Digital Influx
3 min readJun 3, 2020

Silence Is Violence — The Design Community Cannot Stay Quiet

As many teams had their routine morning Zoom calls earlier this week, there was news that dominated all talks of COVID-19 and weekend plans. Strong sadness and anger lingers in the air along with telling ourselves and others that “It’s just another normal day”, because in so many ways it couldn’t be further from that.

Last weekend, protests were attended in cities worldwide to condemn the killings of George Floyd and many other black people that have died as a result of police brutality, such as Eric Garner, Belly Mujinga and Mark Duggan. Floyd was arrested in Minnesota on suspicion he used a counterfeit $20 bill and died after white police officer, Derek Chauvin, caused asphyxiation by kneeling on his neck after pinning him to the floor.

Despite social distancing measures, those in attendance were adamant in showing their support. Face masks were removed to chant ‘Black Lives Matter’ and Floyd’s heartbreaking, pleading last words of “I can’t breathe”, along with posters that featured similar messaging that were held in medical glove adorned hands.

What is so easily applied to the world of design — empathy, research, teamwork and problem solving — is preached but rarely practiced in the world around us. The dedication of understanding one another, being community-minded, and focus on creating solutions and better experiences has not been translated. These qualities are presented to many of us from a young age and will stay within us forever, but the teaching of racism interrupts that.

Brands and global corporations showing their support only goes so far. Internal structures need to be assessed as some may not match the message they are promoting. What is that brand’s/corporation’s ratio of white employees to people of colour? How many of those people of colour are in managerial or senior roles? Has that brand/corporation supported projects led by people of colour? Do their campaigns represent the cultural diversity of their target audience? Until there are evident answers for these questions, their support is just a token.

Having said this, employing a few people of colour in the workplace does not silence everything. Your work isn’t done just because you decided to be inclusive and promote diversity by using an equality-related buzzword. User and consumer experience cannot be adhered to if there is inequality behind the scenes — there is still work to be done.

It should be habitual to call out wrongdoing, but to use your power and skill set to rearrange systemic inequality, and to reimagine how your design ethic could make a better future, are skills that remain so necessary. Designers need to question who they are designing for, who they are not, as well as other decision makers in place. Organisations need to question how well equipped their creativity is, and how they can use that to make opportunities for people that are not white.

In all areas of working and social life, black people need allies to step up for them. We need to consume content about racial equity and justice, recognise and use white privilege, donate to funds that support black people, and contribute to black-owned businesses.

The design community cannot stay quiet when the injustice is so loud. Silence is violence.

Author: Sophie Hall

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