White Benevolence
Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions
New!
When working with Indigenous people, the helping professions —education, social work, health care and justice — reinforce the colonial lie that Indigenous people need saving. In White Benevolence, leading anti-racism scholars reveal the ways in which white settlers working in these institutions shape, defend and uphold institutional racism, even while professing to support Indigenous people. White supremacy shows up in the everyday behaviours, language and assumptions of white professionals who reproduce myths of Indigenous inferiority and deficit, making it clear that institutional racism encompasses not only high-level policies and laws but also the collective enactment by people within these institutions.
In this uncompromising and essential collection, the authors argue that white settler social workers, educators, health-care practitioners and criminal justice workers have a responsibility to understand the colonial history of their professions and their complicity in ongoing violence, be it over-policing, school push-out, child apprehension or denial of health care. The answer isn’t cultural awareness training. What’s needed is radical anti-racism, solidarity and a relinquishing of the power of white supremacy.
Contributors
Amanda Gebhard
Amanda Gebhard is a white settler scholar and assistant professor in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Regina. She has a long record of experience in antiracism education as a student, researcher and instructor in Education and Social Work Faculties. Amanda’s interdisciplinary research investigates racism and educational exclusions, the school/prison nexus and antiracist pedagogy and practice. She has published widely on racism and whiteness in education in the Canadian Prairies.
Sheelah McLean
Sheelah McLean, PhD, is a third-generation white settler who lives on Treaty 6 territory. Sheelah has worked in education for thirty years teaching high school, adult education, as well as graduate and undergraduate courses in antiracism at the University of Saskatchewan. Sheelah is also an organizer with the Idle No More network. As a scholar and community organizer, Sheelah’s work has focused on research projects and actions that address inequality, particularly focusing on how white dominance is created and maintained within a white settler society. Sheelah currently works as a curriculum developer for San’yas Indigenous Cultural Safety Training.
Verna St. Denis
Verna St. Denis is a professor of education and special adviser to the president on antiracism/anti-oppression at the University of Saskatchewan, where she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in integrated antiracist education for many years. She is both Cree and Métis and a member of the Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation. Dr. St. Denis is a widely sought-after speaker on the topic of racism in education. Her research and scholarship are in antiracist and Indigenous education, and she has published extensively on these topics.
