Street level bureaucrats (Lipsky) are people who carry out public functions (whether for a public agency or not), and who have contact with individual citizens. They have a certain level of discretion in their decision-making, when it comes to their professional activities. This means that they have some freedom when deciding what to do. Research points out that there exist continuums of power and authority and that in many instances, NGO’s, civil society and voluntary organisations can be regarded as the shadow state. The power and privilege of social workers, for example, has also been the subject of research.
So when Trump calls for ‘domination’ of George Floyd protestors, I think we should also recognize that there is a ‘continuum of domination’. The George Floyd murder has caused outrage, rightly so, in its pure blatancy. The nonchalant manner with which the officer kneeled on his neck and snuffed out his life was horrific.
However, I think it’s a good idea to question where we ourselves stand on the ‘continuum of domination’. In prisons….guards abuse their powers in small and big ways to dominate inmates. Social workers working with vulnerable families may not realise the ways in which their words in reports become crystallized into ‘truth’, or how their own prejudices feed into the ways in which they ‘serve’ vulnerable families. Silencing those who disagree with you is a form of domination. Lawyers and doctors who never take time to explain to marginalized groups what their professional jargon means are dominating their clients. Spiritual leaders who snuff out criticism are exerting a form of domination.
To think we are prejudice-free is an illusion. To think we could never do such horrific things is an illusion. To think we never wrongly assert our authority because we think we can get away with it is an illusion.
I’m asking myself where I am on the ‘continuum of domination’. Where are you?
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