In as many years, 3 Black men have had their lives upended by wrongful arrests. Robert Williams, Michael Oliver, and Nijeer Parks were misidentified by facial recognition software, arrested, and held under suspicion of crimes ranging from petty theft to assault of a police officer. For Parks, who was accused of the more serious crimes of assault and eluding the police, the fight to clear his name went on for the better part of a year. Before his case was thrown out of court, and his name cleared, Parks would go on to spend 10 days in jai,l all due to …
Critical Social Justice
At first, you might be thinking, what does design have to do with liberation? You might feel a tinge of discomfort come over you, and a sigh of, “Is nothing safe from ‘wokeness’?” You’d be partially right. As our critical thought processes evolve, as binaries and ceilings become more expansive, we are forced to reckon with the pervasive, insidious nature of the oppressive, exploitative, white supremacist, capitalist, heteronormative, patriarchal structures we have all been indoctrinated into, voluntarily… and not. “Liberatory Design is an evolution of the design thinking methodology. It’s an approach to problem solving that helps people translate their …
It’s been over three decades since law professor, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality. The phrase was coined to—rather aptly—describe the ways our social identities overlap. “It’s basically a lens, a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other.” Kimberlé Crenshaw, Time: Inequality in America In her groundbreaking 1989 paper, Kimberlé Crenshaw pointed to the problems with considering racism and gender-based discrimination only as separate systems. In a recent TedWomen Talk, Crenshaw recites, unbeknownst to the audience, the names of male victims of police violence. She requested only that audience …
What Is Intersectionality and Why Is It Important Read More »
[Helen] Pluckrose believes there is an objective truth! She believes in one truth that is rooted in Western, White/European ideologies of a particular scientific method which denounces any other forms of truth. Of course, this is a dangerous assumption Helen Pluckrose, the founder of the site Counterweight*, has been outspoken in her critique of Critical Social Justice Theory (CSJ). In her article, What do we Mean by Critical Social Justice,” published earlier this year, Pluckrose attempts to explain her opposition to Critical Social Justice. She begins with the assertion that Liberalism and CST are quite similar and have shared goals, …