Social Injustice : A Devastating And Crippling Effect On Persons

As individuals, we are diverse based on the background, experience, ability, race, language, etc. which impact the lens through which we view others and ourselves. As diverse individual, we may belong to dominant or non- dominant groups. Thus, either we have power and privilege or we experience discrimination and oppression. Further, we are shelled with diversity, ethnicity, and multiculturalism issues. Counselors have some ethical primary responsibilities to respect the dignity and promote the welfare of the client (A.1.a), “honoring diversity and embracing a multicultural approach in support of the worth, dignity” and “promoting social justice” (Herlihy & Corey, 2014, p. 3)

The first and most crucial step to solving an issue is to recognize that the issue actually exists. Many people fail to recognize that race has a correlation to the way that a person is treated in their society. In many aspects of American society, a person's race is a major determinant to how they are treated. Race impacts the way a person is treated in the workplace, by police and in the doctor’s office. Race grants privilege to those who it

As a result, it is imperative to take a look at current and historical oppressions that a client experience by being part of a minority social group or a group that does not conform to popular culture (Aviera, 2002). These oppressions will offer me a deeper insight into the source of challenges that a client faces. By merely looking at the individual without considering these oppressions, I could fail to determine what drives him to experience life the way that he does. Therefore, in order to build a practice that is useful to a different set of cultures, keeping in mind significant experiences encountered as a collective is fundamental in cultivating effective cross-cultural counseling

Thousands of immigrants moving to America during the turn of the nineteenth century have faced extreme diversity on their quests to fulfill their American dreams. Immigrants faced a multitude of hardships and battled prejudices that were rampant throughout America during this time period. However, for the most part, Hilda Polacheck, an immigrant emigrating from Poland made out fairly well in her life. Hilda experienced what it was truly like to be a poor working immigrant, however, she was able to break out of the poverty cycle and was determined to make the world a better place. With this success she was able to step back and look at the social injustices being committed in the United States clearly, without being blinded by the hardships and the tragedies of being a poor immigrant. Throughout Hilda’s Autobiography, as well as throughout history, an immigrant woman in the United States faced extensive discrimination as well as vast and often unjust limitations on their inalienable rights as citizens of the United States.

Due to the increase in racial and ethnic diversity in the United Sates there is a great need to provide counseling interventions that cater for social issues that are attributed to the racial and ethnic diversity. Presently, efforts are being made to implement social justice advocacy strategies and interventions into counseling practices. Thus, counselors are encouraged to be agents and advocates for social justice, oppression, and discrimination (Ratts & Hutchins, 2009). At the forefront of social justice counseling approaches, is the need to empower the oppressed or marginalized individual by confronting injustices and inequalities that affect the individual at the systemic level (Pedersen, Lonner, Draguns, Trimble, & Rio, 2015).

The need to provide mental health services to culturally diverse clients has increased over the past couple of years due to the increase in racial and ethnic diversity in the United Sates. Consequently, there is a need for mental health professionals to offer effective interventions that address social issues that accompany racial and ethnic diversity (Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007). Research shows that efforts are being made to implement social justice advocacy strategies and interventions into counseling practices. This growing movement calls for counselors to be agents and advocates for social justice, oppression, and discrimination (Ratts & Hutchins, 2009). Social justice counseling approaches focus on empowering the individual by actively confronting injustices and inequalities that affects clients in their systemic frameworks (Pedersen, Lonner, Draguns, Trimble, & Rio, 2015).

Race is a particularly powerful way of maintaining the dominance of the social group in power. The construct of race is about stratification, which puts a racially justified hierarchy among people in society to keep the dominant social group in power. Stratification can influence the resources an individual receives. Therefore, social workers sometimes use a theoretical approach called, Critical Race Theory (CRT), to guide their work in making certain general assumptions about issues of power, race, ethnicity, and racism. This is because CRT is an alternative theory that offers a radical lens to make sense of racial inequality in society, which could prove useful when analyzing a client’s situation. The

To effectively lessen the effects of lifelong racism and discrimination, Hays & Erford (2014) recommends a strength-based approach, with the counselor focusing on the individual and family capacities. Focusing on the client’s positive attributes and favorable cultural norms can encourage one to become more resilient (Vaterlaus, Skogrand, & Chaney, 2015). Furthermore, applying counseling skills such as unconditional positive regard, empathy, consistency, focusing on the client, and providing a supportive environment can all help the therapeutic relationship (Hays & Erford, 2014). Additionally, making the counselor/client relationship equal will also allow the client to feel more comfortable, may dispel the mistrust of counseling prominent in African American culture (Hays & Erford, 2014). Finally, acknowledging the racial differences with the client could encourage them to discuss the racism and discrimination they may have experienced (Hays & Erford, 2014).

Throughout my life, I have been plagued by racial injustices. These injustices introduced themselves at an early stage in my childhood and have continued to be prevailing issues as my adult life has progressed – racial injustice has never ceased to be something that I have had to concern myself with. It is no secret that racial injustice is prominent in more ways than one, which consequently has had huge impacts on individual people and communities. Although racial injustice has been a problem that has improved in some respects over the years, it still continues to significantly worsen in others. Nevertheless, the fundamental concern amid all of this, is the fact that racial injustice is still a prominent issue in society today. Because of

People always praise our world is beautiful and peaceful, but they ignore the injustices still exist and some of them without good solutions. Although people believe social injustices are unfair and will bring pain and tear, they are used to treating them as air because they never experience these unequal things. Likewise, the discrimination occurs both in upper class and regular class between Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. For example, there was an obvious discrimination happened in the speech of the Republican nomination for president election. At that time, Donald Trump, who was one of the speakers, believed that force illegal immigrants repatriation can be the best way to make America great again. Because Mr. Trump recognized these immigrants only bring drugs and crimes to the U.S., and they occupied a large number of jobs which made the unemployment rate increasing currently. In addition, he said if he becomes the president, he will declared three principals and two of them can be social injustices. Firstly, America has to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border that stowaway cannot enter America illegally. Secondly, the laws must be fully enforced illegal immigrants to go back to Mexico. In addition, Mr. Tramp is not the only person who gets rise to injustices, but the social injustices and discrimination also happened in various aspects.

Though the concept of social injustice is universal in nature, the experience varies with each person. Factors like a person’ race, or gender can further influence the severity of the injustice; victims caught in the overlap between discriminations often go unrecognized by the law and society. Many people recognize the names Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice as African Americans who were murdered by local police. But names like Michelle Cusseaux, Tanish Anderson, and Meagan Hockaday often receive less feedback even though they are also murdered African Americans. The only distinction between the sets of names is gender. Even within racial injustice, discrimination is present between genders as some cases get national

The notion of justice is existence of proper balance of rights and its access under the laws of land. It refers to not depriving any person from availing privileges, opportunities etc. John Rawls writes, "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override"It means that the interaction in a society must be free from any sort of discrimination such as religion, race, color, caste or sex. It ensures fair distribution of assets and equal opportunity. José P. Laurel defines Social Justice as “Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the state so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated.”

One of notable contributions of social psychology is research on social justice (Jost & Kay, 2010), racism, and prejudice (Ross, Lepper, & Ward, 2010). Within the topic of social justice, themes such as equality, equity, liberty, morality, and others are studied. The surge of academic attention in social justice post World War II partially attributes to the political interest in fighting fascism. Nevertheless, issues that are related social equality are continuing to be relevant today. A challenging aspect of this topic is a lack of consensus among scholars with regards to its definition. Moreover, understandings of social justice require integration of individual, group, and system level insights. Holding a balance between subjective and objective experiences with respect to what construed as just is essential. Understandings gained from research would assist researchers to identify obstacles to fair community including selfishness, laziness, human tendency to dehumanize perceived enemies, and common social misconceptions. Research results can assist the public to encourage dialogues integral to social justice (Jost & Kay, 2010).

Over the years in our country’s history it has been apparent that the idea of same sex marriages is becoming much more popular, however in most states there is still one thing stopping them. That one thing stopping two people from the pursuit of happiness which they desire is a social injustice. Social injustices are situations where a person or group of people is treated unfairly due to certain factors for example discrimination, prejudice, racism, heterosexism, sexism, and so forth. In the case of same sex marriages, the factor playing a major role in this social injustice is where most people believe that opposite sexes attract, but in the case of a same sex couple wanting to be married, this brings about many topics to be discussed by

When will we stop being unjust? Our society today is full of problems and issues. We not only experience economic and politic issues, but we face social problems as well. One main problem that our society must acknowledge is injustice. However, many members of our society are blind not to recognize that permitting unjust and unfair acts is an actual injustice. They believe it’s appropriate to judge others, to make inappropriate comments and to be disrespectful.