EWSoccer, you bring up a very interesting point, the whole notion of colorblindness. Many people have written about this concept, and I have blogged about it extensively.
Leonard Pitts, Jr. is my favorite editorial columnist and he wrote a column several years ago on colorblindness. He spoke so eloquently about it, and I think this is a good place to share it. I, for one, agree with Mr. Pitts:
"A colorblind America is high on the wish list of many conservatives--right up there with two guns in every nightstand and a prayer in every classroom. They bemoan the scourge of hyphenated Americanism and wax eloquent on how much better off we'd be if we were all just Americans, period. If we no longer saw or acknowledged differences in race and culture.
I share their concern over the balkanization of the country. But their frequently proposed solution to that problem--that we ignore difference--is naive at best. It is also faintly insulting.
I speak from experience, having too frequently encountered white people who wanted me to know they didn't 'see' me as black. Intending a compliment, I suppose. Or maybe a promotion. And each time, I wondered the same thing: Why is my heritage something you have to blind yourself to in order for us to have a relationship? Why do you have to pretend I'm not what I quite obviously am before I can earn your good will? If that's the case, maybe your will isn't as good as you think it is.
Shall I pretend Jerry Seinfeld isn't Jewish? Or that Halle Berry isn't a woman? Makes about as much sense.
The truth is that so-called colorblindness is neither possible nor even desirable. One of the great joys of life in this nation is the fact that its culture is actually the rich mixture of many cultures. Why should I ignore that? Why should I fear difference?
Better, I think, to celebrate it. And to treat representatives of those cultures with fairness, equality and compassion. It really is as simple as that.
Or at least, it should be. Instead, Ward Connerly offers this shoddy attempt at social engineering. And it scares me, because I know it will likely prove attractive to those who see it as a way to end American balkanization with a single stroke. It is not. Rather, it's an attempt to enforce by law something that has never been true in fact. Meaning, the belief that race doesn't matter.
But for good and for ill, it does. And believing otherwise doesn't prove you're blind to color. It just proves you're blind."
Here is the Wikipedia entry regarding color blindness as it relates to race:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness_(race)Clearly there are those who support the concept of color blindness and those who are critics of the concept. I happen to fall in the latter group. Being “blind” to my race or ethnicity is offensive. I would like you not to be judgmental about me because of my race or ethnicity, but also do not ignore it, because what you are then implying is that there is something wrong, something uncomfortable about acknowledging my race or ethnicity. Should I be “blind” to your gender? Should I be “blind” to your level of education? If a person has a disability, should I be “blind” to her disability and just pretend she isn’t disabled, just pretend that we’re all the same? We aren’t! But we still need to treat people with respect! And that’s okay! And the thing is, somehow we have been socialized in this country to think of differences as negative. There is nowhere in the dictionary that defines differences as NEGATIVE. The definition of “different” in my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary is “not the same”. Period. It’s a neutral definition. We need to get over this idea that differences are negative and just view differences as neutral, including racial differences.
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Topic: The US Census (Read 608 times)