Chris Talbot is Designing

Story Time, Part 1:

Once upon a time, in early 2024, the online hate group Libs of TikTok, did what they do best and posted a screenshot of a statement piece on my website, with a misleading and downright false interpretation of what it said. They claimed that I charged white people more for contracted services, when the screenshot clearly stated that I provided a discount to organizations that had diversity on their C-Suite. Anyone with an ounce of reading comprehension would see that the screenshot itself negated the commentary the hate group shared with it, but reading comprehension is a skill.

For a couple of weeks, I had rabid alt-right white cis het men in my emails and commenting on my socials, angry at what they deemed reverse racism. Libs of TikTok’s post had numerous chuds claiming they were going to dox me and pay me a visit to let me know how they felt about it.

The experience made me deeply think about whether it should remain a statement piece or if I should operationalize it.

And I’ve decided to operationalize it and contract with organizations that are values-aligned!

What does values alignment look like? Well, one thing is that I wouldn’t contract with an organization with a C-Suite (this term refers to the executive-level managers within an organization; think CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, ED, etc.) or Board of Directors that is more than 50% white-, cisgender-, and abled-led.

Which means, I likely will not be contracting with anyone. After all, ethnically and racially diverse executives hold just 16% of C-Suite positions — and that’s after all the studies that proved that diverse demographics make for better ideas in business and all the hemming, hawing, and promising that companies did after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

41% of the current U.S. adult population is BIPOC (Gen Z — aka: the next generation of workers — is the most racially diverse, 48% are BIPOC). 27% percent of adults in the U.S. have a disability. 1.6% of U.S. adults are transgender or nonbinary (5% of young adults identify as transgender and nonbinary). If your C-Suite or Board of Directors remains white, cisgender, and abled, that’s data for marginalized workers for how you conduct your business and how much you value diversity.

Wealth Inequity

A lot of wealth has to do with access, privilege, and power. Most generational wealth was accumulated through either extractive or exploitive practices, which have disproportionately impacted marginalized people. It’s historically only been accessible to white folks through purposeful policies, like Jim Crow laws, internment, the reservation system, redlining, restricted covenants, mob violence that destroyed the businesses and towns of Black entrepreneurs, racial pay disparity, etc. All of these practices served to prevent BIPOC families from accumulating wealth and increasing the opportunity for white folks to excel at the expense of others.

The end result of all of this (and, I’m focusing on mostly Black vs. white since the discrepancy for these two demographics has been highly studied; most of the time, Indigenous peoples are not studied at all — or are lumped in with “other,” which is how we got labeled “Something Else” at CNN during the 2020 election) was the creation of these conditions:

• The average Black family would need 228 years to build the wealth of the average white family today;
• Black wealth is still not growing at the same rate as white wealth (although the gap is starting to shrink), so that disparity continues to grow (and even if the growth rate was the same, white wealth has such a huge head start, it would never close on its own);
• Black workers earn less than their white counterparts for the same work when they have the same qualifications;
• Black women are the most educated demographic currently in the U.S. but their wages haven’t reflected this.

What about transgender and nonbinary folks? I’m glad you asked! While a study showed that weekly median earnings for all workers in the U.S. in Q3 2021 was $1,001, it showed that trans men, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and Two Spirit folks made 70% of that, and trans women made 60% of that.

What about disabled folks? In the U.S., 20.4% of disabled folks lived under the poverty line in 2022. On average, they make $0.66 for every $1 earned by workers without disabilities.

Now, is charging different rates for BIPOC-, gender variant-, or disabled-led organizations going to make a difference in this intentional wealth disparity? Not at all. Only wealth redistribution can do that. But, I can give a discount to organizations that I believe are doing a better job of individually fighting economic disparities by hiring marginalized folks in their C-Suite. Which, to be clear, so far has been not a single organization.

Story Time Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

After the unfortunate reading comprehension snafu of the alt-right members of Libs of TikTok squad, a white, cis, het, abled man I was forced to interact with at a job tried to get me fired by suggesting that doing equity work outside of my job and “charg[ing] up to $600/hr” was a conflict of interest. To which I responded, only if achieving equity is a conflict of interest to the organization, which would be a bit concerning, but okay.

So again, for those in the back: I don’t contract with organizations that aren’t values-aligned, which means I haven’t contracted with anyone at this time. Your imagination is a lovely tool to be encouraged and honed, but I’m not responsible for the things you make up using it.

All that said, if you are values-aligned or looking to be values-aligned and actively working toward that goal, I’m happy to work with you, and will happily charge you up to $300/hr for design work, depending on your gross income and current state of equity in your C-Suite. LOL.

My design services, like everything else I do, are delivered on a sliding scale basis, which I determine according to the gross income of an organization and the identity of the C-Suite.

If dollars are tight, I am all about the barter system, so if you believe you have goods or services I may need, please let me know what you have to offer.

I occasionally offer pro bono services to organizations that are BIPOC-led, gender-variant-led, or disabled-led, depending on my availability. If you can’t afford to pay, please ask if I have capacity.

Suggested rate chart:

If you have questions about why I have chosen to provide a discount to organizations that have done their diversity work, see my “Charging Philosophy” and deep dive in the resources I have provided.