Social Work and Race

Today in training, they were talking to us about some common values/traits in different kinds of families.  Well, they did not do the greatest job ever (although not awful either) and so we launched into a conversation about race, how we approach different families, and theories about why Black and Native American children are overly represented in the child welfare system.

So this got me thinking: does any other profession discuss race as much as social workers?  A core class in all MSW programs is a diversity/ cultural competency/ racism class.  Does any other profession have this?  Not that I can think of.  And I am glad that we do.  It is an important class and important topic for social workers to be thinking and talking about all the time.  Of course, it is not easy because we as a society have difficulty talking about it.  So maybe we social workers can be a sort of group of leaders on this front.