A Bold Idea
“The bright ideals of the past – physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands – all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast. Are they all wrong – all false? No, not that, but each alone was over-simple and incomplete. To be really true, all these ideals must be melted and welded into one.
The training of the schools we need today more than ever – the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper, higher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts. The power of the ballot we need in sheer self-defense – else what shall save us from a second slavery? Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek – the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire.
Work, culture, liberty – all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving towards that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic. We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are today no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes.”
WEB DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903
Step 1 – RACIAL ECONOMIC EQUITY BY DESIGN: THE TRIANGLE OFFENSE MENTAL MODEL
The first aspect of designing a racially economically equitable ecosystem is to use meta-cognitive modeling to ensure that the approaches to change will be comprehensive enough to adequately impact the problems wrought by racial inequity by design – which are substantial. This involves looking exhaustively across the environmental landscape, analyzing current and past attempts (those successful and unsuccessful), and using that information to construct new and innovative models of impact. Following implementation, the evaluative process starts again through environmental scanning and so on. The goal is to ultimately look through a multidimensional model across time and space to identify Positive-sum impacts ideally, and Zero-sum at worse – seeking to stay away from Negative-sum outcomes that will lead to more racially inequitable systems.
Step 2 – RACIAL ECONOMIC EQUITY BY DESIGN: THE DESIGN THINKING MODEL
The second aspect of designing a racially economically equitable ecosystem is to utilize the design thinking model overlaid with a racial equity lens. This requires understanding that empathy is not the only emotion that one can begin with in the design thinking model. Instead, it is one of many possible to design a socioeconomic ecosystem. Recognizing this will allow a more comprehensive equitable design process as to allow for the parsimonious nature of the community of actors – public, private, philanthropic, academic, and community members – who will be impacted by and must impact the success of whatever is designed. This does not mean that every starting emotion gets equal consideration, but it does mean that each must be understood – both in theory and application. The design thinking model integrates with the step 1 meta-cognitive mental model.