Part 4 of 6: Empathy in Action: The Fight for Equity
On Tuesday, May 18, I gave the opening Keynote at the 2021 AIGA DotGov Design Conference entitled “Prioritizing Empathy to Achieve Lasting Change,” and shared lessons learned from my three years working between two White House Administrations.
The next part of this six-part series is primarily focused on the role empathy plays in the fight for equity. Both of these terms are frequently used, but their meanings are commonly misunderstood. This post also draws from the perspectives of people who I have had the opportunity to talk with along my path, who are also trying to make our society more empathetic, inclusive, and equitable.
In late 2019 as I conceived of writing a book about the intersection of empathy and change, I talked to many people who are leading the way with empathy. They came to the same conclusions I had made: the way we’ve been operating isn’t working for us, and we needed a deep shift. They were questioning everything about how we work, our systems, and were actively pursuing approaches towards solving our deficit. They shared their wisdom which helped me craft a roadmap for the future that I have captured in my book. Through this post I’m sharing some of the wisdom that they’ve offered me.
Antionette Carroll is the Founder, President, and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, and a pioneer of Equity-Centered Community Design. She uses this framework with teens and young adults to help redesign systems of oppression through the lens of equity (equal outcomes over equal access), and has recently been working on applying it also to our communities and workplaces. When we spoke, Carroll shared that “a lack of empathy creates harm, trauma, and negative systemic impact. Just like an abundance of empathy creates safety, creates confidence, creates power, and creates positive systemic impact.” Her work shows that the pathway to equity is through empathy and humility.
Equality versus Equity
This diagram below from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation beautifully illustrates why this is important, and the difference between equality and equity.
The top of the diagram shows four people: one in a wheelchair, a tall man, a woman, and a child all receiving the same bicycle. They all get the same item, but can’t all use it properly, and the handicapped woman can’t use the bicycle at all. The bottom of the diagram shows the same four people with bicycles designed and built for their specific needs. Now, each one of the four people can ride along happily when their needs are met.
This analogy shows that many of our “solutions” should not be one silver-bullet solution with equal access, but in reality to achieve equity it is a lot more nuanced than that. It requires us to have multiple approaches to achieve the goal — to help meet our specific needs and outcomes. The work we do to design the future is a lot more complex and ambiguous, and the reason why we do have inequities right now is partially because we’ve assumed that everyone should get equal access, and as we dive deeper we find that is a false premise — that we need to adjust our thinking.
Peacebuilding and Equity
I was excited to learn about the lived experience of Monica Curca, the now Director of +Peace, a community, a campaign platform, and movement incubator. Their mission is to make peacebuilding known, accessible, and actionable. When we interviewed in 2019, she was Founder and Director of Activate Labs, where she said this about empathy:
“Empathy has hands and feet. It means that you’re moving yourself, your body, and your work to the spaces where the problems are occurring.”
Populations such as refugees and historically underinvested communities are directly impacted by trauma, conflict, and uncertainty, and therefore do not have the resilience to respond to trauma, says Curca. To break the cycle of trauma, she adds that we need to change our underlying institutions. To change institutions, movements must build or create new cultures. She states the following:
“I don’t see institutions leading social change. We have to disrupt the cycle in a parallel universe or competition where it models what is not working anymore. If something is working for somebody, they won’t change it. These people will keep the status quo because they personally benefit from the way things are.”
So, now we know that equity (equal outcomes) is preferable to equality (equal access), that to do that is through empathy, and that requires us to move our work to the spaces where problems are occurring. Social change models a better way forward, one that is outside of the norms of the main culture that maintains the status quo. Since institutions are not leading social change, that means it’s up to the people — you and me — to jump in the ring and take action ourselves.
Next week when we break down the “elephant in the room” that’s truly holding us back from creating meaningful change. As I mentioned earlier, this post is part four of a six-part series that follows along with a keynote I recently gave at the DotGov Design conference, Here are the first three parts of this series:
1: “You Work for Me, and You Work for this President”
Next week: is our fifth installment of the series Empathy in Action: Shifting Power. The stories above and more are found in my book: Empathy for Change: How to Create a More Understanding World.
