To: President Donald Trump
Social Work to End White Supremacy!
Dear President Trump:
We write this open letter to you as the members of the social work community to vehemently condemn hate, white supremacy, and all forms of violence, prejudice and bigotry. We write this letter in support of the families and communities who suffer, who have had innocent lives stolen from them, most recently in the Tree of Life and Kroger killings. While you were not directly responsible for the acts of others, we hold you accountable for cultivating a climate of fear, paranoia and hostility towards many vulnerable groups of people. For example, you referred to a group of migrants seeking shelter from violence and poverty in the United States as an “attack” on our country.
Hate speech fans the flames of violence. We believe that you, President Trump, exploit fears and resentments for political purposes, which tacitly and implicitly condones violence. Your willingness to demonize anyone who disagrees with you, including name-calling, using inflammatory rhetoric, activating racist stereotypes and anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant tropes, calling the news media “the enemy of the people," has turned disagreement with you and your policies or legitimate concerns about human rights and pressing social issues into justifications for violence and attacks against vulnerable populations. But this will not intimidate us and we will not remain silent.
As social workers, we will use our collective voices, as our predecessors before us, to denounce all forms of xenophobia, racism, sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and hate. Social work has a long history of social justice advocacy and concern about human rights. Our profession can accept and learn from when we have made mistakes, such as when we colluded with the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Therefore, we will not collude today with white supremacy, the detention of immigrant families, or any policies or practices that stand in opposition to our code of ethics. We take pride in the fact that the founders of our profession stood against and protested senseless wars and fascism, worked to ameliorate poverty and human suffering, opposed inhumane immigration policies, advanced support for the LGBTQIA community, and fought for labor laws, women’s rights, and civil rights. It is in this tradition that we write to you today to condemn the violence of this past week, and to hold you accountable for fostering climate that encourages dehumanization, demonization and extols cruelty and hatred. So, while we mourn the victims of the most recent hate crimes and call for justice, we know that we cannot only hold accountable those who committed these horrific violent acts, but we must also speak out against the culture of violence, institutions that elevate some while dismissing others, and your role as President in fostering hatred and violence. As Dr. King Jr. once said during his eulogy of the four young Black girls murdered by the Klu Klux Klan in the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church bombing:
“They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.”
Thus, our friends and families who have suffered unspeakable horror at the hands of sociopolitical violence of all types and policies that discriminate and disempower people will not have died or suffered in vain. We commit ourselves to Dr. King’s sacred philosophy of nonviolence and justice. We will not compromise when it comes to the freedom and dignity of all who reside in the US and around the world or dismantling systems and practices that degrade our democracy and that squanders our capacity to achieve those values that we hold dear, such as freedom, nonviolence, justice, fairness, and equity.
Freedom and democracy are worth it!
Sincerely,
Crystal M. Hayes, M.S.W., Ph.D. Candidate
Joshua L. Miller, M.S.W, Ph.D.
Hannah Karpman, M.S.W, Ph.D.
We write this open letter to you as the members of the social work community to vehemently condemn hate, white supremacy, and all forms of violence, prejudice and bigotry. We write this letter in support of the families and communities who suffer, who have had innocent lives stolen from them, most recently in the Tree of Life and Kroger killings. While you were not directly responsible for the acts of others, we hold you accountable for cultivating a climate of fear, paranoia and hostility towards many vulnerable groups of people. For example, you referred to a group of migrants seeking shelter from violence and poverty in the United States as an “attack” on our country.
Hate speech fans the flames of violence. We believe that you, President Trump, exploit fears and resentments for political purposes, which tacitly and implicitly condones violence. Your willingness to demonize anyone who disagrees with you, including name-calling, using inflammatory rhetoric, activating racist stereotypes and anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant tropes, calling the news media “the enemy of the people," has turned disagreement with you and your policies or legitimate concerns about human rights and pressing social issues into justifications for violence and attacks against vulnerable populations. But this will not intimidate us and we will not remain silent.
As social workers, we will use our collective voices, as our predecessors before us, to denounce all forms of xenophobia, racism, sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and hate. Social work has a long history of social justice advocacy and concern about human rights. Our profession can accept and learn from when we have made mistakes, such as when we colluded with the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Therefore, we will not collude today with white supremacy, the detention of immigrant families, or any policies or practices that stand in opposition to our code of ethics. We take pride in the fact that the founders of our profession stood against and protested senseless wars and fascism, worked to ameliorate poverty and human suffering, opposed inhumane immigration policies, advanced support for the LGBTQIA community, and fought for labor laws, women’s rights, and civil rights. It is in this tradition that we write to you today to condemn the violence of this past week, and to hold you accountable for fostering climate that encourages dehumanization, demonization and extols cruelty and hatred. So, while we mourn the victims of the most recent hate crimes and call for justice, we know that we cannot only hold accountable those who committed these horrific violent acts, but we must also speak out against the culture of violence, institutions that elevate some while dismissing others, and your role as President in fostering hatred and violence. As Dr. King Jr. once said during his eulogy of the four young Black girls murdered by the Klu Klux Klan in the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church bombing:
“They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.”
Thus, our friends and families who have suffered unspeakable horror at the hands of sociopolitical violence of all types and policies that discriminate and disempower people will not have died or suffered in vain. We commit ourselves to Dr. King’s sacred philosophy of nonviolence and justice. We will not compromise when it comes to the freedom and dignity of all who reside in the US and around the world or dismantling systems and practices that degrade our democracy and that squanders our capacity to achieve those values that we hold dear, such as freedom, nonviolence, justice, fairness, and equity.
Freedom and democracy are worth it!
Sincerely,
Crystal M. Hayes, M.S.W., Ph.D. Candidate
Joshua L. Miller, M.S.W, Ph.D.
Hannah Karpman, M.S.W, Ph.D.
Why is this important?
If you are a member of the social work profession (including our partners and friends) help us resist white supremacy and the politics of the Trump presidency by signing this petition to Trump and denounce white supremacy, violence, and hatred.