This chapter examines synergies between colonization and racism in the United States, including how colonization provides a foundation for various forms of bigotry and dehumanization. In the United States, colonial structures shape and racialize beliefs about Native Americans, leading to their mis-categorization as one of many ethnic minority groups. This creates misunderstandings about sovereignty and the foundation for many social policies and programs. This chapter describes what it means to be Indigenous and how colonial structures and social constructions of race in the US affect Native Americans. Social workers have played core roles in supporting colonial structures, but social workers can also challenge harmful structures. Legal threats to the Indian Child Welfare Act are examined, accompanied by a call to action for social workers.

This chapter examines the intersections between Indigeneity, Indigenization and CRT as paths to uncover structural racism and inequities, to resist and neutralize decolonizing ways. Indigeneity and Indigenization are grounded in radical remembering and reconceptualizing social work’s ethical and moral fortitude. They represent Indigenous identities, lifeways and values calling on us to examine all aspects of racism, power distribution, and wellbeing with the intent of strengthening communities. The dualism of CRT, white vs. black and other people of color, neglects Indigenous world views and perpetuates colonial dynamics by excluding ways of being and thinking beyond race. In this way, CRT detracts energy from restoration, securing of ancestral lands, revitalizing Indigenous languages and cultural practices, and impedes intergenerational healing. Indigenously defined social work practice holds the promise of universal wellbeing and opportunities to diversify a socially just agenda.

This chapter advocates a transformation of the profession. Transformation requires turning everything on its head and rearranging to create something better – in this case a more racially just and equitable social work practice. The first section of the book begins with the macro, uncovering the why and how of racism in the US and globally, discussing how these precepts trickle down to micro social work practice. Without posturing macro and micro as an “either/or” the authors discuss these as “yes ands …”, advocating, instead, for a critical approach to practice spanning the continuum of social work systems of practice.

This concluding chapter acknowledges the difficult topic the authors have sought to address: race. Done right, it is a tough conversation and not something normally reserved for polite dinner conversation. Providing an overview of critical race theory, the six key tenets that were detailed in the book and their application to social work, the authors review the key tenets and sections of the book. America is the country it is today because it profited from chattel slavery, physical and cultural genocide as reflected in the contemporary Make America Great Again movement. Despite over four centuries of three steps forward and two backward, the authors reflect on the overall purpose of this text: the praxis of hope. Hope is discussed conceptually with a call for readers to serve as examples of a world that can move us beyond our current condition.

Critical Race Theory provides a lens through which we can examine and unpack the role of rest, self-care and community care in social work spaces. The Rest is Resistance movement, coined by Tricia Hersey of the @napministry encourages us to “disrupt and push back against capitalism and white supremacy by connecting to the liberating power of rest, daydreaming and naps as a foundation for healing and justice.” This chapter provides a counternarrative to traditional notions that burnout can be prevented by individual efforts of social workers and students to better care for themselves, positing that the professionalization of social work, by design, continues to perpetuate inequity and exploit emotional labor.

This chapter examines how platformed media shape youth identity by analyzing TikTok content through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens. Working in a faculty–student partnership with Baltimore high school researchers, the authors created race-marked user profiles and sampled 40 TikTok videos, then conducted reflexive discourse/thematic analysis. Coding drew on core CRT tenets to surface how racialized, gendered, and sexualized meanings are produced, circulated, and normalized in everyday micro-narratives. The observation resulted in four dominant themes: (1) social construction – stereotypical representation of Black gender expression, (2) differential racialization – hierarchical valuation of phenotype and skin tones, (3) intersectionality – the interaction of identities shaping agency and vulnerability, and (4) whiteness as property – inheritable privileges that structure safety, access, opportunities, and presume innocence. The authors also observed background conditions consistent with racism-as-normal and interest convergence. Findings illuminate how “ordinary” short-form videos can scaffold youths’ self-concept and belonging – often in ways that intensify stigma and material hardship – while also revealing counter-narratives that resist dominant scripts. The authors outline implications for social work pedagogy (trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and digitally literate instruction), youth mental health supports, and policy/advocacy aimed at platform accountability. CRT offers a rigorous framework for decoding platform logics and co-creating equity-centered interventions with young people whose voices are too often marginalized in research and practice.

In previous chapters the idea of racism permeating all of life including education, particularly social work education was discussed. These ideas are now traced in social work practice, focusing particularly on child welfare, one of the fields of practice employing social workers.

Practicums in social work are referred to as the profession’s signature pedagogy, where students put their learning to work under the guidance of seasoned professionals. Students of color, however, face uneven experiences in the predominantly white social work profession. While on one hand they are sought after because in some cases they reflect the clientele being served, they are also easily dismissed and encounter various levels of conflict with the practicum instructor. This chapter examines these experiences using LatCrit methodology.

This chapter critiques the limitations of liberalism as a guiding political philosophy for social work and social justice. While Rawlsian liberalism frames justice in terms of fairness and distributive equality, its emphasis on individual rights often obscures the racialized foundations of US democracy and fails to account for structural oppression. Liberalism’s language of equality and freedom has historically coexisted with racial domination – from slavery and Jim Crow to contemporary attacks on affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, interest convergence, and historical analysis, this chapter argues that liberalism is not simply flawed in practice but fundamentally implicated in sustaining racial hierarchies. It highlights how appeals to fairness can be mobilized to both expand and restrict rights, often reinforcing white supremacy. Moving beyond liberalism, the chapter introduces race-conscious frameworks such as Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, sociopolitical development, and deep canvassing as tools for reimagining political institutions. It concludes by advocating for political social work to center human dignity, collective well-being, and structural change, rather than abstract rights, as the foundation for advancing racial and social justice in the United States.

This chapter explores intersectional organizing in the US immigrant justice movement and how social workers can apply this framework in their community work. In the past two decades, the intersectional identities of many immigrant organizers have driven strategies and campaign goals. Immigrant youth have shed the DREAMer identity, leaving behind the symbolic caps and gowns, while taking up the fight for a bolder vision of equity, inclusion, and liberation. Those who are most impacted are centered in the organizing campaigns. Many organizations and coalitions are rooted in the intersection of the criminal legal and immigration systems, also known as crimmigration. And deportation defense campaigns include those less desirable – the day laborers, the car wash workers, the street vendors, the criminal legal system impacted immigrants – not only the "good" model immigrants. The analysis developed in this chapter builds on the community and policy organizing led by undocumented organizers and allies on the streets.

Research is another area of social work subject to racial biases. Historically, research was used as a weapon against BIPOC, designed to “prove” their inferiority. While less overtly racist nowadays, research continues to promote a racial divide through several different means: overreliance on a positivist paradigm for researching social questions; holding on to theories based on white normative assumptions, failure to proportionally include people of color in sampling, or include them in defining the research question in cultural and locational contexts.