Designers
Designers
Designers
Shades of Identity
The impacts of White Spaces on Black Adolescent Girls
Designers
Leilt Demissie
Key Words
SUMMARY
This project began from my personal experience of growing up in a town and going to schools that were predominantly white but my experience in this town weren't as prevalent until I moved to New York for college. When I moved here I realized that I had been completely isolated from African American culture for the past 11 years. I found myself unable to start making connections with black girls my age due to the decades worth of white washing and cultural dissonance. This project comes out of this experience and the need to investigate the impacts of these white spaces on black girls. My goal for this project was to cultivate a community and space for black girls to connect on a deeper level.
challenge
To start this project I researched many case studies that went into these towns and high schools that were predominantly white and interviewed black girls about their experiences there. One of the studies I researched found that the participants expressed a desire for more teachers of color. This idea was echoed in my interviews I conducted with black girls and Parsons professor. They all stated the need for communities with people that look like them. An example of this was my interview with Maia Selhub who recounts a realization she recently had that Massachusetts didn't have many spaces, or a "third place", for black girls to go to.
Outcome
This insight that came out of my research led me to creating Soulful Sparks: The Platonic Speed Dating Event for Black Girls. The goal of this event is to create inclusive and supportive spaces that create communities among individuals of shared racial backgrounds, while establishing a warm and welcoming environment where members can comfortably express vulnerability and forge meaningful connections to alleviate feelings of isolation that so many of my stakeholders have felt in the past.
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