3 Ways White Designers Can Support the Black Lives Matter Movement
We are seeing a lot of workers walk-out or sign-off at their companies and taking to the streets to be in community with their black coworkers. This is an immense show of solidarity for the black community and it’s a great way to get the point across to your company about how change must happen. A few companies are responding in support of the protests while others are not supportive. Many companies still yet to remain silent. However, in addition to protesting on the streets, there can be other powerful ways to support your POC coworkers.
1. Speak Up At Your Company
This is a time of grief. If you think your coworkers are not being impacted, you’re wrong. You can read a beautifully written piece from Shenequa Golding about how your coworkers are Maintaining Professionalism in the Age of Black Death. Protesting is powerful, but so is making sure that your coworkers have a strong support system at work. Talk to HR to see what their policy is around supporting diversity and inclusion. If your company offers mental health benefits, make sure your company is sharing these resources to everyone. If your company doesn’t provide these things, work with your company to try and get something started. Offer suggestions, do some research for them.
Stand up against racist or discriminative conversation in the workplace. Choose not to laugh at insensitive jokes; if you can, call them out. Not every workplace may be filled with blatant racist comments, but racial micro-aggressive conversation is very common in work environments. Learn how you or your coworkers are contributing to this kind of talk and find solutions to prevent it.
Find ways you can provide a more inclusive work environment. It is an ongoing process and it will be a major challenge to help build an inclusive work environment, but the benefits for your coworkers will far exceed a day of protesting.
2. Pro-Bono Work
That’s right. You probably already promote your designs on spaces like Dribbble and Behance, so why not put all that free design work to good use? There are many black-owned businesses or organizations that support black lives that could greatly use your help. One of the many struggles with owning a business is the creative direction behind their business. Many business owners have ideas of how to promote their products but are not familiar with the tools or proper technique to design their product. This is where you come into play. Offer your design services for free to help black-owned businesses become a bigger competitor in their industry. As businesses are struggling to learn how to adapt to a COVID-19 economy, they need UX Designers to help them make the shift to digital.
Nonprofits always struggle with raising funds. Specifically when that funding is for administrative tasks like website updates, designing brochures, or marketing campaigns. Typically, donors only want their funding to go towards the projects that have the greatest impact, which is why funding for administrative tasks always get put on the back-burner. This is where you can provide your expertise as a designer. Offer your design services to local nonprofits in your area that support black communities.
This is also a great way to build a portfolio for people trying to start a career in UX Design. Put your education and design skills to work. Start with small design tasks as a way to not take on a large task that you won’t be able to complete. This will also help earn a nonprofit’s trust and be able to give you larger tasks, like improving a nonprofits donation process, or update their website.
3. Get Educated
No seriously. Educate yourself. Do not rely on your coworkers to answer your questions. In a time of grieving when people are hurt, angry, confused, and scared, the last thing anyone needs is to be interviewed by you. 45 million search results for “how to support black coworkers” should be plenty of material to get you started.
When we hear conversations about how systems are designed to oppress people of color, we neglect to acknowledge how we as white people contribute to those systems. When we see racists in the news or online saying harmful things, we disassociate ourselves from them, pat ourselves on the back and affirm ourselves: ‘that’s not me’. What we need to educate ourselves on as white people is the difference between racists and racism. What we will learn is the conditioning and the societal advantages we have been given as white people that still continue to contribute to a racist system.
Think about your work as a designer and the areas where this conditioning may occur. If your company has created personas that are used for user-centered design, what do those personas look like? Are the personas diverse or do they all tend to look the same? What about your marketing material? Do you notice any commonalities in the type of people used in images that promote your company? Notice the type of people you have zoom meetings with throughout the week.
None of us (white people) are immune from benefitting from a racist system. Educating yourself in how you may be contributing to this system is important to combat racism and how white people benefit from that system while other communities suffer. Trevor Noah does a fantastic job explaining this white privilege that exists in America.
Here is where you will struggle the most.
Courage. It can be easier to join a crowd of thousands of protesters than to be the only one in the room to speak up. As you work to create a more inclusive work environment for your coworkers, you will get push back. Again, we are working to fight against a system that many people benefit from so resistance is inevitable. You will fail. You will not get it right the first time. You will feel like no one is listening. People will get offended. People will tell you to stick to designing. But I hope that if there is one thing that your skills as a UX Designer has taught you is how to be empathetic. It is in fact your job to speak up. It is in fact your job to show empathy when people around you may not be. It is your job to empathize and advocate for your users, whether those users are internal (coworkers) or external.
