January 2, 2021
Can a profession make New Year resolutions? If so, here are my suggestions for Social Work in what will undoubtedly be a very challenging 2021. Let us resolve to:
Resist injustices old and new. Let us resolve especially to resist the suicidal path of “business as usual,” and the austerity-driven rollbacks of social welfare programs and benefits that will surely emerge (I’m guessing sooner rather than later) from a “compromise” oriented Biden administration.
Recall and reassert the core humanistic values that fired the profession of Social Work in its infancy. Let us resolve to recover the passion for transformational, radical, structural reform for the good of the 99%, and especially for the growing legions of poor, marginalized, and oppressed, not only in the U.S., but globally.
Rebuild from the social and environmental degradation becoming more evident by the day. The current civilization – 500 years of ceaseless exploitation and resource extraction, theft, genocide and lies – is done for, and it is up to us to construct a new order deliberately out of sync with “the world as it is,” and aligned with “the world that we want and need.” Let us resolve to get the rebuilding project, surely the most significant in the history of the species, underway.
We have no time to lose.
The Southern Miss School of Social Work 