Whiteness: A Podcast About Race, Equity and Justice, with David Clifford
We are so excited to share with you an episode of the UnMastered Podcast where Carla and Ryan talk with our friend David Clifford, Creative Director and Equity Designer at Equity Meets Design. In David’s own words: “As a heterosexual, upper-middle class, able-bodied White man, David is the beneficiary of the generations of oppression of people in U.S. He uses his legacy privilege to challenge the very systems and structures of oppression that placed him in his unearned place of power.”
Our conversation with David illustrates the great lengths that he has gone to be fully conscious of his own whiteness which has given him both privilege and power, which he has wrestled with as a teacher, school leader, parent and resident of the diverse city of Oakland. He shares, through many humble and vulnerable stories, the deep work he has done on himself and in his professional universe to combat inequities and to create more just schools and organizations. His story begins as a young child growing up in Pasadena and his journey takes him to schools in San Francisco and Oakland to the Stanford d.School and to the National Equity Project. David is an artist, a builder, and a fine human.
A bit more on David that we don’t share in the podcast: David founded DSX, an educational non-profit that invites the creative courage in all of us to design for equity. David is also co-creator of Liberatory Design, a complexity-centered approach to design for equity in your heart and working context co-created during a collaboration in 2016/17 with the National Equity Project and d.school's K12 Lab. David is a founding member of the Equity Design Collaborative. David co-founded the East Bay School for Boys as a feminist act to empower middle school boys to be thoughtful, courageous and engaged men of tomorrow. Before that, during his 13 years at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco leading the Technical Arts department, David co-designed and built many programs: Center for Civic Engagement and Leadership, Philanthropy Initiative, Senegal Service Learning Project and Private Skills for Public Purpose. David, a resident of Oakland for 30 years, is married with two lovely daughters who have attended both public and private schools in Oakland.
Enjoy this conversation with David. We certainly enjoyed having it!
