Transcripts are edited for readability and clarity.

Nigel: I want to start today with a little bit of wisdom from our ancestors, and I think you’ll agree that my guest today exemplifies the core ideas in these two pieces. The first one, “Whether you like it or not, the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education must not simply teach work; it must teach life.” That’s from the famed educator, W.E.B. Du Bois.

Secondly, I’m inspired by this phrase, “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering, and complaining. You make progress, implementing ideas.” Those are the words of Shirley Chisholm, our American politician and social commenter. It is with those words that I’d like to introduce you all to my guest today. He is Professor Omari Souza.

Nigel: Will you introduce yourself to our listeners, and where do you teach, and what is your specialty?

Omari: Yeah, my name is Omari Souza. I’m a New York native first-generation American of Jamaican descent. I teach at Texas State University. I am a professor of communication design or graphic design. My main focus is design for social good and innovation, but a lot of the classes that I teach happen to deal with design research and implementation.

Omari: Yeah, I grew up in the Bronx. Bronx, New York, a section of the Bronx called Co-op City. Not too far from upstate New York, the New Rochelle area. I attended various art schools from MS 181, my middle school, which had a really good art program. Ultimately, going to art and design high school in Manhattan before finishing my last year in Buffalo, New York.

During my time in New York City, I met a ton of talent. A ton of people were far more talented, far smarter than me, some of which made it to college and some of which did not. I went to Cleveland Institute of Art, where I studied digital media and ultimately got my master’s at Kent State University.

Between New York and Ohio for graduate and undergrad, I realized I was one of a few Black students. This was very new to me because, in New York, there was a plethora of talent of color. But in my undergrad, I was maybe one of five students of color in the program graduating as the only male of color in the five-year program out of the entire college.

So for me, it built this passion for exploring the idea of are all the Black creatives? My undergraduate college, Cleveland Institute of Art, was actually down the street from a prominent art high school in Cleveland. The [Cleveland] School of the Arts was predominantly Black. Many of those students didn’t make it to the Cleveland Institute of Art.

My thesis research for my graduate program explored the topic of diversity in the field of design. [It] questioned, “If there more Black people attending colleges and they have in a considerable amount of time, why aren’t those numbers reflected in the field of design?”

Nigel: It’s great that you are pushing in those areas because it certainly seems to prepare you for the role that you’re in now. I want to fast forward to the present to give us the bookends of this story we’re uncovering with you. You hosted a panel discussion last fall. What was that called, and what inspired you to bring that forward at that time?

Omari: The panel discussion was called, The State of Black Design. It was a two-hour virtual discussion that focused on four separate things. One was Black designers and industry. The second was Black designers establishing design communities. The third was pedagogy, and the fourth was design activism.

All of this was inspired after George Floyd’s death and a lot of the civil unrest happening for a few years prior. There’s a lot of discussion around doing something for the particular cause. I felt what might be beneficial is creating a safe space for people to [discuss] the difficulties they experienced and [what they] were doing to push back.

Nigel: How many folks did you have attend?

Omari: I started off with an expectation of only having maybe 100 or 200 people attend. About 3,600 people register for the event, and 2,000 people — a little over 2,000 who watched live.

Nigel: That’s amazing. From 100 attendees planned to 2,000. You did it all in one day, correct? It was a one-day event.

Omari: Yes, sir.

Nigel: Okay, that was last fall. I heard of you at that time, but it wasn’t until the spring of this year [2021] when we were introduced by a colleague of mine at IBM, Oen Hammond. We’re now are embarking on a partnership together. But before we got to the partnership, Omari, we were impressed with your plan for your follow-up event. Why did you want or need a follow-up?

Omari: I think the initial demand in response from the first one suggested that a follow-up was necessary. For me, I didn’t want to just do a follow-up just for the sake of doing one. The State of Black Design was timely because so many people wanted to hear Black people speak about a particular issue and within a design field that already isn’t very diverse.

Many people were interested in finding out what can be done within this practice so that it made space. I felt that particular issues needed to be addressed or solutions that needed to be proposed. Design leader Cheryl Miller also challenged me instead of continuing the same conversations, offer something that could function as a solution to build a table rather than asking for permission. The events that I did as a follow-up had three major goals that also coincided with pieces that were dropped, not dropped, but gems that were dropped during the state of Black design.

One was there’s a lot of Black talent out there having difficulty getting recognized by industry recruiters. Still, there is a desire for industry recruiters to recruit Black talent. So first goal, build that bridge that can connect these two parties. How can I get Black talent in front of these recruiters, and how can I get these recruiters to recognize them? The second was a continuation of having a safe space. How can I continue to give platforms to Black creatives that are doing amazing things for recognition’s sake? So that other designers that are aspiring to do this can see people that look like them and support what it is that they’re working on. And the third was helping to establish a safe space within academia. For me, that inspired the scholarship funding of this. The State of Black Design, in addition to this upcoming conference, we’re both free. This time around, we’re allowing donations and taking sponsorships. The money from those sponsorships and donations will go directly to Black students who may have had difficulty attending financial restraints.

Nigel: I remember very clearly here at IBM, I put together a very rough proposal to be your sponsor. I’m happy and honored that we were able to put together some funding to sponsor this program. IBM is now the title sponsor for this spring event. For those who will be listening to this podcast over time, the event may or may not be in the rearview mirror, April 9th, and 10th, 2021. Give us the name of the event and who you expect in terms of the speakers.

Omari: The event is the State of Black Design conference, and the theme is Black Design: Past, Present, and Future. We have Nwaka Onwusa, VP of Curation at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Duwain Pinder of McKinsey. We have Timothy Bardlavens from Facebook. Terresa Moses, Principal, Director of Blackbird Revolt. Lauren Williams [designer, organizer, researcher, and educator]. Renee Reid of LinkedIn. Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel [Associate Director for Design Thinking for Social Impact and Professor of Practice] of North Carolina State University. Jennifer White-Johnson of Bowie University.

We have roughly 40 speakers, each of whom are coming from academia as well as professional practice. Some are industry leaders and entrepreneurs who are doing amazing things like Leslie Wingo [Sanders\Wingo], John B. Johnson [Principal, Identity Architect at a small studio].

Nigel: All right, so that’s the conference, that’s the big event. We expect 2,000 to 3,000 folks, if not more this time as well.

Honestly, Omari, I was really happy that we could sponsor the event, share the story, represent the community in this way, and bring some job hiring opportunities. You have a job fair as part of this, and we’re not necessarily trying to promote the event. I want to talk about it to understand its implications because I think it’s part of your story. What is it about the job fair? You touched on it a second ago. What about the job fair is special? Especially around this idea of a pipeline. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Omari: There’ve been studies on the field of design for years, decades, even. Those studies have usually circulated around the fact that it doesn’t seem to grow in diversity. If I’m not mistaken, the field typically floats around 87% to 92% white, consistently. There are numbers of Black creatives [who] aren’t getting access due to formal training or aren’t getting noticed when applying for positions. I wanted to create a platform that gives tips on strengthening their possibilities of getting in and hosting a career fair. If companies are out there saying that they’re looking for this talent, hold them accountable and say, “Hey, I can gather these numbers for you, come and recruit.” Maybe increasing Black involvement by a few percentage points would be a huge success within itself.

Keeping the career fair free and the event free allows any designer of color to come in and apply for these positions. Whether coming from a four-year institution, a community college, historically Black college or university, self-taught, or feeling disconnected from their university, it gives us an option to bring people of interest to those companies looking to employ them. That was really my overall goal to assist in building that bridge.

Nigel: Yes, we have an opportunity to share our story and what job postings we have available right now. It also, really, to me, says that IBM is investing. I’m always struck by corporations that have fantastic PR teams. You know, any sufficiently large and even smaller companies do PR well. I don’t have a problem with spin per se. I don’t have a problem with the right message at the right time to the right people. That’s important. Communication is important.

I have a problem when something dramatic in society happens, and the full-throated answer is a PR spin, right. That’s where the problem lies. A lot of times, it gives people a chance to hide behind something. To hide behind the myth that Black designers just don’t show up in my inbox when trying to hire a new graphic designer, visual designer, UX designer, whatever it is. I hear that a lot, to be honest. I can attest that by having this career fair and having the number of attendees you plan to have; I have opened so many eyes. I’ve been able to go to so many people inside of IBM and beyond, by the way, not just IBMers, to say, “Hey, you’re right. That doesn’t have to be a blocker to improving the quality of our pipeline.” We can find top talent, not lowering the bar. We can find top talent. We just need to know how to look and where to look. That has already paid dividends, and I’m happy to report that we’ve already hired into our company. People who’ve come recommended from you or your organization as a result of this partnership.

I think in terms of moving the needle, we’re already changing the course of some people’s lives. That person has to step in, deliver, perform, and all that good stuff because that’s important, but nonetheless, the opportunities are happening. Would you agree?

Omari: Yeah, I agree. I think that’s amazing. I think the beauty of events like this from my vantage point and the entire idea of building your own table is that if it’s able to get as many eyes as it’s been getting, it forces companies to recognize that. People have reached out to me because they applied pressure to their company once they found out the number of people attending the event. So it behooves them to be a part of it, recruit talent versus ignoring it, and say that talent doesn’t matter that talent doesn’t exist or isn’t out there.

I’m grateful for everybody who supported the events, watched and shared the links for registration, and shared the links with their colleagues to apply for some of these positions because it helps. The more people support, the more we can move the needle going forward, and the more lives we can change, ultimately.

Nigel: You mentioned a concept just now. I think I heard you say making our own table. Did I hear you say that? Yep, and I think that’s a reference to folks wanting to have a seat at the table, the metaphor for being able to be involved in decision-making. I think having the agency to be at the table when the decision is made. Fantastic idea. You may have just one-upped the idea, you said, “let’s form our own table.”

Let’s go back a little bit in your history. You were at Kent State. [You got your] Master’s degree, and then you made some changes after that. Where did you go next?

Omari: I took a position at La Roche University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Before coming to Texas State, I taught at La Roche for roughly two and a half years.

Nigel: Okay, and what brought you to Texas? Obviously, Texas State University is where you are now. So I’m assuming it’s for the university. What about this particular role was interesting to you?

Omari: I found out about the position through a colleague, Alice Lee [Assistant Professor, Communication Design, Texas State University]. We both sat on a panel together at an AIGA event in Indianapolis. She informed me that Texas State was looking for professors of my qualifications, and I applied. During my interview, they mentioned an interest in a professor who would come in and be a subject matter expert on design research methods. Which — it’s my cup of tea. It’s what I love to do. Also, the university was a Hispanic serving institution. The fact that I was going from one institution that wasn’t very diverse to a highly diverse university was attractive. So taking all of those things into consideration and the resources that I could leverage while down here to further my research made it attractive for me to make the transition.

Nigel: Did you say that Texas State has better diversity numbers than where you were?

Omari: The diversity levels of Texas State are a lot more reflective of the country as a whole than some of the other institutions that have taught at, and in some ways, even more so. Texas State happens to be a Hispanic-serving institution. While I don’t know the exact numbers off the top of my head, I believe their Hispanic population is [roughly] 30% of the overall population. The Black student population is closer to 13%, which was extremely attractive, especially from the institution that I was before, where there wasn’t much diversity. Not just at the university but in the city itself.

Nigel: I honestly didn’t know either one of those numbers, the 30% range for the Hispanic [student] population, and you said 13% for the Black [student] population? That’s at a predominantly white institution or PWI. Thirteen (13%) is incredibly high. Like you don’t see that anywhere.

Omari: Give or take a percentage or two, but the diversity numbers at Texas State are really impressive.

Nigel: Right down the street from us. In the design program here at IBM, we’ve hired quite a few designers from there, and they’ve done very well at the company. We’re very aware of the strength of the program. Personally, my in-laws, nieces, nephews, and my wife, who got two degrees from Texas State, have all attended the university there. Shout out to Texas State. All right, doing big things. That’s what’s up. I’m glad to hear it.

The focus for you is on design research methods. I find it interesting to compare notes and listen to what different people mean by design research. What better chance to talk to a professor and ask that question? What is the field that you are now one of the industry’s experts in that is now called design research? Describe that piece of the field for us, please.

Omari: The most [straightforward] way to define it is by combining design and the ability to make with some soft science practices. Thinking about how what it is that you’re making correlates with people in society. What are the psychological impacts on particular things, and how can you use those for specific behavioral outcomes?

Kent State has a really strong research master’s program. The graduate program collectively worked on projects that pertain to a plethora of different, really complex issues that I never heard of anyone using design as a solution. [For example,] how can we as designers use environmental graphics to lower the active shooting scenario’s casualties? My class worked on a project with NASA where we investigated how design can humanize the mission to Mars.

My investigation for my thesis was: “what is it about other majors that do a better job attracting Black students? How can the field of design learn from it?”

During this investigation was that for Black students, one of the majors — the field that they typically tend to go towards in larger numbers happens to be those soft sciences, [such as] sociology, psychology pre-law, things of that nature. I learned many of these students went to these majors because it allowed them to contextualize something they’ve gone through or advocate for someone they knew who dealt with a particular issue.

For example, the social workers who studied sociology in undergrad and grad school that I interviewed was a foster child and had some traumatic experiences while going to foster care. [They] wanted to become a social worker to make sure that other children’s experiences would be better.

I interviewed a psychology major whose mother suffered from bipolar disorder. She wanted to better understand what her mother was going through and advocate and assist other people dealing with [the disease]. Other people wanted to study pre-law and ultimately become lawyers because their parents, uncles, or cousins may have had negative [encounters] with the police. They felt they were abusive and wanted to better advocate for them.

It communicated that the Black community, being a marginalized group, had a greater desire for social return on investment than a financial return on investment. Until you get to the Ph.D. level, many of these majors typically don’t pay as much as design fields do, I would ask questions during my thesis research: “what if I introduced you to design for social good and innovation projects?” Or told you that designers could do some of these things or give you a way to advocate? It’s just a different way, a different path to doing some of the same things.

Once those options and cases were presented to them, many communicated that design to them was shown as branding for Fortune 500 companies or packaging for a luxury item. [Items that] people within a particular community may or may not be able to afford. Maybe it would have garnered their interest.

As a professor, I teach the methods that companies are looking for students to have once working for a Fortune 500 company and teach from the lens of community involvement.

Nigel: You’re using social science research methodologies to get human insight and how those methods support social justice and societal outcomes. It sounds like you find it interesting to take on difficult thorny problems using research techniques. Is that what I’m hearing?

Omari: Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. I love doing things like that.

Nigel: That’s great. That’s great. What might be the next step after you, a team, or a student does a bit of research? What comes next in the flow of the project work?

Omari: I have to correlate that with my profession. I, as a designer, do not build vehicles and can’t manufacture engines. As a communication designer, I know there are interfaces in the car. Those interfaces have to be navigated while driving. My research becomes a matter of measuring the time it takes to recognize interfaces that need to be navigated with or negotiated with while driving.

If I can lower the amount of time, it takes to recognize whether it’s the speed on your car or whether it’s the gas light symbol or any of those things. How much of that time can the driver dedicate back to the road? If I can monetize and say, “this driver spends [a certain amount of] time looking at his dashboard,” and then quantify that with the number of car accidents. I can then build an argument. It’s me looking at what I am attempting to research? What is my ultimate goal? What am I attempts to understand or change? How can I correlate that with my field, and how can my field contribute to that particular thing?

In terms of the active shooting scenario, it’s a matter of how can I assist people with navigating the safe spaces within a very hostile situation in a short period? As a designer, it’s a matter of user testing and understanding what your field can and cannot do.

Nigel: What is it about being a designer that creates a bit of responsibility to help others make those decisions? It feels like you were at a crossroads. You could have gone the route of being a designer in-house designer, but yet you went another direction. What influenced that?

Omari: I worked as an in-house designer for Case Western Reserve University for about five years. I was grateful for the position, but I hated it. I hated it for a number of different reasons. It felt almost like an assembly line for creatives where you’d get a brief, you design something, and it would go out. You get another brief before knowing what happened to the first project. I didn’t feel very fulfilled, and one of my colleagues recommended that I apply for grad school. I met with Ken Visocky O’Grady [Professor and Graduate Coordinator at the School of Visual Communication Design], one of the many professors at Kent State that was very influential in my profession change.

He told me about many of the research projects they were working on at Kent State, which attracted me. At the time, they were working on a malaria project in Nairobi, Kenya. Students were attempting to communicate to a large community how to diagnose, treat, and medicate people dealing with malaria symptoms. The population spoke six different languages, and there were a number of them that were illiterate. Using iconography, they had to find a way to communicate all of these steps to save lives.

For me, immediately, it made me think of my community. When I applied for graduate school, I lived in Cleveland around the same time as the Tamir Rice shooting. Which also correlated with the Trayvon Martin and the Mike Brown shooting. There was a lot of interest in what I can do as a Black creative for my people utilizing my talents? It felt like Kent State was offering tools that I could use to advocate in ways that I didn’t think of before.

Nigel: You mentioned Tamir Rice, which hits home because the young brother was 12 years old, and my son is 10 years old. Anytime I go back to that timeframe — a few short years ago, I get emotional quick. 2020 was a crazy year. We were already reeling from pandemic when we started to hear stories about George Floyd.

You were already, it felt like, in this awakening moment. You had decided to move towards academia and professorship. By the time George Floyd happened, you were a professor. It sounds like you had made some important decisions about what direction you were going to take regarding your time, energy, and talent.

From a life’s work perspective, did much change on May 25th for you? May 25th is the day that George Floyd was murdered. What changed for you, if anything, on that day?

Omari: Honestly, not much. I think George Floyd’s death was tragic. I didn’t watch the footage; I needed to protect my own mental space. I knew that the issues existed, and if anything, it further justified why my work was necessary. There were more asks of me as a Black academic whose work deals with social justice to be more present and be more vocal about particular things.

More people wanted to pull me in different directions to speak in front of their audiences. In terms of my passions, my own goals, my initiatives, they were pretty consistent. I think, too, for a lot of people, the Floyd incident wasn’t new.

It was another person. It was another name, another tragedy, but tragedies like that have been happening to us for some time. People have been fighting to prevent them for some time, especially growing up in New York City. One of my younger brothers, Sadiki, was being babysat at a home down the street from where Amadou Diallo was shot.

Amadou Diallo was a Haitian immigrant studying at a university in the Bronx, New York. Four police officers pulled up to his door, pulled their guns on him, asked for his identification. When he reached for his wallet, they shot at him 19 times.

At the time of his death, I was 13. My mother would pick up my brother and drive us back home, [I remember] seeing the bullet holes even after the body was cleaned up. Shortly after the Amadou Diallo shooting, or maybe even slightly before, or maybe getting my years mixed up, the Abner Louima [incident happened]. Abner is an African resident of New York who two police officers assumed was gay. They beat him half to death and sodomized him with a plunger.

In 2005, there was a Sean Bell incident. A gentleman on the way to his bachelor party and his limousine driver backed into a police car. They shot into the vehicle 50 times and killed him. Shot him dead the day before his marriage.

For me, there’ve been these consistent conversations around police brutality since I was a teenager growing up. The Trayvon Martin situation hit home for me when I was in Cleveland because of the proximity to where it happened. There were people I went to church with that lived in the community where the shooting occurred. When the George flood incident happened, it was extremely unfortunate and saddening that it still happens. It happened in a gruesome way, for somebody live to be choked from them.

In terms of change, it just reminded me why I do the work that I do. It didn’t change anything. It just functioned as a reminder for me.

Nigel: Man, that is so deep and powerful. I cannot imagine hearing of those stories, given your proximity. I may have been born on the West Coast and moved around with my military family, but being in Texas for most of my life, these issues are different down here. They just hit differently; they’re not as public, I don’t think. There were always issues, and I experienced a few issues growing up. Still, I can’t say that I had a friend or a connection who knew Trayvon or down the street from Amadou Diallo. Those are definite influences, whether explicit or even subconscious, to everyone and anyone.

It’s amazing to me! How it could be 20 years after some of these — Abner Louima was 20 years, 20 plus years ago, and I don’t remember any outcry. I don’t remember anything happening. I think that White America, many times, has convinced itself, and many times convinced us too, People of Color, that this state of things is okay. At most predominantly White institutions, there are only 3%-4% Black folks. In most professions, not just at any one company, and not just in one profession, it’s 3%-4%, 2% may be on the low end, and 5% on the high- end of Black folks in other professional settings. It’s just tremendously sad.

I get frustrated when people say, “Isn’t it time to move on? Slavery happened such a long time ago.” I’m curious to hear what you think when someone says something like that. “We’ve got to move forward. We can’t go forward If we’re always looking back.” “It wasn’t me that enslaved your ancestors. Why do I even have to deal with this?” What goes through your mind when you hear something like that?

Omari: Usually, I walk away from the conversation, but I think for a couple of reasons. Usually, whenever somebody says that to me, it just communicates that they don’t know enough about their history. The reality is that the conversation may not be the most fruitful, or I may respond by asking a series of questions.

One of which, I’ll ask, “how many generations ago do you think slavery was?” I know many people don’t realize it was two or three generations ago. I’m a first-generation American. I have family members that were part of one of the first villages established in Jamaica after slavery. I believe that’s three or four generations before me. That means on my mother’s side, her mother’s mother, that’s not that long ago. Many things have impacted Black people when you think about Jim Crow and other forms of legal discrimination. Redlining, being cut out of progressive programs like The New Deal right after the depression.

Think about the companies who profited from slavery that may not have sold slaves themselves but profited from slavery. The universities took donations from slave owners or gave slaves to their tenure track professors, or used slaves to build their campuses. They still didn’t allow Black people to study at their university even after the end of slavery.

I feel like when people say, “slavery happened so long ago, don’t you think it’s time to get over it?” there’s this omission of all that the United States has accomplished on the back of free labor, and how much they owe to People of Color, not just Black people, but People of Color in general who helped establish these countries. There are plenty of Fortune 500 companies that probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the free labor that they benefited from or the existence of free labor.

Nigel: We look at recasting and decolonizing. I’m going to use this term liberally, in this case, Columbus Day, because 1492 was not a banner day, not a banner year in anybody’s history if they’re not White. Especially on this side of the Atlantic because he immediately took slaves.

They weren’t African slaves, but they were Brown and therefore less than. I didn’t know all this growing up. I just got the coloring crayons out at 9-year-old and 6-year-old and just colored along with all the other kids because that’s what you do in public school. As an adult, I realized and read that Columbus was a tyrant. It took a hundred years or so, but by 1619, the first African slaves showed up on these shores. As you said, just fast-forwarding to redlining. I draw a direct line between Columbus to African slavery to redlining against African Americans in our American neighborhoods.

The number one wealth builder in the U.S. is real estate, buying the American dream, a home to live in. Until the sixties, until my parents were adults, it was legal for banks, insurance companies, realtors, homeowners’ associations to discriminate based on race. When I saw how recent that was — it’s not slavery, but take the ability for an entire group of people meaning Black folks in America, to participate in the number one wealth builder; you will have a depressed population that is Black. Do you see what I mean?

I bet you’ve researched this probably a million times deeper and with more angles. When I saw that and when I heard that Omari, it was almost life-changing; I no longer could feel some way when someone would say, “it’s time to move forward; it’s the 21st century; let’s go forth.” That is just complete intellectual dishonesty. It’s a moral deficit that cannot be placated away. Do you know what I’m saying?

Your first reaction was probably better than mine because I’m not a boisterous person. Still, for you to say, I walk away or you and ask questions, that is an amazing response because it shows some restraint. It shows that you’ve dealt with this issue. You know how to be safe psychologically and within yourself to control the narrative that’s about to happen between you and that other person.

What do you think gives you that calmness? That’s one thing I’ve been intrigued about you is how calm and intentional you are. Where does that come from in your family?

Omari: It’s having negative experiences around the idea of discussing race and realizing that some arguments can be won and some can’t. You have a conversation with some people that are open to reason; they are willing to listen to you, even if they disagree. No matter what you say, some people that no matter what facts you place in front of them will wholeheartedly never give anything you say the time of day. They will respond negatively to you because everything you’re saying, even if it’s true, challenges their very sense of being. The older I get and the more conversations I have with people, the quicker I can recognize whether some of those conversations will be fruitful or contentious.

If someone firmly believes that there’s nothing racist about this country they love, this country gives everybody the same opportunity. This country they love would never mistreat, abandon, or forsake any of its citizens. Then, you show them the truth. That, you can still love the country, but it’s imperfect. Yes, this country does afford some people more opportunities than others hand others or ease to those opportunities.

I’m not saying that everybody can make it or be successful, not even saying that this country doesn’t take advantage of Whites. They’re poor Whites living in poor communities that do get taken advantage of. But to be unable to empathize or to recognize anything that’s said because you want to protect this identity of who you feel you are within this nation that you perceive it to be. That conversation is not going to be fruitful because it’s not rooted in anything logical. It’s easier to maintain my sanity and emotional security by saying, “Okay, if that’s how you feel,” or asking that person questions and allowing them to connect the dots on their own.

I ask you questions in a way that will force [them] to challenge [their] own identity and challenge the notions [they] have without me giving [them] that information. If I do it, you’re not going to trust it t because I’m an outsider to you due to my opinions.

Nigel: Man, I just became a better person, Omari. You helped me out right now. I needed you about a year ago when I felt some level of despair. I looked across our nation and saw what was going on and asked myself and asking my wife, what will we tell our son, our 10-year-old, about the world around him? My two-year-old, how am I going to answer? Why did we bring her into this with her beautiful brown skin? You walk outside — and do I have to check [over] my shoulder to see what the cops are thinking? Do I have to code-switch every time I show up for school or class or work? Do I have to work twice as hard to get the same whatever? Man, those questions were painful last year. The level of peace that you just described, by showing how they’re not prepared to have the conversation, how the fault is on those who want to be reactionary and not progressive. That’s helpful, man; that is important.

I think it connects to this next idea here. I’m wondering how you’re using your platform today. However, you describe it. You’re at the university; you have students; you have an administration. How are you using those tools right now to make a difference? What do you think the professor’s role, the Black male design professor is right now, given this backdrop that we just discussed?

Omari: I think the role of being a Black professor is interesting for several reasons. Whenever you are a Black professor at an institution, you are a unicorn in many different ways because they’re not many of us. I believe within my university’s subsection, the college of art and design, I am the only Black tenure track faculty. I think I’m also the youngest tenure track faculty member. Many of my Other students will come to me and talk to me about different issues.

Them being Other could be several different things. It could be being a woman, some of the students that are queer, and some are Hispanic. I’ve had DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] recipients talk to me just about their fees due to the last administration. They ask for advice or just vent about projects they wanted to do but were afraid to do based on cultural referencing in those projects. I think a large percentage of my responsibility, which isn’t something that I’m paid for, but comes with the role of being an Other in a space that doesn’t have many of us. [I have to be] secure enough and emotionally stable enough to be emotional support for Other students of color or fall into other marginalized categories.

The second thing for me is choosing battles and being an agitator for change. Recommending curriculum changes if I feel like it would make things more equitable for students or bring less attention to students. Many of us can relate to being a Black college, high school, or middle school student and be the only one when a project deals with Black History Month. The professor stops and asks you if you want to say anything. I feel like many of us can relate to those situations. How do we make changes, so it’s less educating other students and the professor about their identities and making it equitable so that the class is learning this collectively?

We’re putting less responsibility on the students to be the educator and facilitator of diversity and inclusion. We’re promoting a culture that facilitates that on its own. How can I give the student interested in impacting their community, whether they’re within my identity group or not, the tools necessary to assist those in their community? Or take those same tools to make a splash and impact in the industry?

Suppose they’re using those tools for Fortune 500 companies that they eventually work for; how can they establish or encourage a culture of diversity and equity within the workspace that’s happening behind the scenes? I think that’s my long answer to the question.

I have a responsibility to the students in terms of being emotionally available. I have a responsibility to the curriculum to make sure it’s equitable. I have a responsibility for the toolsets that I give to the students. In all of these things, I hope that I can plant enough seeds that eventually I can water a garden of change.

Nigel: I’ll tell you what’s coming through right now is your strength Omari. I hear it in your words. I hear it in the tone of your voice and the rhythm of the stories you’re telling. I can tell you were made for this. You were made for this work. I already knew months ago when we first started comparing notes and figuring out how to work together. Still, it’s even more apparent right that this is the right calling for you. You are making a difference and will continue to make a difference. Honestly, man, I’m just honored to be on the sideline, watching you do your work.

I love a couple of aspects of how you’ve described your work at the university. First, I want to highlight the idea that you said that they hired you not because you’re a Black professor of design, but they hired you because you’re one of the best design professors.

One thing that’s interesting here is we’re not talking about cutting any corners. I’m wondering if you run across that in your research. This idea of quality? Does it have to be less than because it came from a Black person or Black source? Has that shown up in your literature? Has that been a topic that you’ve looked at all?

Omari: Yes, and no. It’s been less a matter of sacrificing quality and more so a matter of who’s determining what’s quality and what isn’t. In many cases, I think that ends up being a barrier for many Black people who want to join a particular industry. There are things of quality that people just choose not to recognize until years later.

It became the trend, a design trend that is no longer a Black thing because they were told that it wasn’t quality. It reminds me of the Kim Kardashian cornrows scandal. She wore cornrows, and magazines were saying that she discovered this new hairstyle. But it was a hairstyle that Black women and Black men had been wearing for years and told that it wasn’t professional. It wasn’t tasteful or tactful for us to have. Someone else who isn’t of color does it, and it’s okay. When it comes to quality, I don’t believe that we should lower our craftsmanship. I think that there needs to be greater cultural relativity applied to how we judge things. Sometimes, I feel like, in that judgment, we’re not giving people space to explore. When we narrow the space in which people can operate, we lose innovation in many different ways.

Nigel: What’s the one thing you would do right now to decolonize design as a profession.

Omari: I think the problem with design right now is design functions as an extension of capitalist ventures. It’s all rooted in this exchange — financial exchange. You design for this product; you package for this product.

If I could do one thing, I would want to expand to include social responsibility and social engagement. If designers were taught to make things, not just to make them for money, but to make things for the advancement of society, not just for their pocketbooks, it would make things so much easier to decolonize.

I say that because when everything is tied to profit margins, then everything is based on whether or not it’s selling. The point where diversity no longer sells is when it stops getting support from many companies, even the companies that appear to be well-intentioned. If we change the dialogue around design and it becomes more about what’s best for society. Not because it makes the most money, then it doesn’t matter if it sells or not; it’s being done because it’s the right thing to do. If I were to do anything to decolonize design, it would change the focus from solely commerce to being about society, not the individual, but society as a whole.

How does anything that we put out into the market impact society on a positive or negative scale? When considering aesthetics, when considering cultures referenced, how does everything we do when considering cultures referenced ensure that all of those parties are being advanced with this item? And we’re not just doing it to make a quick buck.

Nigel: Wow. Nice. Nice. As a follow-up to that, if you were President for one day at Texas State University and could change one thing at the university, what would that change be?

Omari: Oh man, that’s hard. I would have a couple. Cultural studies involving marginalized groups would not be optional classes to take. Every student would have to take courses related to women’s studies, African American studies, and other subject matter to better empathize with the student body around them and the larger world they’ll be involved with once they graduate. I feel like I would start there.

Nigel: Listen, this has been a fantastic conversation. I can’t wait to continue to push forward on these efforts as we’ve partnered up this thus far. I can’t wait to see what we’re able to do together. Talk to you soon.

Omari: Take care everybody.