Storylines in racialized times: Racism and anti-racism in Toronto's social services

In the late 1990s I conducted an ethnographic study of how the everyday work world of left-of-centre social workers was socially organized around and by race, class and gender (Baines, 2001). According to my data, race was the most contested relation in the race, class, gender constellation. One aspect of this contested context was that the participants in my study spoke about race at the most length, in the greatest depth, and produced the most innovative critiques and insightful descriptions. While the research participants rarely spoke of race without simultaneously invoking class and gender, this article focuses on the race section of my larger race, class and gender story. The volume and quality of the data concerning race merited its own discussion particularly in light of the ongoing debates concerning how to move forward with an anti-racism project in this era of post-equity, neo-liberalism. This article details the actual form and content of racism and anti-racism in social work agencies, and presents some suggestions for local change strategies, as well as a larger framing for emancipatory social work practice. The study was conducted in Toronto, Canada and involved twenty-one self-defined, left-of-centre social work practitioners in a series of focus groups and interviews.