Reading Summary 3: Making Bathrooms More ‘Accommodating’

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The main purpose of this article is to argue about the setup of bathrooms. The author feels that the terms for entering bathrooms have been fixed. Bathrooms are clearly marked men and women but the author feels that it’s unfair especially for transgender people. The author also feels that if a mistake is made by a male of female and the wrong restroom is entered, it can put the person at risk to discomfort or even real trouble. Throughout the article, the author uses examples from different cases that have come about from the controversy of bathroom usage, specifically transgender cases. The author argues on the side that is for changing the bathroom laws and for bathrooms to become more accommodating to the transgender community. Bathrooms usage laws have been a controversy for many years because, “The problem is that this vastly oversimplifies the experience of transgender people and the biology of chromosomes, which can appear in other combinations.”

Reading Summary 4: His & Hers: Designing for a Post-Gender Society

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The main purpose of this article is to argue for gender neutral design. The argument was made by one of the United States’ leading textile designers. The designer sees “gender-neutral design as the next frontier in the workplace.” The author starts off by stating, “We are living in a time of gender revolution. Traditional masculine and feminine roles are being challenged through advances in science and technology, and by cultural shifts stemming from the evolution of sexual politics and media depictions of gender.” The author believes, “Identity is no longer clearly defined as female or male, but by increasingly visible manifestations of sexuality or lack thereof.” She also believes that some of the today’s landscape are still designed in a Modernism point of view. Modernism is defined as a movement shaped by a predominantly male perspective. To help build her argument, the author uses examples such as the LGBTQ movement, workplace hierarchies, and bathroom setups.

Reading Summary 6: Better Online Living Through Content Moderation

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The main purpose of this article was to teach about content moderation. Content moderation can be achieved through content control features. “Content control features — block and ignore functions, content/trigger warnings, blocklists and privacy options — are valuable to people who need to moderate their time online.” Control features are used as a way for people to either avoid people or certain types of posts that they may dislike. The article argues that using these controls can make the online experience more enjoyable. Control features are looked at in both a positive and negative light. They can be positive because a person has the choice to block thing that makes them upset or uncomfortable that they shouldn’t be forced to endure seeing. They can be negative because the person using these features can be judged as weak or too sensitive. This article focuses on three areas to help build a better understanding of content moderation and why it can be positive: 1) Computer-Chair Psychology, 2) Threatening Legal Recourse, and 3) Moving Towards a More Personal Agency over Online Experiences.

Reading Summary 5: Color Walking

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The purpose of this short article was to teach us about color walks and to tell us about the authors’ own experience with color walks. Color walks were created by William Burroughs. “Back in the day, William Burroughs dreamed up a tool to inspire his students: color walks.” The authors of this article came across the experiment while working on the colors show and decided to give the experiment a try and write about their experience. In their trial of the color walk the chose to be flexible and switch from color to color. The authors stated, “We first ran across color walks in this blog post from Sal Randolph, which features two great quotes from Burroughs: “Color: William Burroughs Walking on Color”.”

The instructions on how to do a color walk are simple. To perform a color walk, “Just walk out your door, pick a color that catches your eye, and watch your surroundings pop as you follow the color from object to object.” In this article, the color walk started at WYNC, in lower Manhattan on a Sunday afternoon. The first color they started out with was blue. Blues led to pinks which led to violets. Their color walk took approximately 14 minutes. At the end of their walk the described the walk saying, “…the colors hung in our brains and eyes.” They also stated, “We walked away seeing a world brimming over with colors: the rusty orange of a rooftop water tower in the sun, a bright blue mohawk, and the humble yellowy greens of a new leaf all jumped into our eyes.” The authors provided a short timeline of their color walk, which included pictures, using Timeline JS.

At the end of the article, the authors offered their own advice for others interested in trying the color walk experiment. They provided three pieces of advice. The first, “Give yourself an hour of uninterrupted time, no commutes, no errands, just eye time.”  Their second piece of advice stated, “Pick a color, or let a color pick you–follow the one that makes your heart go thump-thump.” The final piece of advice that the authors gave stated, “If you get lost, pick another color. If you get really lost, you’re on the right track.”

Interior Built Environment Description: Center for Civil and Human Rights

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The Center for Civil and Human Rights was established in 2007. It is located at 100 Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard, Atlanta, GA 30313. The museum contains 3 floors each containing a different gallery. The first floor is dedicated to a collection gallery called the “Voice to the Voiceless: the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr.” The second floor is dedicated to a gallery for the civil rights called “Rolls Down Like Water: The American Civil Rights Movement.” The third floor is dedicated to a human rights gallery called “Spark of Conviction: The Global Human Rights Movement. The setup of the museum made it easier to understand each movement clearly.
I enjoyed going to the museum because it gave me a better understanding of the civil and human rights movement. The museum presented many aspects of the movements that are not really known to many. It also shed light on aspects of the different movements that history books fail to teach us about. I also liked that the different galleries shed light on many of the people that contributed to the movements, not just the most known ones, such as Martin Luther King Jr. In my opinion, it is a good place for all ages to visit especially because of the setup. The galleries included many visual aspects, such as pictures and videos. The galleries also included interactive features, for example, the sit in simulation, that allowed people to get an experience of what it was like during the civil rights movement. The setup of the museum makes it very easy for people of all ages to experience and enjoy.
The museum was built in order to help people get a better understanding and to teach them about the civil and human rights movements. They were able to accomplish that through their presentation of the information and the fact that they included different artifacts from those days. All ages are welcomed at the museum and different aspects are included to appeal to a wide range of audience.

Interior Digital Record 5: Center for Human and Civil Rights

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This is the first thing that is seen on a wall when entering the lobby of the Center for Civil and Human rights. This image is also used in their brochure. This image is one representation of what the civil and human rights movement means. In my opinion, all the images are connected showing that if we work together we can achieve the common goal of rights for all.

Interior Digital Record 4: Center for Civil and Human Rights

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This world map is located in the human rights area of the museum. Each color represents whether a country is politically free or not and whether they are able to exercise their political rights and civil liberties. Yellow represents the countries that are free, orange represents countries that are partly free and red represents countries that are not free.

Interior Digital Record 3: Center for Civil and Human Rights

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This statue is located near the rear of the museum. Each side of the statue includes a quote that can relate to both the civil and human rights movement. The quote on the left was by Margaret Mean and it states, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world.” The quote on the right was from Nelson Mandela and it states, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Interior Digital Record 2: Center for Civil and Human Rights

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This picture was taken in the human rights area of the museum. The first half of this area is dedicated to teaching us about some of the most famous offenders and defenders of the human rights movement. The top picture is of the defenders and the bottom is of the offenders. The defenders, from right to left, were Mohandas Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Yelena Bonner, Martin Luther King Jr., Václav Havel, Nelson Mandela, and Estela Barnes de Carlotto. The offenders, from left to right, were Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Augusto Pinochet.

Interior Digital Record 1: Center for Civil and Human Rights

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This picture was taken in one of the civil rights areas of the museum. This area of the museum was dedicated to the many people that lost their lives during the civil rights movement. Each pole was filled with pictures of each person and on the back of the lower pictures included a short paragraph which gave information on who the person was and how they lost their life.