Black architects are forced to be palatable in order to be successful, says architectural designer Naila Opiangah, who shares her experiences of racism within the industry.

For months now, the discourse on race and equity has been predominant in every setting of our lives. Non-black people have had another series of introductions to the injustices faced by the black community.
This flux of attention on racism that emanated from police brutality is not a novel occurrence. In fact, in the short period of time I've lived in the US, from late 2012 to today, several murders of innocent black people by the police received similar attention and sparked protests by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Architecture has never been a haven for genuine racial discourse in my experience What is different today is that the killings that occurred on 13 March, 25 May and 12 June triggered a reckoning on racial injustices at all levels of society, pushing the movement well into the architecture and design world.
Architecture has never been a haven for genuine racial discourse in my experience. In my opinion, it has been a petri dish for blatant racism. When I moved to the US from my home country of Gabon to study it and later to practice it, I did not expect that my success would be defined by how well I managed to suppress my black and African identity.
I learned early in the process that assimilation was a must in order for me to fit in a field where black people only account for a sliver of...