UnRedact the Facts

“Black History Month — an Opportunity to (un)Redact the Facts”

A 14-minute read, see the friends + family link in the profile.

Allllrriiiiggght!
It’s been a week or so since I launched Redacted BINGO!

Thank you to the registered participants! I received the first completed card from an anonymous participant the same day that they registered — awesome 😎

Image 1: I’m sharing their submittal here as an example of a complete BINGO card submittal. The first image is a screenshot of their email. For clarity, I labeled each section.

Complete as many squares as you can until the end of February.

Image 2: The BINGO cards at play. Join the other players — register at the link in profile.

For , a bit of inspiration as we close 2022 and step into 2023:

I am encouraged this Friday. Great to see that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation () updated their equality/equity bicycle visual and how the change came about. After receiving unsolicited feedback on the graphic, RWJF surveyed their newsletter subscribers and implemented the feedback they received from 1,000+ respondents. This feedback loop is equity in action, participatory design. It is empathy in action.

From the article, written by RWJF's Creative Services Officer/Brand Officer, Joan Barlow:

The feedback they received on the initial visual, "led to many conversations, and they reinforced our view that our bike visual did not work well for everyone. So we concluded that it might be time to refresh it."

I commend the awareness and accountability. Joan concludes, "I have always believed that good design advances conversations and makes choices clearer. With our new equality/equity visual, we hope we have done that. I try to approach this, and all design challenges, with empathy for the audience. I think that makes me a better designer. But this one is very personal to me, as I know firsthand the importance of equity and removing barriers."

If a participatory process can happen for graphic design, then it can happen for another field of the arts, yes? Perhaps, the art of writing historical narratives in the active voice instead of the passive voice?

I reflect on these questions and I reflect on what Joan said, "empathy for the audience" as I advocate for replacing the passive voice with the active voice in historical narratives about slavery, lynching, i.e., Black History/US History/White History.

If we can design with empathy for the audience, then we can write with empathy for the audience. And, …

(continued in the comments)

Hello there!

This week’s is a follow-up to last week’s post about that I shared earlier this week. Enjoy your weekend + be kind to yourself + to each other.

Fresh off of watching
twice on Sunday, this interview, his handling of the photo felt like a spectacle, a "slavery photo spectacle".

Seeing McFarland pull out the photo, the spectacle of it all, had me saying to myself, "Nope!"


mentions in his interviews about NOPE that a "good miracle" accompanies a spectacle. Perhaps the "good miracle" of this spec. is a spotlight on the horror of US chattel slavery and the harm its memory or lack thereof continues to cause today.

As I type this I am hearing
Van Lathan Jr] on the Podcast bring up poignant points about this spectacle:
"Joey McFarland said in the event of his death, that the picture would go to a museum ... If you know anything about slavery, Masters freed slaves after they died."

Joey McFarland did not think he did anything wrong.

Van Lathan Jr] continues: "I don't understand the dissonance that exists sometimes with the White counterparts that we share our community with."

This entire spectacle is all the more reason why teachers should be free to teach honest, truthful, (un)redacted history.

Writers, journalists, history professionals should be free to communicate this (un)redacted history as well.

Revisiting this thread to add a quote that I read after sharing this reflection. It relates to this “slavery photo spectacle,” especially this part:
“… this country has been wildly careless with Black bodies, Black stories, Black truths.”