Social Workers advocate for social justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

A person wrote in a post on a listserv I participate on for mental health professionals:

However, the actual political policy is not the main point of this post.

Rather, it is the growing atmosphere of divisiveness and exclusion in American society that concerns me, and especially, many of my patients. These include but are not limited to women, people of color, people with disabilities, people who do not identify as cys-gendered, people not born in the US, people with accents, and people who identify as non-Christian.

People who are many of our patients.

As a Social Worker I am proud of the Social Work Profession's long history of advocating and working for social justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. Our profession was founded in the earlier days of immigration in the late 19th century with the establishment of "settlement houses."

From a NASW web page on Social Work history:

Since the first social work class was offered in the summer of 1898 at Columbia University, social workers have led the way developing private and charitable organizations to serve people in need. Social workers continue to address the needs of society and bring our nation’s social problems to the public’s attention.

Today, Americans enjoy many privileges because early social workers saw miseries and injustices and took action, inspiring others along the way. Many of the benefits we take for granted came about because social workers—working with families and institutions—spoke out against abuse and neglect.

Social Workers have a long history and much knowledge and skills in working at the macro as well as at the mezzo and micro levels.

Social Work is the largest mental health profession in the United States and probably in the world. Our training is based on a systems model or person- in-situation. What is needed at this point in human history are professionals who are skilled at community organizing and advocacy.

As a Social Worker I don't think we are impotent in the face of the challenges you both describe. We are in strategic places to instill knowledge, skills, and opportunities to empower people to advocate and implement more socially just policies and programs.

The groups often described such as Christian Nationalists, white supremacists, homophobic, misogynistic, and racist proponents are a minority in the US but they get a tremendous amount of media exposure because advertisers have learned that media consumers like drama and the more dramatic the better. Our media environment has become like WWE and the more sensational the better because of its entertainment value that captures attention. The oligarchs fund this constant circus to distract people from their grift and to retain and enhance their power.

Those who control the algorithms that feed people their media content and frame their choices are now running the world. A couple of important steps we can take with our clients is to go underground, get off the media train that is conditioning people's thinking, and create new systems of opportunity for people to take back control of their own lives and well being.

There are many good people in our communities doing good work who are just, kind, and compassionate. They need to be recognized and supported by well meaning, compassionate people who are not part of the oppressive systems which are exploiting people in our society.

Just this past week, one of our own, mentioned the Open Path Collective which I joined. It is a small step forward to create more humane systems of providing psychotherapeutic services which are not incentivized by a desire to make a profit.

If you haven't seen The Social Dilemma on Netflix you should and we can discuss some of these issues further.