ColorBlindness Won’t End Racism

“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.”

Racism is Prejudice plus Power

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…”

question everything

Ubuntu,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones, MSW, LLMSW

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Written by

I'm a Social Justice Educator and Aspiring Humanitarian who is interested in conflict resolution, improving intergroup relations, and building more equitable and inclusive communities. "Notes from an Aspiring Humanitarian" is my blog, where I write about issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice. By exploring social identities through written word, film & video, and other forms of media, I hope to continue to expand and enrich conversations about social issues that face our society, and to find ways to take social action while encouraging others to do so as well in their own ways.

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6 Responses

  1. lady2soothe says:

    Tweeted and shared on FaceBook

  2. 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.

  3. Sierra says:

    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”

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