Time to redesign America
The US wasn’t discovered, it was designed. It can be redesigned too.
In September of 2019, the documentary filmmaker Arlen Parsa posted a striking image on his Twitter feed. It was an altered copy of Declaration of Independence, a painting created almost 100 years ago. The painting shows a group led by Thomas Jefferson presenting a draft to the Continental Congress. The date is July 4, 1776.
He put a dot over every delegate who owned people…. nearly 75%.
Parsa’s alteration turned the painting from a hall of fame into a rogues’ gallery. He put a red dot over every delegate who owned people. Of the 47 depicted, 34 (nearly 75%) were engaged in what we would today call human trafficking.
Later that day, Parsa added a second image, in which yellow dots indicated all delegates who manumitted the people they had enslaved. It was a much smaller number, only eight.
These men, publicly and rightly shamed in Parsa’s image, are called our “Founding Fathers,” yet this affectionate phrase elides their true role in shaping our country. When I look at this painting, I see the co-design team that collaboratively created the United States of America.
When I look at this painting, I see the co-design team that collaboratively created the United States of America.
As in any co-design process, the delegates were designing with their own needs in mind. They were designing to protect the power of rich, white, able-bodied, land-owning, people-owning men like themselves. It was design for exclusion.
The majority of inhabitants were not merely overlooked in the original design, but were actively designed to be exploited by it….
The result is the country we see today. The majority of inhabitants were not merely overlooked in the original design, but were actively designed to be exploited by it: women, Black people, indigenous people, the poor. Others — such as queer, transgender, and disabled people — were designed to be invisible.
Viewed through this lens, the concurrent crises of the pandemic and its recession, systemic racism, the attack on democratic norms, and the climate crisis come as no surprise. They were designed into the system. And these systems are not only dysfunctional — they are killing us.
So, what do we do now?… We redesign…. wherever we are, as big as we can.
So, what do we do now? We redesign. We redesign programs. We redesign institutions. We redesign laws. We redesign culture. We redesign individual projects within nonprofits, foundations, businesses, and government. We redesign institutions like police departments, emergency response systems, and schools. We redesign laws and policies at the city, state, and federal level. We redesign wherever we are, as big as we can.
“Colonial, white supremacist organizational practices seem inevitable because they were so universally adopted…” Edgar Villanueva wrote in his 2018 book Decolonizing Wealth. “[T]hey still govern the great majority of our institutions, but they were design choices. This means that other choices are available, even when they seem far-fetched.” He continues:
We know what spaces and organizations look like… when they are inspired by the colonizers’ principles of separation, competition and exploitation. How would they be different if they were based on principles like integration and interdependence…?”
In 2016, one week after Donald Trump was elected president, Caroline Hill, Michelle Molitor, and Christine Ortiz published a Medium post that operated as a redesign manifesto. “Problem-solving is no longer about inventing things,” they wrote. “It is about recreating systems.” They named their redesign approach “equityXdesign.” It is a set of three interlocking principles to mitigate the harms of racism and inequity within design and to achieve equity. Each principle has a temporal focus:
- See: Recognize historical context, understand inherited legacies of privilege and oppression (past focus)
- Be Seen: Be radically inclusive, identify barriers to participation and eliminate them, welcome difference, create safety (present focus)
- Foresee: Invent, be forward-looking, understand that process is product (future focus)
Antionette Carroll, founder of the St. Louis-based Creative Reaction Lab and creator of the Equity-Centered Community Design (ECCD) method, elaborated on this approach in a 2018 TED talk:
If these different forms of oppression … are by design [then they] can be redesigned… creating a world that embraces the rights, dignity, and power of all people, especially people facing systemic discrimination.
She calls for a new type of leader — an Equity Designer — who:
- Puts people and equity first
- Is embedded within the community in which they work
- Builds upon existing resources to transform from within
- Uses good design process (make, test, iterate)
Creative Reaction Lab is training Black and Latinx youth to take on these roles. The Lab also proposes the role of “Design Allies” who leverage their power and access to benefit Equity Designers. Together, Equity Designers and Design Allies form a collaborative community of Redesigners for Justice.
“[I]f these different forms of oppression are by design, then they can be redesigned.” — Antionette Carroll
I am inspired by this new take on participatory design. Though design thinking has been part of the popular lexicon since the 1990s, these designers and visionaries push the idea beyond participation to social transformation.
Their approach also interweaves with the “design justice” framework developed by the Design Justice Network, founded in 2016, and described in depth in Sasha Costanza-Chock’s 2020 book Design Justice. Both the network and the book propose ten principles that center people normally marginalized by design:
There are many already doing the work of American redesign. In addition to Creative Reaction Lab and Design Justice Network, there are the national Equity Design Collaborative and AORTA Cooperative, Tusk Consultants in Portland, Reflex Design Collective in Oakland, Beytna Design in Redwood City, Project Inkblot and Public Policy Lab in Brooklyn, TakeRoot Justice in New York City, Allied Media Projects in Detroit, Design Impact in Cincinnati, Value Sensitive Design Research Lab in Seattle, Greater Good Studio in Chicago, 228 Accelerator, The Equity Lab in Washington, DC, Equity Meets Design in Orlando, and many others.
“Problem-solving is no longer about inventing things; it is about recreating systems.” — Caroline Hill, Michelle Molitor, Christine Ortiz
As I reflect on how Do Big Good can best use its skills and resources to participate in the American redesign project, I’m realizing that the expertise already exists. The organizations listed above, largely BIPOC-led, have been doing the work and developing their skills for years. How can Do Big Good amplify and expand their work?
Our work now is to… create a country that is equitable and just in a way the Founding Fathers never intended.
We have already pulled down the statues of America’s founders in the streets. We are beginning to pull them down in our minds. Our work now is to redesign America, to create a country that is equitable and just in a way the Founding Fathers never intended.
As Seattle-based community organizer Aretha Basu said recently, “We are building a world that none of us have lived in. We are building… as we lead.” There is brilliance, beauty, and hope in this work.
by Mer Joyce (she/her), founder and principal of Do Big Good, a Seattle-based firm that creates participatory design projects for social change. You can reach her at Mer AT DoBigGood DOT com.
