Dear Friends,
I am writing because I am disturbed by the string of articles, blog entries, and list serve threads that have come out in the last few days suggesting that the high turnout of African American and Latino voters for the presidential election was responsible for the passage of California’s proposition 8, which dealt a heavy blow to LGBT families by banning gay marriage.
These articles mistakenly imply that the struggles for civil rights for LGBT people and communities of color are separate or even at odds with each other. They deny the work that LGBT people of color do to combat homophobia and transphobia in their families and communities, often while facing racism within the queer community as well. These articles deny homophobia among white people, and they displace blame away from those who actually have the power to consistently deny others civil and human rights, and instead, charge that when communities that have long been disenfranchised and alienated from political processes begin to participate, that the results with be negative for LGBT people.
I believe all communities need to be held accountable for their homophobia and transphobia. I want to acknowledge the suffering and hardship that the passage of Proposition 8 has caused for LGBT couples and families. But, while the media casts blame on communities of color for the failure of civil rights for LGBT people, it is imperative that we struggle against the logic that tells us that struggles for LGBT civil rights and racial justice are separate, and that we examine our strategies for advancing LGBT civil rights and gay marriage and, in particular, look at places where LGBT communities have failed to align our struggles for civil rights with ongoing struggles for racial justice.
In the months leading up the election, I saw a massive mobilization within the queer spaces in which I spend time in San Francisco to get people to vote no on 8. We live in a state that has one of the highest incarceration rates in a nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Studies have estimated that at any time, 40 percent of black men in their 20’s in California are under control of the correctional system. Criminalization affects many LGBT people, in particular, those that may be experiencing addiction or who, lacking familial support, move to expensive cities where they may have a hard time accessing affordable housing and living-wage work. Despite this, I saw little or no public discourse among LGBT people about very important state propositions: 5, 6, and 9, all of which potentially impacted things like funding for prisons, alterations to sentencing for drug crimes, or the trying of minors as adults in this state.
In the last months, we have seen raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) throughout the state and in San Francisco. Many people immigrate here as a result of the US foreign policy of destabilizing foreign economies. Additionally, San Francisco is home to many LGBT immigrants who have come to the country seeking safety and asylum. While my inbox was flooded with emails pertaining to Prop 8, I heard from very few queer people who were seeking to mobilize around the October 31st demonstration to protest ICE raids, or other work pertaining to ICE raids, and San Francisco’s establishment as a sanctuary city.
The November ballot contained several important city initiatives that could have affected the livability of our city both for low-income people of color and for many queer people. Proposition K, an initiative to decriminalize prostitution would have helped sex workers in this city to make major strides in their ability to organize for their rights and safety, allowing them to better protect themselves against violence and police harassment. Despite the fact that many, many young LGBT people in this city earn their livings as sex workers and daily face risks to their safety, and that two trans women working as sex workers lost their lives while working in San Francisco in 2007, I saw shockingly little effort among LGBT people to educate themselves on the realities facing sex workers or the background on Proposition K, let alone to spread any word about it.
Similarly, proposition B, which would have mandated that the city set aside part of its budget for affordable housing was defeated by SF voters. In a city with a history of racist schemes of redevelopment and displacement (SOMA in the 60’s, Justin Herman’s redevelopment of the Fillmore, illegal evictions in the Mission in the 90s, contemporary cuts to county welfare, and most recently, the gentrification of Bayview—to name a few), San Francisco voters have failed to stand up for working families’ ability to live affordably in this city—a city with where remaining working class communities of color face major threats of displacement. Despite the fact that white LGBT people often play complicated roles in the gentrification of the city and displacement of communities of color, I saw no media reports released on November 5th scrutinizing the voting trends of white LGBT San Franciscans on Propositions B, N, K, 5, 6, or 9, as juxtaposed to the numerous articles scrutinizing the voting habits of Black and Latino voters on Prop 8. And despite the overwhelmingly negative outcome of several important local and state propositions, outcry among the wider LGBT community seems to have been reserved only for Prop 8.
As a young, queer, person living in San Francisco, I feel very strongly that affordably in this city is vital to the creativity and well being of the LGBT community of San Francisco. As a white person living in the Mission, I have to think and act critically in regards to the complicated role I play in the gentrification of this neighborhood and the larger schemes of displacement within this city. I love my queer life and love living in this city. I get to witness the ways of living and congregating, making new families, new cultures, and envisioning new worlds that are possible living in a city with so many other brilliant and creative queer people. While I would like to lend my support and compassion to the people who lost the right to marry this week, I also question the logic that tells me that my only struggle as an LGBT person centers around my right to marry, rather than my ability to live and create in many other ways within a city I love. Affordable housing is central to the vitality of the LGBT community in San Francisco, to all communities, and while I sign petitions to support marriage as a right, I would like to see LGBT Californians take a serious look at the fact that housing, healthcare, and freedom from incarceration are also civil and human rights.
I would like to see LGBT Californians talk not only about their right to receive their partners’ health benefits but about universal healthcare. I would like to hear us talk not just about how many LGBT people’s partners cannot receive citizenship rights because of a lack of marriage rights, but connect this to struggles for immigrant rights in this state. I would like to hear LGBT people not only talk about how their families are discriminated against, but think about how many families in California are living in alternative family structures because of the mass incarceration of parents with children.
The passing of Proposition 8 is a sad day and indicative of the work that lies ahead, however, as we heal from these blows, I would like to challenge us to consider how our struggles are bound up with struggles for racial and economic justice, and how our fight for civil rights, and the health of our communities could be strengthened by taking these connections more seriously. Above all, I would like to challenge us to resist racist media schemes that, during our moment of need and a moment of possibility, are attempting to pit LGBT people and supporters against communities of color in California.
I apologize for the hasty construction of this, but time is of the essence. I welcome your thoughts.
In struggle,
Adele Carpenter
yesyesready@gmail.com
Friday, November 7, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thoughts on Social Work and Changing the Language of Burn-Out
Changing the language of "burn out."
I woke up this morning to attend a very frustrating meeting, where in addition to becoming very annoyed, I was also fed coffee, a potent combination, plus sleeplessness, a deadly cocktail…
I've been reflecting lately as I have begun a new youth outreach position with a queer service provider in SF, about my relationship to the non profit industry. There is so much to figure out and so much to say, but one thing that strikes me as I have these queries, is how much the phrase "burn out" echoes through my head, and to what degree I have allowed myself to chalk up my criticisms to this oft-cited phenomenon that doesn't begin to account for or articulate the dissatisfactions, criticisms, and total existential crises that can be brought on by work in the NPIC.
It is commonly assumed that workers do and even will, leave the non profit industry because they "get burnt out." There is a certain degree to which I've internalized this thinking and today, as I was weaving my bike in and out of traffic on Market, reciting to myself a litany of curses reserved for the useless, misdirected, self-serving bureaucracy that my current, former, and conceivably, future jobs will be tangled up in, I realized something: I have a lot of energy. Tearing up Market on my bicycle in a craze of caffeine I just kept thinking to myself, "You know, fuck that. I have so much energy. I am not used up. I am so far from used up. That is not why this shit bothers me."
The term "burnt out," may aptly describe part of what is going on when social service and non profit industries use up workers and excuse general abuses of workers by assuming the employee feels privileged to be doing "meaningful work." I am not proposing "burn out" not be used, because, yeah, I mean, people get tired. But overall, I think it really serves to dilute critical analysis and displace blame for the ineffectiveness of services, lack of accountability in agencies, and abuses of clients and workers.
It assumes on some level (in the case of social work) that clients' problems are just too big to be handled, and that social workers leave because the work is just too much, the clients are too much, the problems are too large, or that they lack commitment. Sadly, the problems that may account for "burn out" are much larger and more complex.
For starters, I know I would like to feel useful at work. Especially in an industry where workers put up with odd hours, major job instability, the continued imperative to hustle to secure the existence of their position, unpaid hours, inadequate compensation, lack of supervision, complicated, often emotionally manipulative, work environments, and in many fields, traumatizing work experiences, under the premise of "meaning" or "usefulness" I would venture to guess many workers feel the similarly.
Many of us like working with our client populations, and are fed by our relationships with our clients. At my last job, I worked as a residential case manager in an SRO in the Tenderloin. I found the work with clients quite stimulating and heartening, which ran counter to the idea that working with formerly homeless adults, many of whom had several mental health diagnoses and were actively using is supposed to be exhausting.
In fact, what exhausted me were dangerous levels of understaffing, lack of safety and crisis protocol, lack of appropriate support, supervision, and staff training. Even more exhausting was witnessing my clients be continually mistreated by supportive housing property management, benefits administrations, and community agencies where they were seeking drug treatment, or mental health services. And realizing that my positions of service coordination like mine were ineffective in addressing issues with client access, mistreatment, and ineffectiveness in service provision. Indeed, some of the only meaningful or effective work that felt possible there was helping to build relationships of social and community support between tenants within the building. This was not really part of my job description and it has absolutely nothing to do with why the position was funded.
At my current job, sparing you the details, I am charged with connecting youth to services provided by therapists. The therapists provide valuable services. The resources needed to build connections between youth seeking these services and clinicians do exist at this time, however, due the quagmire of billing practices, productivity, and city contracts, I lack the power to move or place any resources that would actually foster those connections—in short, to do my job.
Further, I am confused by an industry that assumes that the work is somehow removed from the process of producing and protecting wealth, and uses false pretense as a way of manipulating workers. As a worker in supportive housing, and as social workers in general, the major reason the jobs are funded is to manage the costs of destructive processes of domination that produce wealth and profit: military aggression (and the subsequent issues of PTSD and other health problems among veterans, as well as refugee populations), sexist domination, joblessness (and it's direct relationship to profit), incarceration, drug trade and criminalization, and so many others. It is clear that social workers have a direct role in producing and protecting wealth by literally cutting the cost of wealth and domination. Why then, are we encouraged to see our trade as something other than a trade or industry? My evolving guess is that this is central to allowing the worker abuses within the industry and also to keep social workers and non profit workers from seeing themselves as valuable and taking risks in articulating real challenges to the industry structures that affect us and our clients.
To me, this is much deeper than "burn out." The problem of "burn out" is one that doesn't rest with clients, their "unmanageable" problems, or workers who just "can't take the heat" and hence need to get out of the kitchen. It is likely that as long as non profit structures as we know them exist, I will have at least some kind of on and off work relationship to them, being that I am going into the mental health field. However, I would like to say, for the record, that if I take a break, take up another trade, or look tired at the end of a week, it is not because I am burnt up or out, it is because I am tired of seeing the people I care about and make my work worthwhile and interesting (my clients) mistreated and am tired of lacking resources and power to do the work I am charged with in ways that feel meaningful, useful, and accountable.
I hope this is the beginning of a conversation and I would love to hear your thoughts, criticisms, analysis and general brilliance.
Xo,
Adele.
I woke up this morning to attend a very frustrating meeting, where in addition to becoming very annoyed, I was also fed coffee, a potent combination, plus sleeplessness, a deadly cocktail…
I've been reflecting lately as I have begun a new youth outreach position with a queer service provider in SF, about my relationship to the non profit industry. There is so much to figure out and so much to say, but one thing that strikes me as I have these queries, is how much the phrase "burn out" echoes through my head, and to what degree I have allowed myself to chalk up my criticisms to this oft-cited phenomenon that doesn't begin to account for or articulate the dissatisfactions, criticisms, and total existential crises that can be brought on by work in the NPIC.
It is commonly assumed that workers do and even will, leave the non profit industry because they "get burnt out." There is a certain degree to which I've internalized this thinking and today, as I was weaving my bike in and out of traffic on Market, reciting to myself a litany of curses reserved for the useless, misdirected, self-serving bureaucracy that my current, former, and conceivably, future jobs will be tangled up in, I realized something: I have a lot of energy. Tearing up Market on my bicycle in a craze of caffeine I just kept thinking to myself, "You know, fuck that. I have so much energy. I am not used up. I am so far from used up. That is not why this shit bothers me."
The term "burnt out," may aptly describe part of what is going on when social service and non profit industries use up workers and excuse general abuses of workers by assuming the employee feels privileged to be doing "meaningful work." I am not proposing "burn out" not be used, because, yeah, I mean, people get tired. But overall, I think it really serves to dilute critical analysis and displace blame for the ineffectiveness of services, lack of accountability in agencies, and abuses of clients and workers.
It assumes on some level (in the case of social work) that clients' problems are just too big to be handled, and that social workers leave because the work is just too much, the clients are too much, the problems are too large, or that they lack commitment. Sadly, the problems that may account for "burn out" are much larger and more complex.
For starters, I know I would like to feel useful at work. Especially in an industry where workers put up with odd hours, major job instability, the continued imperative to hustle to secure the existence of their position, unpaid hours, inadequate compensation, lack of supervision, complicated, often emotionally manipulative, work environments, and in many fields, traumatizing work experiences, under the premise of "meaning" or "usefulness" I would venture to guess many workers feel the similarly.
Many of us like working with our client populations, and are fed by our relationships with our clients. At my last job, I worked as a residential case manager in an SRO in the Tenderloin. I found the work with clients quite stimulating and heartening, which ran counter to the idea that working with formerly homeless adults, many of whom had several mental health diagnoses and were actively using is supposed to be exhausting.
In fact, what exhausted me were dangerous levels of understaffing, lack of safety and crisis protocol, lack of appropriate support, supervision, and staff training. Even more exhausting was witnessing my clients be continually mistreated by supportive housing property management, benefits administrations, and community agencies where they were seeking drug treatment, or mental health services. And realizing that my positions of service coordination like mine were ineffective in addressing issues with client access, mistreatment, and ineffectiveness in service provision. Indeed, some of the only meaningful or effective work that felt possible there was helping to build relationships of social and community support between tenants within the building. This was not really part of my job description and it has absolutely nothing to do with why the position was funded.
At my current job, sparing you the details, I am charged with connecting youth to services provided by therapists. The therapists provide valuable services. The resources needed to build connections between youth seeking these services and clinicians do exist at this time, however, due the quagmire of billing practices, productivity, and city contracts, I lack the power to move or place any resources that would actually foster those connections—in short, to do my job.
Further, I am confused by an industry that assumes that the work is somehow removed from the process of producing and protecting wealth, and uses false pretense as a way of manipulating workers. As a worker in supportive housing, and as social workers in general, the major reason the jobs are funded is to manage the costs of destructive processes of domination that produce wealth and profit: military aggression (and the subsequent issues of PTSD and other health problems among veterans, as well as refugee populations), sexist domination, joblessness (and it's direct relationship to profit), incarceration, drug trade and criminalization, and so many others. It is clear that social workers have a direct role in producing and protecting wealth by literally cutting the cost of wealth and domination. Why then, are we encouraged to see our trade as something other than a trade or industry? My evolving guess is that this is central to allowing the worker abuses within the industry and also to keep social workers and non profit workers from seeing themselves as valuable and taking risks in articulating real challenges to the industry structures that affect us and our clients.
To me, this is much deeper than "burn out." The problem of "burn out" is one that doesn't rest with clients, their "unmanageable" problems, or workers who just "can't take the heat" and hence need to get out of the kitchen. It is likely that as long as non profit structures as we know them exist, I will have at least some kind of on and off work relationship to them, being that I am going into the mental health field. However, I would like to say, for the record, that if I take a break, take up another trade, or look tired at the end of a week, it is not because I am burnt up or out, it is because I am tired of seeing the people I care about and make my work worthwhile and interesting (my clients) mistreated and am tired of lacking resources and power to do the work I am charged with in ways that feel meaningful, useful, and accountable.
I hope this is the beginning of a conversation and I would love to hear your thoughts, criticisms, analysis and general brilliance.
Xo,
Adele.
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