{"id":5600,"date":"2020-09-30T15:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klipklaar.nl\/geen-onderdeel-van-een-categorie\/more-color\/"},"modified":"2023-07-12T09:03:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T08:03:18","slug":"more-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klipklaar.nl\/en\/not-part-of-a-category\/more-color\/","title":{"rendered":"More color"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the end of November is the User Central conference<\/a> and I am hosting it this year. This week I spoke to one of the speakers and she told me that she did not want to be at an all-white conference. She did have some names of good speakers of color that we could invite, possibly instead of her if there was no more room in the program.<\/p>\n\n

In this blog my thoughts about, from where I can see, there are few designers of color working in the Dutch government and why that is a problem. <\/p>\n\n

A very white frame<\/h2>\n\n

A month before my interview with the speaker in question, I was looking for great speakers to shortlist. I obviously wanted a lot of good women who really have something to say, after all, there are quite a lot of them. Of course some men, but no pancakes please, they too should really have something to report. I looked proudly at my list which secretly had more women on it than men, gna gna. You get it, I’m well sick of these all-male conferences. <\/p>\n\n

Only, my list was very white. That bugged me. I searched on, but wasn’t really sure how. If you search for designers or anything with “design thinking” in combination with “government” on LinkedIn you will scroll through lists of white people. In my own network (and it is not small) there are also mostly a lot of white people. Asking out loud on Twitter for tips, I felt quite a bit of trepidation there. How do I formulate that question? <\/p>\n\n

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After the video call, I lingered on the call with co-organizer Robert. We both wanted things to be different. Of course we were going to ask someone from her list, but the following days it stayed in my head. Why do I know so few designers of color in the Netherlands? I’m sure there are, there must be. <\/p>\n\n

“How do you start?” I asked Robert. “Do I just pop on Twitter: ‘hello, designers of color, where are you?” “Yeah, maybe that’s the beginning.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Design in government is too white and that’s a problem<\/h2>\n\n

The core of design thinking is that you start with people. The human perspective is leading, and then you align organizational and technical interests. The government is there for everyone, or at least it should be. That also means for people who are not white. In my opinion, white people are by far the majority in government. They look at me from their LinkedIn profiles and from the pictures that accompany government vacancies and are highlighted on Twitter. They are on the stages of government conferences, and even my portrait series The Compassionate Civil Servant<\/a> is a gallery of white people. <\/p>\n\n

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In my research into what role understanding has in digital government, I discovered that technology is not neutral. The white creators of digital government unknowingly put pieces of themselves into what they create. Pieces about how they see the world, what is good or bad behavior and how laws are interpreted. It is people work that is currently done mostly by white people. Technology reflects our cultural and political values. I wrote the essay “Empathy in Government”<\/a> about this. <\/p>\n\n

If white is the norm, and you are the norm, it’s hard to notice how people who are not that norm perceive your digital services. There are so many advantages to having a more diverse team. To have more perspectives and not blindly follow the norm that is not normal for everyone. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

In 2017, I conducted research on integrating in the Netherlands. I am from Suriname and moved to the Netherlands when I was 14. My own homesickness came back during the study. The mix of emotions I felt when I had to “Dutchify” I recognized in the refugees with whom I did research. My research became richer. Our conversations went into more depth about cultural differences, what it’s actually like to move from country to country and how that affects the integration process. My background actually helped to do this research. <\/p>\n\n