Confronting Injustice and Oppression [Paperback]

David G. Gil (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231106734 | ISBN-13: 978-0231106733 | Publication Date: April 15, 1998 0

How can injustice and oppression be overcome and prevented, regardless of who the victims are? What are the meanings, sources, and dynamics of these dehumanizing conditions? David Gil brings to these questions a lifetime of experience in social action and in social work practice and education. Writing for human services professionals, students, and activists, he sounds the call to embrace the core values of radical social work: equality, liberty, cooperation, and affirmation of community in pursuit of individual and social development. Gil identifies violence, unemployment, racism, and poverty as the chief injustices in society, and outlines the steps that must be taken in order to confront and abolish these through education and activism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An excellent theoretical framework for implementing policies and strategies to overcome the degrading conditions of injustice and oppression.

(Brian Henrie, Arizona State University Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Heal )

About the Author

David G. Gil is professor of social policy and director of the Center for Social Change, The Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare at Brandeis University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231106734
• ISBN-13: 978-0231106733
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #771,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautifully written book, June 3, 2000

By 

Katherine van Wormer (cedar falls, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Confronting Injustice and Oppression (Paperback)

David Gil writes beautifully on oppression in American society in a slim volume that should make a nice contribution to an academic course on oppression or simply for individuals who want to ponder American society and the kind of victim-blaming that seems ingrained in our Puritan heritage.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Class Book, November 5, 2006

By 

W. Kruckenberg - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Confronting Injustice and Oppression (Paperback)

I had to read the book for my Social Justice class. The book is extremely well written. The writing style is basically difficult to read and understand. The material is excellent, but it is written at too high of a level for normal people. I think there are other social work texts that are easier to read and understand. If you are very academically inclined, it is fine. For most of us normal people, I would say it is a bit too much to read. I would go to the library and read before class and was sure to put me to sleep. The academic material is excellent though and offers a challenge to understand it.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Applies Freire to American context, September 18, 2002

By 

Peter A. Kindle (Kansas City, Missouri) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Confronting Injustice and Oppression (Paperback)

Gil, working within the worldview of Paulo Freire (see Pedagogy of the Oppressed), presents theories, policies, and practices for social workers who wish to change more than the immediate ills affecting their clients. Social workers who wish to make an impact on the root causes of social disadvantages, termed "radical social workers" by Gil, are encouraged to embrace foundational assumptions that are, at a minimum, highly debatable.

For example, Gil postulates that human societies that existed prior to settlement into agricultural communities were egalitarian, cooperative, and harmonious. These hypothetical cultures are presented as free of domination, individualistic competition, and disregard for the dignity of others. Gil continues describing this "return to the native" utopia as one in which all work was voluntary and inherently self-motivated. The produce associated with community effort was apparently distributed equally in accordance to need.

Frankly, Gil's "historical" analysis is not convincing. The human proclivity to dominance and competitive interaction is most likely genetically innate since it is evidenced in our closest evolutionary cousins, the other Great Apes. In fact, the ascendancy of Homo Sapiens over Neanderthal may be best explained by the former's greater aggressiveness.

Another foundational thought that appears throughout Gil's work is the assumption that capitalism in inherently flawed. The surplus that results from the infusion of capital into the mechanisms of production becomes, in Gil's analysis, the root cause of social stratification and oppressive social structures. While Gil stops short of condemning private ownership of property, the reader cannot be faulted for considering this a logical conclusion consistent with his overarching premise.

It is hard to imagine how anyone can condemn capitalism since the fall of the Berlin wall. Since that time, every country previously denouncing private ownership and free markets has modified their position. China has embraced capitalism since re-acquiring Hong Kong and found significant growth of a new middle class even in provincial regions. Eastern Europe has forsaken communism, and there are free farmers' markets in Moscow. Castro's Cuba may be the single anti-capitalist nation left, and one cannot help wondering how much Castro's survival depends on the ready emigration of social dissidents to the United States.

Is there anything of value in this book? Surprisingly, there is much to commend it. Gil correctly emphasizes the structural obstacles to the elimination of poverty and oppression. He is probably correct in stressing employment-related issues as the most crucial element of structural problems.

He warns social workers that helping can become nothing more than another act of oppression. He challenges social workers to confront the structural causes impeding the progress of their clients. He advocates (along with Friere above and Charles Taylor in The Ethics of Authenticity) a commitment to dialogical processes to raise critical awareness, and he advises social workers on how to build a support system strong enough to withstand the opposition change advocates will inevitably encounter.

I can recommend this book as an exercise in critical analysis, as an introduction to a left-wing social work perspective, and as a challenge to agency-centered social work agendas. I cannot recommend this book as a pragmatic guide to revise contemporary social work policy or practice.