On "color-blindness," again.
Apr. 20th, 2011 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gaudiorAnother day, another column pointing out the inherent racism in a film (John Shore on 'Hop'), another idiot commenter saying:
I just feel these race issues have gone on too long. Why can we not see each other as humans? Affirmative action only furthers the idea that each race is different... I just don’t think we should be focusing so hard on this.
But it seems like a good chance to trot out a new way of explaining the problem with this argument.
Saying "we should all be color-blind and see each other as humans without thinking of race" is very much like if I go up to someone and say, "Bob-- I don't care that you're wearing a long-sleeved shirt today. When I see you, I don't even think to myself about what kind of shirt you're wearing-- it's like I can't see it at all. I just see you as a human being, like me-- why should it matter that your shirt has long sleeves?"
People of different races are, in fact, different. They have different cultural heritages and ways that people treat them and (sometimes) languages and traditions and skin tones. If you didn't think difference meant something bad about the person, there would be no reason not to mention it.
It's true that pretending there's no difference is better than, say, beating Bob up or refusing to hire him or serve him. It's definitely a step in the right direction. But it means that nobody will take Bob to the hospital after someone beat him up for wearing a long-sleeved shirt, because that would mean acknowledging that he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and that there were consequences to other people reacting to that.
And besides the more serious consequence of people ignoring the real results of racism-- claiming colorblindness is silly. There's nothing wrong with wearing a long-sleeved shirt, so there's no earthly reason not to mention it and acknowledge it when it comes up. There's nothing wrong with someone being a different race, so there's no earthly reason not to mention it and acknowledge it when it comes up. Doesn't that seem straightforward?
--R
I just feel these race issues have gone on too long. Why can we not see each other as humans? Affirmative action only furthers the idea that each race is different... I just don’t think we should be focusing so hard on this.
But it seems like a good chance to trot out a new way of explaining the problem with this argument.
Saying "we should all be color-blind and see each other as humans without thinking of race" is very much like if I go up to someone and say, "Bob-- I don't care that you're wearing a long-sleeved shirt today. When I see you, I don't even think to myself about what kind of shirt you're wearing-- it's like I can't see it at all. I just see you as a human being, like me-- why should it matter that your shirt has long sleeves?"
People of different races are, in fact, different. They have different cultural heritages and ways that people treat them and (sometimes) languages and traditions and skin tones. If you didn't think difference meant something bad about the person, there would be no reason not to mention it.
It's true that pretending there's no difference is better than, say, beating Bob up or refusing to hire him or serve him. It's definitely a step in the right direction. But it means that nobody will take Bob to the hospital after someone beat him up for wearing a long-sleeved shirt, because that would mean acknowledging that he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and that there were consequences to other people reacting to that.
And besides the more serious consequence of people ignoring the real results of racism-- claiming colorblindness is silly. There's nothing wrong with wearing a long-sleeved shirt, so there's no earthly reason not to mention it and acknowledge it when it comes up. There's nothing wrong with someone being a different race, so there's no earthly reason not to mention it and acknowledge it when it comes up. Doesn't that seem straightforward?
--R
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Re: Color Blindness
Date: 2011-04-21 01:28 pm (UTC)There seems to be a lot of equivocation (and I suspect this is the trap that the troublesome premise I identified above fell into) around the distinct principles of personal ethical behavior, good governmental policy, and the raw processing of data that happens in the brain. (Only humans could cook up THAT confusion.)
On the one hand, the general instruction: We should see each other as humans, regardless of other conditions makes for an excellent personal ethic. Under our current socio-economic/political climate, it is agreed upon by the majority that it makes for shitty gov't policy, however. And as you point out, it's impossible without a lot of brainwashing at the cognitive level insofar as we receive different sensory information based upon these differences.
The ideal is that, at a personal level, race/nationality/gender/orientation/ThisSpaceForRent is functionally irrelevant data. We receive it, we process it, but it does not impact our judgment of the quality of the other - they are part of "we." What you identify in your last paragraph are 'nonfunctional differences' which do not violate the "we are all humans" philosophy.
But a lengthy discussion of the nuances of this philosophy requires people to spend energy thinking about it, and thus isn't a convenient sound bite. "We should be colorblind," thus, prevails in the marketplace of ideas as a consumer-friendly knock-off.