“I don’t see color.” “I treat everyone equally. I don’t care if you’re Black, White, Purple, or Blue!” “Race is socially constructed. It’s fake so if we just stop talking about it we can end this madness.”
I encounter sentiments like these often in my teaching, anti-racist practice, and personal life. This clip talks touches on the social construction of race, yet uses examples to highlight the very real impacts that structural racism has on people of color.
“Problems don’t get worse when you talk about them and they don’t magically go away when you ignore them.”
Pretending to not see race reinforces structural racism.
“Colorblindness is actually harmful because it creates a false sense of security for the groups it directly benefits. The people who benefitted from systemic racism can assume that they got the job, or a house, or weren’t suspended from preschool simply because they were more qualified, or just better.
Ignoring race or only acknowledging that it doesn’t exist biologically is not a solution to these systemic issues…”
From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones, MSW, LLMSW
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Damn I love this post. I wrote about this a while back also. This was around that time a viral YouTube video of a Black Poet made a video promoting that color blind nonsense.
Thanks Eddie,
It’s unfortunate that it happens but you bring up a great point, which is that sometimes, some of us can internalize the anti-Black messaging we receive and act it out on ourselves and others.
That is the epitome of fox news. They pay Stacey Dash, a black woman, to spread the anti black message. Whites in media always look for black pawns they can use to spread their “no such thing as racism” message. Smh.
One of the intended consequences of that strategy is to then say, “Well see? If it’s coming from them, and they’re Black, then it must be true.” Couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’m a Canadian from Toronto who’s mom was born American. I never understand the American stance of “you don’t talk about race, (religion and politics)” the race part, is a large issue, always has been, if you have a problem and you don’t talk about, it will never get better or go away! My son’s principal has the mindset to be “colourblind” I choose to teach my son differently. We live in the most multicultural city in the world. And I love it!!! I teach my son to learn about others and appreciate the differences and similarities. Teaching him that skin colour is no more important than hair or eye colour. My son is biracial. I have created a library for him of children’s biographies about artist, musicians, scientists, activists, you name it!! Of all cultures, but especially Bipoc people. Showing him there are great, inspiring people in every walk of life. I cannot teach him to be “colourblind”