reading to a particular non-profit I have been working with.  Jeremiah Program is an organization that works with low-income single mothers (with children are under the age of five) who are pursuing a post-secondary education. So, when I got to page 102 of the text and read what I already knew about the statistics on women as it relates to poverty and deprivation, and then went on to read the section on values and principles, I was ready to blog.  In the first paragraph of this section, I believe there is a very strong statement:  "Social workers need to ground their empowerment strategies and actions in values and principles that hold out hope for remedying such underlying crises of values."  (Lum 2011, p. 115).  As I think about the five principles that guide the values set out by the NASW, there are several links between the work that Jeremiah Program is doing and the principles that ground the strategies and actions we perform in our work as social workers.  By tying together the concepts learned in this reading and the "real life" experience of working with the Jeremiah Program, I have been able to recognize that while I might not be able to save the world, I can help in a way that will positively impact a person's life by focusing on meeting their needs and developing their potential and resources.

I have added a marketing piece below that I think shows some of the ways the Jeremiah Program is living out the five principles of social and economic justice.