Does it matter if the people who need to understand this are the least likely to read it?
Reflecting on the course Bias and Sensemaking at the Institute of Design
This poster is a reflection on the Bias and Sensemaking course with Professor Ruth Schmidt. Throughout the course, I collected quotes that struck me, resonated with me, or made me think. These were collected from both the readings and the reading reflections students wrote up at the start of each class.
Taking a look at all the quotes as a whole, themes start to emerge: namely around the difference between diversity, inclusion, and equity, with smaller groupings around tokenism and performative equity. Here a minor tension starts to emerge. While diversity helps give a voice to minorities and those traditionally under-represented in our line of work, these voices aren’t fully heard or understood until people are comfortable in pointing out flaws in the system without the threat of any form of backlash. Diversity, while helpful, only shows us a part of the picture. This reminded me of the phases of the moon, and I chose to represent this tension in this way.
But a larger tension that kept coming up throughout this course was the fact that the people within the course are also the people that are most aware of this minor tension. On the other hand, those with power, and those that fight to keep exclusionary power structures in place are also the least likely to take a course like this or attempt to learn more about their biases and expand their cultural knowledge.
