When white people say:
“I don’t see color”
or
“We should live in a colorblind society”
What they’re actually saying is:
“I refuse to deal with how our culture and society treats people of color because it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to understand how having a different skin color or ethnicity affects other people because that means I would have to think and consider other points of view. What I want is to not have to think. I prefer to believe I live in a fantasy land where no one ever pays attention to skin color, ethnicity, culture, or religion. I am part of the problem with race relations, not its great savior.”
Just so you know.
Exactly Dianne. The ICE genocide is another patriarchal measure to strip women of their rights, their freedom and very often,…
Much love for Angry Black Woman.
“I am part of the problem with race relations” — Because there isn’t a neutral stance.
This is great. Steven Colbert (in character) is this way, to the point where he claims he doesn’t know if he’s white because he “doesn’t see color.” I’ve always thought this was a great subversive element of his show; unfortunately, so many people believe it that it probably just slips by them.
Is satire that people don’t get dangerous because it just reinforces stereotypes?
The comments that follow her entry do an excellent job of proving her point.
Ooh, I wish she’d written that in time for me to add it to my Colorblind series. (Parts I, II, III) It’s perfect. It’s succinct.
Thanks for pointing that out!
Isn’t the ‘end goal’ a society where the fact that you’re of African decent carries about the same level of baggage as the fact that you’re of Irish decent?
I’m not saying we’re there yet or that ignoring race will get us there.
But it doesn’t carry the same ammount of baggage and it never will.
The end goal, in my opinion, is that no matter what your ancestry or your historical/societal/economical/gender-related baggage, everyone will have an equal opportunity to achieve their life goals.
I completely agree with the first part but why never? Even if you mean not in the next 100 years wouldn’t that be the most desirable end result?
The rest of what you wrote sounds fine, but I expect some disagreement over what counts as opportunity.
This, combined with a post from the other day, gives me an excuse to ask (after a ramble)…
How do you suggest bringing up children to approach race? You see I saw about 5 black people in the first 20 years of my life, so by the time that I moved here, a town which is known for welcoming African refugees, I had already developed my beliefs. My daughter on the other hand, who used the word black to descibe a child even though we had never discussed it so she obviously got it from somewhere else, has at least two black children in her class. She’s never had an issue with them because of their colour (only that one keeps trying to kiss her when she doesn’t want him to, so I have just had to stop myself from telling her to kick him in the testicles to teach him early on that its just not on! Whole other issue there.). I’ve always taught her that everyone is different. For example, males and females can do and be whatever they want, there is nothing that is inherently male or female. But it would be silly to say that there are no genders. I think that it should be the same with race, but considering that I am a white girl who grew up in the boondocks surrounded by white people, my stance could be wrong or offensive. Am I completely wrong?
Does that long rant make any sense?
I like the utopian ideal of a colorblind society. The fascist in me would like there to be laws that say one MUST procreate with someone outside one’s own race until we truly all are a mixture and cannot be discriminated against because of race, but the realist in me knows that there will always be something for the bigot to find lacking in others.
Damn, Amp, and I was all set to spotlight that same passage on my Friday link round-up…
exelizabeth, that’s a question I wonder about too. Just saw Bamboozled recently and it really wound me up… the character TV writer Pierre DeLaCroix’s initial idea was satire Jonathan Swift-style, over the top and almost painful, but it immediately jumped to straightforward racism. it seemed to predate the problems Dave Chapelle finally experienced with the popularity of his show with white audiences.
Aren’t those two statements completely different?
“I don’t see color” (never actually heard that one, coming from anyone white or not) seems like sort of an odd statement. About race, yes, but it’s specifically about the speaker and the speaker’s claim.
But “we SHOULD live in a colorblind society” doesn’t seem problematic (it’s not the same as saying that we DO live in one now). Isn’t the point to achieve a society where we don’t treat people differently based on skin color? Different is inherently unequal, after all.
Yeah, yeah, I know, that old “treating someone differently based on skin color” is no longer the simple definition of racism it once was. But I thought the new antiracism expanded the definition, not limited it. What this seems to be saying (or perhaps I’m misreading?) is that we should live in a society where it’s OK–even good–to treat someone differently based on the color of their skin, their ethnicity, culture, or religion.
What am I missing? That doesn’t seem to make sense. It seems to adopt an unusually rosy view of humanity’s ability to treat people differently but only in a good way, not a bad one. I don’t think that has ever worked yet.
“I like the utopian ideal of a colorblind society. The fascist in me would like there to be laws that say one MUST procreate with someone outside one’s own race until we truly all are a mixture and cannot be discriminated against because of race, but the realist in me knows that there will always be something for the bigot to find lacking in others.”
Why would one have to be a bigot to reject the idea of forced procreation with *anyone*? And will anyone on the very dark or very light ends of the skin color range be left out of this “mixture”?
I believe she’s referring to statements that “we should live in a colorblind society” now. Maybe she’ll come around and clarify.
But, in any case, should the society really be *colorblind*? Or should color be irrelevant? If people are still straining to *ignore* color, then that indicates to me that there’s a certain level of racism around, because they’re straining not to see it. In a future that actually lacks race prejudice, I imagine we’d see lots of colors of skin.
We just wouldn’t care (in the sense we care now).
However, the idea that skin color would be de-politicized to that extent is probably utopian fantasy of the first order. I don’t think it’s a relevant real-world question, at least not for a long time.
(Which may or may not mean it’s worth asking, in any given context. I can imagine some race activists might be frustrated with us arguing about the semantic details of a fuzzy, futuristic endgoal, when the clear reality is that we are not now, and can’t be in the foreseeable future, “neutral” [in the sense “colorblindness” is meant to connote] in regard to color. Not to say that people don’t engage in important utopic and dystopic writing, but I’m wary of it being the focus of yours & my relatively glancing reactions to a statement about the function of modern racism. No insult to us – it seems to have come up naturally – but I wonder how often it’s used as a way for whites to avoid actual discussion about contemporary problems of race, because it’s more comfortable to think about a distant, fuzzy endgoal. For instance, utopic theorizing by cispeople seems like a common threadjack of transissues, whatever the original subject, and it’s certainly one I’ve been guilty of succumbing to.)
Ya, I see your point. Perhaps it is semantics. If “colorblind” in that context means pretending that you “don’t see color” then it seems sort of silly. After all, most of us can see just fine.
But if it means “acting as if everyone was the same color”–i.e. being colorblind in practice–then it seems a laudable goal. Hmm. I’ll have to add “colorblind” to my list of confusing phrases together with my recent favorite, “false accusation.” It’s made even more confusing to me, at least, by the term “colorblind racism” etc. I’ll just have to stop using the word entirely, I think.
I dunno if it’s irrelevant, because the discussion seems to go towards the goal of antiracism, and the end goal is always relevant to current action IMO.
I also think it’s important, because I personally hate the “what they’re really saying” claim for just this reason: it seems fairly obvious that the line “we should live in a colorblind society” doesn’t mean what ABW says it does, at least not to everyone who says it. I don’t think that type of characterization is helpful and it tends to lead, IMO, to unneeded arguments.
To me, there’s a big difference between
“What _____ is really saying is ____”
and
“What I understand _____ to be saying is _____”
Sort of… I think “I’m colorblind” is a catchphrase that tends to (though may not always be) said by people who have a certain array of positions. And I think that’s what she’s talking about when she says “meaning.” Could be misinterpreting o’course.
Yes. I think it can also be a way for whites to avoid acknowledging our own privilege and how much we benefit from institutionalized racism, and even that racism still exists — I’m colorblind, the laws are colorblind, so what’s your problem? That clerk who followed you all around the store was probably just admiring your sweater. (There’s much more on this in the comments on the original post.)
Because history can’t be erased.
Which is exactly why race is not the problem, racism is.
I’m sorry if I was unclear. I wasn’t saying that it was bigoted to reject the idea of forced procreation. I was saying that nothing can stop a bigot from being a bigot, so even if we were all of mixed race, the bigot would find something else to be bigoted about – religion, shoe size, it doesn’t matter.
Because history can’t be erased.
Which is why Tunisians hate Italians with a cold, burning passion; the historical memory of their ancestor culture being wiped out by the Romans has never faded.
Oh wait, except that it has. History is erased all the time.
Not that we have a colorblind society, or anything close to it – but the notion that we can never get there because history is permanent doesn’t seem to jibe with the world we see around us. History lasts a good long while – but it’s ultimately transient, just as we are.
“History lasts a good long while – but it’s ultimately transient, just as we are.”
Yes, but the argument could easily be that we’ve traded one kind of inter-ethnic comment for another, which isn’t really “progress” toward “colorblindness.”
Also, I’m not sure the situations are analagous due to things like scale, but.
But acting as if everyone were the same color, taken to its logical extreme, leads to things like the movement to forbid state and federal governments from gathering information about race. But — as the proponents of these policies certainly know — the effect would be that we’d no longer have reliable statistics demonstrating lower income, lower wealth, higher unemployment, etc., among minority racial groups.
In those cases, rather than opposing racism, “colorblind” politics leads not only to ignoring racism, but to active support of policies which have the result of covering up racism. That can legitimate be called “colorblind racism,” I think.
That’s an extreme example — but hardly a unique example. Nearly any policy intended to mitigate the effects of racism will be opposed by at least some people waving the “colorblindness” banner.
Similarly, nearly every policy that is facially neutral can be called “racist” by someone, usually with some accuracy.
Personally I think it’s an issue of semantics again. Everyone wants to avoid discrimination. But some folks look at inputs, some at processes, some at outputs.
If you want racial balance and/or colorblindness at one of those stages, it’s almost a guarantee that one (or both) of the OTHER stages will be unbalanced and/or far from colorblind.
Want a colorblind college admissions PROCESS? Ok, but the past alumni and position of whites in the country (inputs) mean you won’t get a colorblind result.
Want a colorblind RESULT? Well, you’re going to have to bias the process. Or selectively influence the inputs to the process. And so on.
So, a lot of racists tend to focus only on processes; they pretend results and inputs are completely irrelevant (or that they don’t even exist). They have a bullheaded failure to admit that a facially neutral process with biased inputs can produce a biased result.
As you might expect, I argue with the other side, too ;) A lot of antiracists tend to focus on results (which I generally agree with) and support biased processes /inputs to reach those goals (which I generally agree with) but deny that there’s any bias in the process at all. IOW, they have a tendency to deny that biased processes exist (which is very different from saying “they exist, but are necessary.”)
So I agree with you. I think. ;)
Want a colorblind college admissions PROCESS? Ok, but the past alumni and position of whites in the country (inputs) mean you won’t get a colorblind result. Want a colorblind RESULT? Well, you’re going to have to bias the process. Or selectively influence the inputs to the process. And so on.
So MIT’s process is that they set a certain (very high) academic standard for incoming freshmen. Perhaps a disproportionate number of underrepresented minorities don’t meet that standard. But every one that does is accepted, whereas non-underrepresented minorities (i.e., Americans of Asian descent) and non-minorities must compete with each other for the remainder of the spots. This continues until there is no such thing as an underrepresented minority. That also means that this may continue forever, since there are a great many external factors that will continue to mean that a disproportionate number of underrepresented minorities don’t meet the standard. But what MIT ends up with is a) high standards and b) as many underrepresented minorities as they can in their classes.
It’s a biased process. The input is manipulated so that the output reaches particular goals. Whether you view the output as less biased or not depends on whether you view what would result from using a neutral process (completely colorblind) as biased. It’s also dependent on whether or not you think that the result (having as many underrepresented minorities in MIT’s classes as possible) is desirable, necessary or worthwhile.
So, a lot of racists tend to focus only on processes; they pretend results and inputs are completely irrelevant (or that they don’t even exist).
Does that mean that if someone focuses solely on process, they are automatically racist?
Because I believe there are many valid ways of being non-racist, I’d say no. That part of the sentence after the semicolon is important!
IMO, There’s nothing inherently racist about focusing on or talking about processes. It’s the realization of the effect that such focus has on results (and/or inputs), and what one does as a result of that realization, that, along with the “why?” of your focus on process, are the true indicators. In other words, not everything that has an unbalanced result is racist IMO.
But I know for a fact I’m fairly nonrepresentative of society, and I’m not at all representative of most people who oppose racism online. I don’t expect my answer represents many others, and I’d be very curious to hear other opinions on this. Rachel, would you be willing to comment on the process/results issue?
Trying to act as if everyone is equal, treated equally and given equal opportunities in this society will only backfire because that’s just not the case. I have to explain this repeatedly when someone in one of my classes questions the necessity for affirmative action. The fact is, there are institutional forces at work of which white people have the privilege to remain ignorant, that people of colour have to deal with all the time. Hoping that the system will somehow magically be fixed if white people pretend that it isn’t broken is inherently fallacious. People of colour have a different experience of life than white people have, and treating them as if they don’t is insulting.
Sailorman,
I admire you for your rejection of claims of prescience that are so prevalent among the righteous left. You apparently are among the few who don’t have access to the certainty of what persons (generally those who disagree with the declarer) REALLY mean, or their ACTUAL intentions, motivations, thoughts, etc. Though I expect that if you hang around here long enough (or at Pandagon, or IBlamethePatriarchy, feministing, etc) that you will eventually discover that you also have this gift of prescience.
The most racially bigoted person I’ve ever known (or perhaps the one who was most willing to talk about it) was my late grandfather. He was himself of mixed race. I tend to agree with the idea that bigots will be bigots.
And I wonder why cognitive dissonance never managed to catch up with him.
I’m not sure I see the difference in those two scenarios. What it all comes down to is refusing to acknowledge reality. Why would we want to pretend everyone is the same color? We are not! Differences are great and if we try to ignore them much harm is done.
What I wonder is, who is it that really wants everyone to be “colorblind”? I think it is those people who look like me. White people.
I think that is because, if we can claim “colorblindness”, then we can continue to deny the effects of racism, stereotypes and white privilege.
This is just another way that whites want to ignore the elephant sitting in the living room.
Pingback: Privilege FTW: Romeny’s Condoleezza Strategy | Modern Primate | man, that's deep