Social Work Policies and Services

The great depression was a tumultuous time in the history of the United States economy. As with all other forms of recession, the great depression was characterized by massive loss of revenue by the government, and this resulted in massive job layoffs, further heightened
the crisis. The large numbers of unemployed people meant that chances of social strife and the increase in petty crime were a likely consequence that the administration had to deal with. Since the Great Depression happened at a time when race relations in the US were still quite poor, the authority decided to put an African American at the helm of efforts to cut subsidies and social welfare programs that the African Americans had gotten used to (Lieberman, 2005). The argument was, African Americans were part and parcel of American society, they had an equal responsibility to ensure that the economy rebooted strongly.
This premise, however, had several flaws. In as much as it is necessary that all individuals form the active working class of any society, there ought to be certain prerequisite conditions before full responsibilities are adopted. Indeed, Blacks were expected to work just as hard as the whites. The social welfare programs that were in place sought to ensure there was a softer landing for the African Americans who for long had suffered segregation and job discrimination (Washington, 1936). These two realities ensured that the wealth gap between the whites and blacks would keep widening much to the dismay of many proponents of racial equality.  Therefore when President Roosevelt, appointed Forrester Washington to head the newly created Office of Director of Negro works in the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, it was clear that his work was cut out for him. Apart from having to convince his constituents, the Blacks, that the reduction in social welfare programs was for the sake of the entire country, he also had to rubber stamp other seemingly racially divisive actions that the government had to undertake to ensure the economy survived. Some of these measures were meant to foster economic growth by providing incentives to industrialists and wealthy members of the society, and this further ensured the wealth gap widened even further. These measures eventually made Washington forgo the position, and his decision was based on the latent injustice of the wealth gap further heightened by policies meant to reverse the effects of the Great Depression.
A cursory glance at Washingtons upbringing yields a coming to an age of thinking amongst the wealthy African Americans at the time (Banks, 1996). Washington was born and raised in an affluent environment where the full brunt of racism was far removed from his childhood and upbringing. He studied in the wealthiest schools such as Taft College, and Harvard University, where he pursued economics where he eventually graduated from Columbia University with a Masters Degree in social economy. With such an illustrious career, he managed to get into prestigious and well-paying positions of leadership and enterprise. The baffling matter, however, remains that he was still very much in touch with the plight of the poor Blacks, he barely knew. It was this inborn sense of empathy that clearly separated Washington from other wealthy African Americans who saw their lofty positions as a testament to their superiority over other blacks. In essence, Washingtons story demonstrated that social programs are not only a means of providing help to the undeserving.  Social programs can also serve as a form of corrective justice to bring the community to appreciate the input of the less privilege to the general wellbeing of the society (Katz, 2002).




References
Banks, W.M (1996). Black Intellectuals. New York: W.W. Norton.
Katz, M. B. (2002). Race, Poverty and Welfare: Du Bois legacy for Policy, Annals: American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. 568,111-127.
Lieberman, R. C. (2005). Shaping Race Policy: The United States in contemporary perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Washington, F. B (1936, June). Political action and social work. Social Work Today, 3(9), 7-9.