What's Social Abuse

In Episode 2 of the Social Abuse Podcast,host Vanessa Calloway gets into the heart of what is show is built on, defining, naming, and exposing social abuse in all places it hides. 

With over 30 years of front-line experience working with the unhoused community,  Vanessa doesn'  speak theory. She speaks from what she has lived, witnessed, and refused to stay silent about. This episode is where real conversations begin. 

Transcript

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Let me ask you something. Have you ever been in a situation where you were being mistreated? Not necessarily physically, not even maybe with words, but you just knew deep in your gut that something was wrong. That you were being treated as less than. That the system, the organization, the people around you were doing something harmful. And no one was calling it what it was. That feeling has a name. It's called social abuse. And today we're going to a talk, we're going to talk about exactly what that means. I am your host, Vanessa Callaway. And if this is your first time, I'm so glad you're here. Go back and listen to episode one when you get a chance. I share my story, my 30 plus years of work with the Unhoused community, and the full mission behind this podcast. But right now, let's get into it. Hmm. Get into what you say. So in episode one, I told you that one of the core purposes of this show is to raise awareness about social abuse. I told you that you cannot fight what you cannot name. So today, that is exactly what we're doing. We're giving it a name, we're defining it, we're pulling it out of the shadows and pulling it right here in the light where we can all look at it. So what exactly is social abuse, you may be asking yourself. Well, I'm glad you asked. When most people hear the word abuse, you think of something physical, right? You think of bruises and violence, something that you can actually see with your eyes. But abuse is so much broader than that. And social abuse specifically is one of the most widespread, most damaging, and most overlooked forms of harm that exist. Social abuse is systematic. So social abuse is the systematic mistreatment of individuals or groups through social, institutional, and community-based actions that strip away dignity, limited access to resources, isolate people from support, or re-enforce their exclusion from society. Let me say it in a different way. Social abuse happens when systems, institutions, organizations, or even communities. Yep, possibly the one that you're living in treat people as if they don't matter. As if they are a burden. As if their needs are not worthy of real attention or real resources. Sometimes it's baked into policy, sometimes it's in a way the services are designed. Right. You heard me. Yep. Sometimes it's in your design service providers. Sometimes it's in the language we as people use. And sometimes, quite honestly, it's very intentional. And the people, the people I'm referring to, the ones that are doing it intentional, they're just hoping nobody notices. And here's what I want you to understand: social abuse doesn't just happen to the unhoused, it happens to the people that are trying to serve them too. I've seen it, I've lived it. There are organizations out in these communities, newer organizations, grassroots organizations, organizations led by people who actually look like and come from the communities that they're serving, who are doing real meaningful work, but they don't have the deep pockets, they don't have the long-standing political relationships, they don't have the right people in their corner. And what happens to them? Do they get in a room, you may ask? Yeah, they get in there barely. Now you're running late for something and you barely meet it before the door closed. Picture that. Their ideas are heard, but not listened to. Because when we listen to people, action follows. Their suggestions are noted and then quietly set aside. There's an unspoken expectation. You are here to execute, not to lead. You are here to do the work, not to shape the direction. So stay in your lane, take the contract, and don't ask too many questions. You know, if you're a parent or if you grew up in the era that I grew up in, back then parenting was a little bit different. And there was this stay in a child's place, right? Speak when spoken to. To reach communities, they can't access themselves. And you may say, what you mean they can't access? Because see, homelessness, social abuse, it's not new. It's some things that we've put names to. So the trust and there's some damage, and there's the lack of integrity that have been established decades prior to now. And so they can't access or reach the people because there's no trust there, so to speak. Right? So they use smaller organizations as a buffer, as the face, to reach communities they can't access themselves to check that diversity box. Because every grant has boxes that you have to check off. And some of those grant requirements is diversity. So they use smaller organizations as a buffer to reach communities they can't access themselves to check a diversity box to point to as proof they're doing something. But there is a but. The moment those organizations start advocating too loudly, pushing back too hard, or asking, what are you really doing with the money? Suddenly, the contract doesn't get renewed, suddenly the collaboration gets a little colder, suddenly, the phone calls take a little longer to be returned. And sometimes it's none of those. Or sometimes it's a combination. Once the collaboration gets a little colder, you have smaller organizations that then have to weigh out the social abuse, the mental stress, the discrimination. And ask themselves a question: do I continue down this path? Because physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, I am being stripped. I am being pressured, I am being weighed down, and I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. So, with that pressure, what some organizations do, they get a two fingers. Peace out. Let me figure it out another way. But if I'm not here to do the work, who's gonna do it? Right? So they walk away. We'll talk about that in another episode. But this is how systems keep themselves intact by absorbing the voices that could challenge it and neutralizing them. So if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. True partnership means your voice shapes the outcome, not just your labor. True partnership means your voice shapes the outcome, not just your labor. If you're being used without being valued, that's not partnership. That, my friends, is exploitation. Dressed up in non-profit language. So in this segment, we learned social abuse doesn't just happen to the people that's being served, it happens to the people brave enough to serve them too. So you may be asking, what does social abuse look like, Vanessa? I'm gonna share six with you today. So I want to get a little bit more specific because social abuse is not abstract, it shows up in real concrete ways, especially in the world I spent 30 years working in. So let me walk you through, like I said, these six examples. Number one, dehumanizing language. Dehumanizing language, the way we talk to people matter. And there were certain words that we couldn't say, and the Bible tells us, God's word tells us that life and death lies in the tongue, right? So it tells us that what we say is important, and people are important to God, so they should be important to us, and how we talk to them should be important. So dehumanizing language, the way we talk to people, when unhealth individuals are referred to as the homeless, those people, those homeless people, as if homelessness is their entire identity. That is social abuse. When people in need are called burdens, liabilities, or problems to be managed rather than human beings to be served, that is social abuse. Language shapes how we treat people. And degrading language is often the first step toward degrading treatment. Number two, systemic exclusion. This is when systems are designed, whether intentionally or not, in ways that can that that keep certain people out. Think about services that require ID to access, but offer no help obtaining one. Think about shelters with rules so restrictive that the people who need the most can't meet them. Think about resources that exist on paper, but are but are practically impossible to reach without transportation, a phone, or a permanent address. The gap between what's promised and what's accessible, that's social abuse. And I want to pause there for a moment because some of my listeners, you're local, and you may say, well, Vanessa, that's not the case in Richmond, right? Um we have transportation for our unhouse. We even have X, Y, and Z. So this one may not apply to Richmond, but I want to be clear: this podcast is not solely for Richmond, California. This podcast isn't solely just for California. This is nationwide, and there are things that are transpiring nationwide that I'm quite sure if not all one, at least one of these examples pertain to your county, your city, or your state. Moving on to three. Number three, silencing and disempowerment. This is one of those that's close to my heart because when people most affected by a problem are never invited into the room where decisions are being made about that problem, that social abuse. We talked about it a few moments ago in an earlier segment, how you may have made it into the room barely, you may be sitting at the table, you may be able to voice your thoughts, but you're not being listened to. So this takes it a little bit further. When someone shares their experience and is dismissed, talked over, or told they don't understand their own situation, that, ladies and gentlemen, is social abuse. The audacity to tell me what's best for me and not hear my experience or tell me my experience isn't my experience at all. Removing someone's voice from their own story is one of the most profound forms of harm there is. Number four, institutional neglect. When organizations and agencies have the resources, the funding, and the mandate to care for people and they don't. That is social abuse. When contracts are renewed year after year for programs that aren't working, while the people those programs are supposed to serve continue to suffer, that is social abuse. Let's take a pause. To the parents there, our educators, you know, IEP, Independent Educational Plan. This is a program in place to help support our students, right? And so you have a team of individuals that come together that put a plan in place for the young person. Now, with this IEP, there should be some progress because when the next IEP meeting takes place, there should be those from the original meeting saying, This is where Lil, Timmy, Johnny, give it a name, give them a name, have improved. But if there isn't any improvement, there still needs to be a discussion because something needs to be tweaked, right? An IEP wasn't created to stay the same. There should be progress. It grows as the child grows, right? Institutional neglect. So I want you to listen and I want you to hear this next two sentences I'm about to say. Neglect is not passive, period. Neglect is a choice. Number five, community stigma. You've heard it. Not in my neighborhood. Yeah, I want them to get help. Not in my backyard, though. I don't want them here. This is what happens at the neighborhood level, right? When communities mobilize to keep unhoused individuals out. Not out of legitimate safety concerns, but out of discomfort, bias, and a desire not to see poverty, that is social abuse. When people are treated as less deserving of public space, public services, or basic human dignity because of their circumstances, that is social abuse. I want to add to that because there are some communities that feel like we gave it a try. We said, okay, but at the government local level, we were let down. There was no accountability from local government or local service providers. And I, you know, it's not just the responsibility of our local government, we as community members have a responsibility as well. So I'm gonna say that last part again. When people are treated as less deserving of public space, public services, or basic human dignity simply because of their circumstances, that is social abuse. Number six, the bust them out approach. And I use air quotations only because it's not always through a bus method, right? And so this is something that I witness personally. Um, and I believe that sometimes our most powerful examples aren't those that are in textbooks or You know, in of that nature, but they're the ones that we experience ourselves or that um we hear from other people who have experienced them, right? And so when when living, I used to live in Seattle, Washington, and I attended church in Bellevue, Washington, and I witnessed something that still sticks out to me today. So if you know anything about Bellevue, Bellevue is a wealthy city and affluent city, a city that prides itself on appearance, right? Its cleanliness, its image, its reputation as a place that has it all figured out. And what did they do with their unhouse population? They redirected them right out of the city. They literally shifted the unhouse individuals from Bellevue into Seattle. Out of sight, out of mind, problem solved, right? No. The problem wasn't solved, not even closed. To see whether I'm in Richmond, Texas, Arizona, or Bellevue, Washington, I'm still called to love on the unhoused. So I was tasked with an outreach project, so to speak, um, to get into the community. And so for me, unhoused is near to me. I lived in Seattle. I'm new to the area. I see all the homelessness taking place and the unhoused on the streets of Seattle. Bellevue didn't see it. So I began to ask questions. Okay. So out of sight, out of mind, problem solved, except the problem wasn't solved, not even close. Those were human beings with stories, with struggles, with needs that didn't disappear just because they crossed the city line. Bellevue didn't address homelessness, they exported it. They sanitized their city on the backs of the most vulnerable people in it. And they called it a solution. That is social abuse in one of the most naked forms. Using power and resources not to help people, but to hide them, to make a city look good while doing absolutely nothing to make people's lives better. I want you to hold that image in your mind. Because it's not unique to Bellevue. This happens in cities and counties across the country. The names change, the methods vary, but the message is always the same. Your suffering is acceptable as long as we don't have to look at it. For those of you located here in the Bay Area, think about election seasons or the prominent events that take place in San Francisco. The city streets where each city block in certain areas you see are unhoused brothers and sisters. When these events and these prominent people come to town, what happens? The streets are sanitized, and those that were once very visible are displaced to another location out of sight, out of mind. But those of us that care had questions. We have questions, it's never okay. And you may say, well, why? Well, money is part of the why, right? Money is part of it because you have prominent people coming in. Funding and money is public record in most cases. And so when cities, states, and organizations are receiving these funds and saying they're doing X, Y, and Z with it, but then when people come to visit and they see the problems still exist at the same level when the money was received, then there's questions. And so those with power try to eliminate those questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about social abuse why naming it matters. Some of you might be sitting there thinking, girl, I hear you. But does it really matter what we call it? Does it matter what someone calls you? As parents, and even in education, we're taught how positive reinforcements help with our young people, right? It builds their self-esteem. Um, how if you have two kids and you call one stupid on a regular basis and you um reinforce um positivity in the other, the behavior, the mentality is different. It doesn't change when we become adults. So, yes, it absolutely does. And here's why. When we don't have a name for something, we can't organize around it, we can't hold anyone accountable for it, we can't build policy to address it. People who experience it are left feeling like something is wrong with them rather than recognizing that something wrong is being done to them. I have sat with people, people who have been shuffled through systems, denied services, talked down to, ignored, disrespected, and discarded. People aren't meant to be discarded. Trash is discarded. These people who have been talked down to, disrespected, discarded, ignored, they blame themselves. They internalize the message that society has been sending to them their whole lives, that they don't matter, that they are the problem, that the sickness, be it mental illness, addiction, or just one bad decision, dictates the rest of their lives. So you see, naming social abuse is an act of restoration. It says what happened to you was real, it was wrong, and it has a name. And once we name it, we can figure it out, social abuse, social abuse, say it with me, social abuse, because when we hear social, you know that sounds fun, but then when it's followed with abuse, it's unsettling, and if it isn't, it should be. So you may be asking, where do we go from here? Over the coming episodes, we're gonna dig in into every layer of this. We're gonna look at social abuse inside the shelter system, inside government policy, inside the contracts that govern how services are funded and delivered. We're going to hear from people who have experienced it firsthand. And we're going to have the hard conversations with people in power who have the ability and the responsibility to change it. And I want to say here again, it's not only the responsibility of government. We as community members have a responsibility as well, even if we feel our responsibility is to hold government accountable. Okay? Because social abuse, it doesn't survive in light, right? We know the saying, only light can drive out darkness. The more we talk about it, the more we name it, the more communities understand what's happening in their communities, the harder, the hard it, the harder it becomes to ignore. So I'm not here just to bring it to your attention. Yes, that's the first step. That's the first layer. But I'm here to give you language. I'm here in hopes that you will join me wherever you may be in making that change. And so if you're an organization and you want more um one-on-one or group sessions for your coworkers or the people that you're working with, there's some consulting that's available. You can email me at W2, the number two, L as in Love, consulting at gmail.com and schedule a consultation. All right, y'all. That was episode two. We started with deep breath in. Let's exhale. And so we defined social abuse. We looked at what it looks like in the real world from dehumanizing language to systematic or systemic exclusion to the manipulation of smaller service providers, to cities literally redirecting their unhoused neighbors out of sight. And we talked about why naming it is the first and most important step toward bringing some restoration. Now, I have to tell you what's coming up in some of our future episodes because I am so excited about this. In an upcoming episode, we are going to sit down with some very important voices from right here in Richmond, California. We'll be joined by Richmond City Council candidate. He's known as Southside Son, Brandon Evans. We'll also be joined with Richmond Mario candidate Dimlis Johnson, as well as our current Richmond City Council member, Dr. Jamila Brown. We're going to have a real unfiltered conversation about what accountability looks like at the local government level, about funding, policy, community care, and what it looks like, what it truly takes to lead with integrity on these issues. That is a conversation. I'm telling you, you do not want to miss. Until then, share this episode, leave a review. If you're watching on YouTube, share it, like it, subscribe, hit the bell. Talk about it at your table. Talk about it with your coworkers, with your neighbors, in your community. The more people who hear this conversation, the more pressure builds for the changes we all know is overdue. I am Vanessa Callaway, and this is the Social Abuse Podcast. Remember, there's a way to love that is right. Let's get to work.