In the wake of the white supremacist marches in 2017, I wrote a short reflection on racial passing. In that essay I wrote about my Black mother, my white son, and the absurd mythologies of racial purity needed by white supremacists to support their beliefs. …

Suggestions for How We Begin to Achieve Equity by Design Co-authored by: Anne H. Berry, Jacqueline Francis, Ricardo Gomes, Alicia Olushola Ajayi, Ajay Revels, Jennifer Rittner, Raja Schaar, David J. Walker, Kelly Walters, Michele Washington (please see below for affiliations) Leaders in the design community have expressed their desire to…

A Proposed Rewrite as A Call to Action Among the many conversations black and brown design educators are having right now, is the question of what we wish our institutions would say in their public statements. While we recognize the good intentions in each of the statements released by our…

On March 3, 1991, an unarmed man by the name of Rodney King was beaten by police officers in Los Angeles, California during a traffic stop. He was one of the lucky ones. He lived. …

May 28, 2020 This afternoon, the department asked if I would be willing to say a few words on the “subject of inclusivity, relative to the thesis work and the state of the world we’re living in.” …

Civil Society’s Response to Instinct Over Reason We need to get honest about fear. I know from personal experience how deeply ingrained fear is. How difficult to combat. I have suffered from my own particular phobias for many years. These irrational fears are anxiety-inducing but not based in reality. The threats I feel as a result of…

A Mandate for Design Education The following essay was written and delivered at the 2018 Design + Diversity conference (founded by Antionette Carroll and Timothy Hykes) in St. Louis. …

Maybe this is it. The time when we get to talk about who you are to me. Who I was then and who you maybe thought I was. …

Maybe more than you think. The apple you ate. The road you walked along. The toilet you used. The words or wave or nod with which you greeted a neighbor. …