In the spring of 2021, social work students addressed the topic of racial justice as part of Adelphi’s Social Action Initiative.

Racial justice work is essential for driving policy change, partnering with communities, and raising societal awareness. It involves both critical self-reflection for personal growth and skillful facilitation of dialogue with others.

Through this Social Action Initiative program, undergraduate and graduate social work students collaborated to study the traumas of oppression, the systems that perpetuate inequitable power and privilege, and the tools for furthering social progress in order to create social justice activism projects that address racial justice issues through an anti-racist lens.

Racism and Criminal Justice

About half of a million people in America, in both small towns and large cities, wait in jail every night before they can sit for their trial, mostly due to their inability to afford paying bail. People of color are disproportionately represented in comparison to the general population of people who are waiting in jail for their trials. This video creates awareness about “The Bail Project” which is funded by generous individuals, collaborative companies, and other foundations giving varyingly sized contributions who are all joined together by their ethical belief that the right to go home before a trial should not be “sold,” and that freedom should be truly free to everyone. Due to The Bail Project, free bail assistance has been (and continues to be) given to thousands of people with low incomes every year. These individuals are also supported in coming to court and linked with wrap-around services called “Community Release with Support.” New York does not currently have any Bail Project jurisdictions. Our group project video will be disseminated to spread awareness of racial and criminal justice..

Racism and Criminal Justice was the focus of our Social Action Project for Adelphi this year. Using an Instagram account, we have presented posts, stories and a video to promote action against racism. Having information on multiple platforms within the account allowed for more information to be disseminated. We posted introduction slides to inform our targeted audience who we are, and why racism and criminal justice resonates with us. Our idea was to create interest and activism with our posts and to express and share our areas that we are passionate about. Within our topic we discussed police brutality, racial disparity in the criminal justice system, and the impact of race-based trauma in education. Each member of our group is dedicated to fighting racism and worked on a story, posts, or a video to address issues surround racism and criminal justice. We paid tribute to the recent lives lost due to racism. We all were deeply effected by these killings and felt it necessary to provide a space to recognize and respect their lives. We also provided resources and organizations that anyone can find and donate to or join a specific cause that work towards racial and criminal justice.

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Our group did an op-ed. The topic was on the unfairness of police officers and their excuses for murdering innocent people of color, specifically as it relates to George Floyd.

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A group of Adelphi University Social Work students partnered with New Hour to create a social media campaign to bring more attention to the work their organization provides to the community.

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The topic we choose to focus on was race and the criminal justice system. With everything going on in current events, our video will hopefully help shine a light on some of the many injustices and flaws in the system. While there was some sort of justice with the past verdict in regards to the Chauvin trial, we must continue to demand change. Law enforcement must continue to be held accountable, but there is still so much work that has to be done from policing to incarceration. It could be overwhelming not knowing where to start so we tried to break it down for viewers in a thought provoking and understandable way that is easy to follow.

Our main goal was to create a video to raise awareness on the issues of systemic racism and the criminal justice system. Subtopics include:

  1. Systemic racism,
  2. Racism and police violence,
  3. The Black Lives Matter social movement, and
  4. The invisibility of black and other minority women who are discriminated against, targeted and killed by police.

Our group completed a project on racism and police violence. We highlighted aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement, the invisibility of Black women killed by police, the for-profit prison system, and the school-to-prison pipeline. We created a slideshow and presented to different community organizations we were part of. As a group, we shared helpful resources and offered insight on how we can better bring awareness to these topics.

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Our group chose to focus on the topic of Racism and Criminal Justice- particularly in the wake of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and the xenophobia surrounding Latinos and, most recently, the extreme xenophobia surrounding the Asian American community during the global pandemic. In light of the fact that 9 of us were collaborating, we made a decision to put together what we call a “Super Op-Ed” piece, with all of our contributions falling under the umbrella of Racism and Criminal Justice. In addition, we sought out different resources and information and put it together at the end of our op-ed for those in the audience who want to get involved in the fight against racism. The intended audience was mainly those who want to know more about how the topic affects the populations who are being subjected to racism, and what they can do to help.

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The focus of our group project was to create a pamphlet for New York residents to remain informed about the effects of racism within criminal justice. Our group chose to research how Black American men are disproportionately imprisoned, arrested, and ultimately murdered at the hands of police. We decided to focus on Black American men and the injustice they face as the political climate we are experiencing calls for continued support and awareness.

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Racism and Gender

Our social justice group project focused on how women of different races are treated in healthcare. The races included in this pamphlet are white, Asian, and black. The audience of this pamphlet is individuals who want to learn about the differences in healthcare treatment by race. We have provided information on services that are in support of women’s health and equality.

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Racism and Health

Our group’s focus was on racism and mental health. Together, we created an educational pamphlet to educate the general public about racial disparities in our healthcare system and issues in access to adequate mental healthcare services for people of color. Our pamphlet provides information, including important statistics, and also provides ways for readers to get involved. While our intended audience is the general public, this pamphlet may be particularly useful for healthcare providers. Efforts to disseminate this project include a combination of class presentations and distribution via social media platforms.

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Our pamphlet discusses racism and access to health care, Covid disparities in health care outcomes, racism, and mental health and health disparities. We specifically discuss factors that contribute to disparities that are identified by the CDC including black women and other racial minority disparities and inequities, maternal and mortality disparities, Covid-19 racial disparities, and implicit bias. The Covid-19 Pandemic has affected many individuals and communities, and it is our job as Social Workers in social justice programs is to examine the disparities in healthcare and help advocate for minority groups.

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Our group chose to focus on health disparities among racial groups, specifically in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through our research, we highlighted the lack of access to care, differences in quality of care, the historical context of race and health disparities, and the changes that need to be made within the healthcare system to promote justice and equality. We included facts on this topic in an easy-to-digest, comprehensible brochure in an effort to spread awareness of the issues regarding health and race.

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Racism and Housing

From a standpoint that is both personal and professional, we have made the collective decision to focus our topic on racial injustice and access with particular attention centering on geopolitical and racial segregation. In other words, does my race not only limit where I live, but how I choose to do so?

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Our social and racial justice project focused on the housing element of racial injustice. We addressed this issue by defining the problem, finding related agencies, and listing the history and statistics regarding this problem. It is our goal to educate individuals on the magnitude of this issue while also providing resources to help combat it. Our intention is to reach an audience of people who have been victims of racial discrimination due to unethical housing practices.

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Racism and the Education System

Our racial and social justice project is an educational brochure created to highlight the issues regarding race in the education system. We wanted to cover a wide array of topics under the “Race and Education” umbrella, in order to raise awareness of the issues that are sometimes overlooked. The focus of our group’s project is to bring awareness to the racial disparities in the education system. We wanted to highlight aspects including how race can impact the quality of education, unequal access to opportunities, sociocultural and socioeconomic factors, poverty, micro-aggressions, racism, and diversity in the classroom.

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The focus of our group was racism and it’s impact on education. As a group we focused on some of the ways in which racism is highlighted in the education system and the evidence of it. Our intended audience would be the general public because when it is shared through social media, anyone is meant to see it and take information away from it, feeling they can make a positive change in their own micro/meso community.

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The transition period between high school and college is daunting. Various factors such as poverty, stigma, distance, confidence, and lack of financial aid comprehension serve as barriers for low-income high achieving students.

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Our social justice project focuses on the discrepancies that lie within the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of education and race. The disconnect is prevalent on the individual or group level, educational institutional level, and the federal education level. Our social action project is intended for educators, students, and the public. Receiving an education and identifying with a specific race are issues that are applicable to all individuals, but how these are interconnected and constructed based on race is unknown to many.

Racism and the Media

The Social Action Project for our group covers being anti-racist, with an emphasis on unity between Black and Asian communities. Due to the nature of current social events, including the rise in Anti-Asian sentiments and the ongoing four-week trial of Derek Chauvin on the murder of George Floyd, we thought it would be important to address some of the tensions between these communities, how to be an ally, and what it means to be anti-racist over just “not racist”. This is a social media initiative through Instagram with infographics as well as photos of protests meant to show mixed allyship.

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Our group decided to make a public service announcement of the harsh brutal truth of social media as it relates to racism. We, as a group, decided to find social media posts that were deemed racist, offensive, and wrong and put them together. Making this project was hard for us, being that these are things we witness every single day. We made this project hoping that everyone who watches it will see the insane language and pictures that are posted with rarely any consequences or sympathy.

Our group wanted to address the Asian American population that has been targeted by racism, especially during the pandemic. We felt a PowerPoint that could be used in presentations would be a good way to bring awareness, education, and advocacy to this issue. This is intended to be shown to as many people as possible to demonstrate how much discrimination Asian Americans have received and how we can help.

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Social Action Project Coordinators

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