careful consideration with communities

Picture received from: http://www.nwhm.org/chinese/23.html
Not all community organizing is positive. Ross defines community organization as “a process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives, order (or ranks) these needs or objectives, develops the confidence and will to work at these needs or objectives, finds the resources (internal and/or external) to deal with these needs or objectives, takes action in respect to them and in so doing extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practices in the community” (1967, p28, as cited in Hardcastle & Powers 2004, p 4). Therefore, a community can identify something as an objective that others outside the community may deem as unjust. For example, in the 1880s in the community I grew up in many road projects and mining activities were handed by Chinese Americans. In 1886 an anti-Chinese movement in Del Norte County peaked and most of the work the Chinese Americans participated in including the china towns they built was destroyed. The only evidence of the Chinese American’s work that was left was the roads. An example of a road project the Chinese Americans built is the Gasquet Toll Road, which provides a link between Del Norte County and Oregon. (http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/5views/5views3h38.htm)
Because community organizing can be so powerful and influential, it is important for social workers to honor the social worker values and ethics that guide their behavior, yet these values and ethics spark some confusion for me. The NASW code of Ethics clearly states social workers are to empower the vulnerable oppressed populations and to challenge injustices, which sounds great. However, I can’t help but wonder how these perceived injustices change over time as values change. Values are described in Community Practice as “generalized, emotionally charged conceptions of what is desirable, historically created and derived from experience, shared by a population or group within it, and they provide the means for organizing and structuring patterns of behavior” (Reamer, 1995, p. 11, as cited in Hardcastle & Powers, 2004, p. 19). I honestly believe that when the people were expelling the Chinese Americans, many thought that what they were doing was right. It is possible that the “white” community felt that their culture was being threatened and did what they thought was necessary to preserve their jobs and way of life. Of course we now know the absurdity of these claims. Nevertheless, at the time I don’t think these people believed that their actions would be now frowned upon.
By looking at this historical perspective, I sometimes worry that what I currently view as right may not look that way years down the road. For example, I work with a little girl who comes from a culture that discriminates against women. I find it difficult to support her empowerment without disrespecting her family values. I especially find it difficult because she is a minor and her parents still have a large amount of say over what she is able to learn. I worry that when doing social work and advocating for oppressed and vulnerable populations, I could, without meaning to, be changing and damages someone’s culture. Because who am I to say how they should treat their daughter? Those are my values. I feel examples like these points out the difficulty of trying to balance the social work ethics of respecting cultural beliefs and respecting equality. At the time it may seem like the right thing to do to advocate for equality, however, later on it may come across as ethnocentric and racist. Thus, because community organizing has the potential to leave dramatic impacts of many peoples lives, careful, consideration must be paid to the consequence of social organization and action.