The Responsibility of Being Inclusive Falls on Your Shoulders
Over the next 10 weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from my book, Our Exclusive Society: Pathways Toward Inclusion by Design, in this article series. Our Exclusive Society launched on August 5th, 2020. Here is the link to buy it https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641379723! If you want to connect, you can reach me via email (rhrodney97@gmail.com) or connect with me on Twitter @RachelHRodney1.
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A community that pops into mind when thinking about exclusion are people with disabilities. We’re starting to better understand the challenges they face, which is why laws making things more accessible, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, have been put in place. Big names such as Beyoncé, Nike, and Domino’s Pizza have had lawsuits filed against them for not being ADA compliant in their services.
Here’s a statistic: The World Health Organization (WHO) says that 15 percent of the world’s population has some form of disability. This is over one billion people [1]. Additionally, the WHO says that “rates of disability are increasing due to population aging and increases in chronic health conditions, among other causes.” Many of us already have a disability — seen or unseen — and if we don’t, we may develop one as we age.
Here’s another statistic: By 2044, the populations we consider as minorities are going to become the majority in the US [2].
These two statistics show that the people of our world are diverse in many ways, whether it be physical ability or cultural roots. With this much diversity, why aren’t we already inclusive? It could be because of our individualistic nature, which leads us to design for ourselves. Or it could be because we just don’t know how.
People who make anything for other people need to approach their work with an inclusive mindset. This can include building infrastructure, designing physical or digital products, planning opportunities, or developing tools. At each step — from coming up with the idea to testing it — inclusion should be a consideration. But inclusion isn’t going to be part of any process unless people (a) know about it and (b) care.
Misconceptions about inclusive creation make people unwilling to pursue it. However, companies have a lot to gain by being more inclusive — starting with having an inclusive mind. A way to do this is by having an inclusive workplace. This naturally feeds into creating more inclusively through each person influencing others and sharing their different views and experiences. Some statistics from Teamable show just how much a company can benefit with more inclusion in its workplace [3]:
- 2.3 times more money
- 1.7 times more likely to be leaders of innovation in that industry
- 70 percent more likely to grow into new markets
But personally, I’m not driven by these statistics. What motivates me to do my part in creating a more inclusive society is the hundreds of stories of exclusion that are affecting us every day.
So . . . Why Should We Care?
Nelson Mandela said that “freedom cannot be achieved unless the women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression.” I believe that this is the same case for all marginalized communities. We, as a society, will be captives to harmful stereotypes and assumptions that lead to destructive action if we do not become more inclusive. In light of the events of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed how quickly people can become susceptible to xenophobia, and how crucial (and possible) digital accessibility is. The abhorrent injustices highlighted by the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor and the painful country-wide response is the only way people feel like they can be heard. The black community is done with being discriminated against. They are done with being seen as lesser. And our exclusive society is what enables this prejudice. We must stop, because it is devastating our communities.
Did you know that in China, Muslims are being put into “re-education” camps? It’s been happening for years, but what is anybody doing about it? In India, rural communities are being taken advantage of by powerful people, and young children are forced to go into dangerous mines for mica — the powder that makes our makeup sparkle. Why isn’t their government involved? And here, in the US, why don’t we hear about the police brutality against the LGBTQ+ community, especially against people of color?
When I first started writing this book, I thought I wanted to focus on accessible design. However, the more I learned about the communities being excluded in society, the more I discovered that this book is really about the people making our society more inclusive.
I was compelled to write this book about inclusion because exclusion is something I have felt growing up. Something a Korean girl said to me one time pretty much sums it up:
“Wow, you’re biracial? I really want my kids to be biracial too, so that they can be part of two cultures!”
This was an interesting concept, but sometimes it’s like being part of neither. There was always something off about the way I felt with either primarily Korean kids or primarily white kids. This was in the back of my head as I started at the University of Washington (UW) in the STARS (STate Academic Red Shirt) program to improve diversity in UW’s engineering departments. Over the first couple years, I heard about people’s hardships and how much they had to fight for themselves to get to where they were. By the time I entered the department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, I began seeing and thinking about how other factors of a person’s life could also lead to exclusive experiences.
And as I saw the exclusion, I started also seeing the efforts being made to foster inclusion. However, I didn’t have the resources to actually learn about all of these things from my classes. Knowing that something exists and knowing how to do it ourselves are two very different things. To learn more, I sought out people in the community that were making an impact by “inclusifying” experiences affected by exclusion.
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Enjoyed this excerpt? Stay tuned, I will be posting stories based on interviews I had through researching the book over the next 10 weeks!
Sources
[1] “Disability and health,” Newsroom, World Health Organization.
[2] “Inclusion and Employee Diversity: Here are the Numbers,” Analytics in HR.
[3] “6 Statistics That Will Convince You to Prioritize Diversity & Inclusion,” Teamable Blog, Teamable.
