Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass were both dedicated to bringing about an America that was colorblind, Andre Archie says, but their work is being undermined.
Obviously, this is the height of foolishness, in my opinion.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass were both dedicated to bringing about an America that was colorblind, Andre Archie says, but their work is being undermined.
Obviously, this is the height of foolishness, in my opinion.
Colorblindness only works if nobody is racist. As long as there is racism, certain people will have different experiences and difficulties as a result. Failure to recognize these differences allows you the problems caused by racism to be perpetuated.
Color blindness isn’t literal blindness. It’s a choice to focus on the aspects of a person other than their race.
If a person is experiencing racism, you’re allowed to see that if you’re “color blind”. You’re just not allowed to perpetuate it.
That is fine on a personal level, but falls apart on the socio-political level. The government is expected to step in when people are discriminated against and that can’t happen if they are colorblind.
That’s not true. When race isn’t a central focus, then racism stands out even more, and is appalling and shocking. When I was in the Army we were about as blended of a group as you can get. Most of us didn’t think of each other as black, or white, or Mexican, or Asian. We thought of each other as our brothers in arms. When someone occasionally said something racist, every head would turn. You’d have a couple dozen guys of all ethnicities perk up and be like “WTF did you just say? No fucking cool, man”. You don’t need to make the central focus of every person’s identity their race to overcome racism. Honestly, that approach seems quite counterproductive to me since it separates and isolates people by the color of their skin, rather than building a community bonded by their humanity.
The army is a bit different as soldiers are indoctrinated to identify themselves as military above any other self-identity. That doesn’t exist in the civilian world