Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons
American Revolutionary: circa 1853-1942
Lucy Parsons was an African, Native and Mexican-American revolutionary anarchist labor activist from the late nineteenth and 20th century America. Emerging out of the Chicago Haymarket affair of 1886, in which eight anarchists were imprisoned or hung for their beliefs, Lucy Parsons led tens of thousands of workers into the streets in mass protests across the country. Defying both racial and gender discrimination, she was at the forefront of movements for social justice her entire life. She sparked rebellion and discontent among poor and exploited workers wherever she spoke, and her fiery, powerful orations invoked fear in authority nationwide.
www.thelucyparsonsproject.org
I thought I would start out with something a little more interesting than my rambling this time, as well as a little inspiration. Hence the blurb about Lucy Parsons- how rad is she? I read about her on Think Girl (www.thinkgirl.net), a website I'm digging lately (when I'm procrastinating from homework). Which relates to the question in my head this week: where is my activism? I got into social work because of some social justice-related courses I took my senior year of undergrad- I remember the urgency I felt to get out into the world and do something. And some of my previous non-profit work felt participatory and important. But now here I am, in academia, having interned at a school, an oh-so conventional setting, and now I'm at Child Welfare Services, an often dreaded governmental system that at times seems very punitive and non-preventive. I mean, our efforts to first make contact with families are called investigations. Sounds like the criminal justice system, right? I remember at orientation last year one of my professors said that we may be in social work for social justice reasons, but social workers have been, and continue to be, instruments of social control. I think I physically winced. I know it's true, but it's my least favorite thing about social work. Oh, and the pay. Well, plus the emotional exhaustion...
Anyway, I do very much believe there's value in my interning at CWS- I chose to, and am excited about the experience. And I know there are many amazing advocates working in child welfare, and we are always working with limited resources and money. But I guess I'm feeling very much a part of the system(s), which is not where this all began for me, and not where I hope to end up.
www.thelucyparsonsproject.org
I thought I would start out with something a little more interesting than my rambling this time, as well as a little inspiration. Hence the blurb about Lucy Parsons- how rad is she? I read about her on Think Girl (www.thinkgirl.net), a website I'm digging lately (when I'm procrastinating from homework). Which relates to the question in my head this week: where is my activism? I got into social work because of some social justice-related courses I took my senior year of undergrad- I remember the urgency I felt to get out into the world and do something. And some of my previous non-profit work felt participatory and important. But now here I am, in academia, having interned at a school, an oh-so conventional setting, and now I'm at Child Welfare Services, an often dreaded governmental system that at times seems very punitive and non-preventive. I mean, our efforts to first make contact with families are called investigations. Sounds like the criminal justice system, right? I remember at orientation last year one of my professors said that we may be in social work for social justice reasons, but social workers have been, and continue to be, instruments of social control. I think I physically winced. I know it's true, but it's my least favorite thing about social work. Oh, and the pay. Well, plus the emotional exhaustion...
Anyway, I do very much believe there's value in my interning at CWS- I chose to, and am excited about the experience. And I know there are many amazing advocates working in child welfare, and we are always working with limited resources and money. But I guess I'm feeling very much a part of the system(s), which is not where this all began for me, and not where I hope to end up.
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