As an Asian designer and educator in the UK, conversations about race, equity and inclusion aren’t theoretical for me, they’re my lived experience. They shape how I walk into a room, how I’m read, and what people expect. And, if I’m honest, the weight of that awareness can be exhausting. I’m tired of constantly locating myself through my racial vulnerability; tired of wondering whether I’m invited somewhere for my work or simply because I help an organisation look more diverse. That tension never really leaves. I want to be recognised for my craft, my care, and the joy I bring to a studio, not just the tick box I help someone tick. Yet I can’t ignore how race colours my opportunities, my progress, or how often I have to prove I belong in industries never designed with people like me in mind.
Alice Bradbury (2020)’s writing on Critical Race Theory points out that racism isn’t always loud. It hides inside policies that feel ‘neutral’ while quietly keeping things as they’ve always been. I see it in classrooms where multilingual, multicultural students are treated as problems to fix rather than assets to celebrate (Major, 2018). I feel it in creative workplaces where ‘professional’ still too often means ‘Eurocentric’ (Gray, 2019). Even places that champion diversity on paper can pressure you to blend in. Finding my footing at UAL has meant asking myself: am I a genuine colleague or an add-on? While I support students to own their voices, I’m still carving out space for mine.
Asif Sadiq (2023)’s critique of box-ticking DEI schemes also rings true. I’ve sat through trainings that look good in annual reports yet leave the deeper structures of exclusion untouched. And in those moments, I feel exhausted, not because I’ve stopped believing, but because I believe so deeply.
Channel 4’s ‘race privilege’ experiment in 2020 captures something I’ve lived: privilege isn’t always about having more; it’s about being spared the extra hurdles (Duffield, 2020). Opportunity matters, yes, but so does the weight you carry to reach it.
So where does that leave me? Still believing in the importance of anti-racism, but wishing it didn’t always demand my pain as proof. Still committed to inclusive design, but hoping to be seen not only for what I represent, but for what I contribute. I want change that’s structural and cultural, not merely symbolic. This work is messy, slow, and sometimes discouraging. Yet it matters to me, to my students, and to the futures we imagine through design. Holding on to that purpose keeps me moving forward, and reminds me that joy, too, can be a quietly radical act.
References
Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241–260. doi: 10.1080/13613324.2019.1599338.
Channel 4 (2020) The School That Tried to End Racism – Race Privilege Experiment [YouTube video], 30 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3wJ7pJUjg
Duffield, C. (2020) ‘Viewers left in tears after boy reckons with white privilege on The School That Tried to End Racism’, Evening Standard, 26 June. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/the-school-that-tried-to-end-racism-henry-white-privilege-race-a4481176.html
Gray, A. (2019) ‘The bias of “professionalism” standards’, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 4 June. Available at: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards
Major, J. (2018) ‘Bilingual identities in monolingual classrooms: challenging the hegemony of English’, New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 53(2), pp. 193–208. doi: 10.1007/s40841-018-0110-y.
Sadiq, A. (2023) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Learning How to Get It Right [TEDx talk, YouTube], 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw
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