Iterative Identity:
Art Deco, World’s Fair, and American limits on humanity.
OMARI SOUZA
One of the key promises of the American Dream made by the automobile industry in the 1930s–1950s was the individual freedom of a car owner on an open road. This was marketed with innovations in advertising, exhibition design, and product design typified by the term “streamlining,” The limited availability of streamlining to Black Drivers was particularly prevalent in the Southern states. Victor Hugo Green, a travel writer and postal worker, saw an opportunity to make “Driving While Black” safer for his fellow Black Americans by publishing his annual Negro Motorist Green Book. Publishing out of his Harlem office, The Green Book was printed annually from 1936 to 1966 and grew from New York City to include the entire United States and international destinations as far away as Mexico and Bermuda.
RESOURCES
BOOKS
- The Power Broker by Robert Caro
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
- Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
- Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto by Legacy Russell
- The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney
- Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"by Zora Neale Hurston
- How It Feels To Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
- Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown
- In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West by Wendy Brown
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice by DS4SI
ARTICLES & LINKS
STRUCTURAL RACISM
COLLECTIVESFILM
EVENTS
- Opinion: L.A. Freeways are the most racist California monuments by Matthew Fleischer
- The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism by Mariana Viera
- THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE
- From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001
- How the Interstate Highway System was used to displace Black communities in Cincinnati
- UN Web Accessibility guideline
- Sundown Towns
- NYC Department of Education Specialized High Schools
- Tremé: How 'Urban Renewal' destroyed the cultural heart of New Orleans by Charisse Gibson
- The Double Victory Campaign and the Black Press: A Conservative Approach to 'Victory' at Home and Abroad
- Nameless thing by John Warwicker et al.
- Southern Electronics
- The French Connection
COLLECTIVESFILM
- The Century of the Self (Full Documentary)
- Da 5 Bloods
- The Negro Soldier on Netflix
- Watchmen
EVENTS
- Black design. Past, Present, and Future by by Texas State University
RACE & DESIGN
DESIGN THINKING
- An Open Letter to the White Graphic Design Community by Ron Tinsley
- By Design: Are designers of colour finally getting the recognition they deserve? by Alice Rawsthorn
- Preface: Envisioning Blackness In American Graphic Design
- African-American Designers in Chicago: Some Preliminary Findings by Victor Margolin
- African-American Designers: The Chicago Experience Then and Now by Anne Meis Knupfer
- The Black designer’s identity
- Three cultures—Seattle, Havana, and Tehran juxtaposed. Poster exhibition curated by Daniel R. Smith.
- From A to B (Africa to Bauhaus) by Kathleen Meaney
- Africa to Bauhaus Smithsonian Learning Lab
- What’s "Crystal Goblet" in Korean? by Jiwon Lee
- The Value of Community for Black and Brown Designers by Pou Dimitrijevich
DESIGN THINKING
- Design Thinking Is Bullsh*t by Natasha Jen
- The Co-Constitutive Nature of Neoliberalism, Design, and Racism by Lauren Williams
- In Defense of Design Thinking, Which Is Terrible by Khoi Vinh