What’s Wrong with Saying You “Don’t See Color”?
When I was younger, growing up in a predominantly white community in New Jersey, I remember being invited over to my friends’ houses for hangouts and dinners. Most of them were white, and their parents went out of their way to make me feel comfortable in their homes.
I learned early on how important it was to them that I validate their efforts, particularly when it came to issues of race. Often this took the form of parents and other adults in my life asserting that they didn’t “see color” – that they were, metaphorically speaking, “color-blind”. The obvious expectation was that this would reassure me as the “odd one out,” that I would feel I was being treated just like any other kid.
As I grew older, I found that many were eager to live in a world “blind” to skin color. From the boardroom to the mailroom, at every level of intellect, class, and background, I encountered people who wished to be free from the conceptual and societal constraints of “color”.
On the surface, I knew most of these people were coming from a good place with the right intentions. But that never made me feel any less comfortable with the idea that they were blinding themselves to the realities of racism, colorism, and racial prejudice in all its forms.
From a commonsense philosophical point of view, people who “don’t see color” are essentially trying to assert the fundamental equality of human beings. This is a deeply ingrained idea in American (and Christian) ideology.
But as I wrote about last week, in the case of affirmative action, equality isn’t always the same as equity. In today’s world, it is unrealistic and unfair to claim ignorance of the plain fact that we are not always equal – be it in the eyes of the law, the state, society, culture, or even just our neighbors.
Racial bias is real. Racism is real. The history of racial oppression is real. Blinding yourself to color doesn’t make any of them go away.
It’s interesting to think about the medical condition of colorblindness as a comparison. People who suffer from actual color blindness are not incapable of seeing any colors whatsoever. They most commonly have trouble distinguishing between colors. Which makes it a pretty apt metaphor for the intellectual laziness it inadvertently suggests in people who claim to be racially “color-blind”.
If you’re unable to perceive the differences of experience that people of different skin colors deal with – on a daily, historical, personal, or communal basis – then yes, your vision is deficient. The circumstances of life and the terms of identity are different in this country for different racial groups. Acting like they’re not doesn’t mean you’re seeing more clearly – it means you’re smudging the lines into indiscernible mush.
As author and activist Heather McGhee has written:
“Color blindness doesn’t make you blind to race – it makes you blind to racism.”
Not seeing color is a fairly recent concept in the racially charged history of the Western world. Up until the 1960s, it was imperative that everyone in America saw color and acted accordingly. Skin color was an unavoidable source of personal, civic, and cultural meaning: both for people “of color,” who suffered indignities and disenfranchisement, and for white people, who maintained their hold on political and economic power through the assertion of their lack of color.
Even the origin of the word “colored” – which, as a designation for Black or mixed race people, dates back to the 17th century – reveals the orientation and direction of racial power in the Western world. “Color” is a conceptual and linguistic tool used by white people to affirm their status as the norm, the standard from which all other skin colors deviate.
In 19th century state law codes in America, legislators defined “people of color” by the varying extents to which they were “tainted” by the genetics of color. In Kentucky, Maryland, and many other states, you were a person of color if you were “descended from a Negro in the third generation,” no matter how many other of your ancestors were white. In Alabama, it was extended to five generations. In Arkansas, it was based on a visual test: if you looked like you had a “visible and distinct admixture of African blood,” then you were a person of color. As the Black-operated Maryland newspaper from which these citations are taken wrote in 1912, this produced the ridiculous possibility that “a Negro in one state [was] not always a Negro in another."
Color blindness is a privilege for those living outside the boundary of color. To not see color is to avoid the grim disadvantages it has afforded millions of people for 400 years of our nation’s history. You can’t avoid “color,” even if it avoids you.
The idea that color blindness was a desirable alternative to racism and prejudice began in the Civil Rights era itself. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared in the 1963 March on Washington:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Given that this is one of the most frequently repeated phrases of the speech, it’s not totally surprising that the post-Civil Rights era tried to run with it as gospel. (Even though Dr. King was clearly not arguing that we abandon all appreciation of the practical implications of “color” in society.) For many white people at the time, it often seemed like the best thing to do was change how they saw color radically, taking Dr. King at his word and doing their best to proactively shed centuries of racial bias.
During the same period, white America was suburbanizing itself away from the cities, where people of color had been flocking in greater numbers for the past several decades. Racism was less overt in many of these more homogeneous communities. It was easy to assert “color blindness” when you actually couldn’t see the continuing effects of racism – historical and current – with your own eyes.
It’s also the case that most well-meaning people at the time were faced with a confusing shift: race was no longer the primary lens through which to view people in society, but it was still clearly responsible for shaping society. For people struggling with this change, it would be easier to simply do away with race as a lens altogether than to continue acknowledging its detrimental effects in society.
Because systematic racism, often in more covert ways, has obviously subsisted. America did change a great deal after passing landmark Civil Rights legislation. But historical, cultural, personal, and unconscious discrimination did not.
Today, asserting “color blindness” amounts to an evasion of the issue. It’s a way of avoiding or exempting yourself from uncomfortable conversations about race, racism, and our role in the systems that uphold it.
Ultimately, avoiding those conversations comes at a high cost for white people most of all. When you become less skilled at listening and empathizing with uncomfortable information, such as the lived experiences of people of color, you don’t build up the resilience required to acknowledge inequality and work toward change.
And of course, you also contribute to the uniquely American myth of unfettered individualism. In the land of the free, we pride ourselves on the premise that everybody has the same chances of success. It is only our personal differences in ambition, persistence, self-reliance, and independence that create varying results.
Color blindness – well-intentioned or not – is another way of saying: you’re just the same as everybody else. You’re not exceptional. Your problems are your own and, at this point in our society, the color of your skin has very little to do with it.
These myths of individualism and equality – or at best, the misunderstanding that they are realities, rather than ideals – have primarily been available to white people in America. As one professor of sociology, Adia Wingfield, notes:
“In most social interactions, whites get to be seen as individuals. Racial minorities, by contrast, become aware from a young age that people will often judge them as members of their group, and treat them in accordance with the (usually negative) stereotypes attached to that group.”
Now this argument is obviously a bit of a generalization, but it mostly rings true. Individualism is a privilege. The idea that hard work alone brings success only belongs to those who are free from other constraints. Color blindness presupposes that color is an accident of an individual’s birth, one which everyone is welcome to cast off if they’re serious about the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
But again, color has always existed in the eye of the “uncolored”. Most people of color would love to live in a world where our skin’s pigmentation doesn’t dictate our destinies. That’s just not the path our collective ancestors chose.
Mellody Hobson, a Black finance executive who’s achieved an impressive level of personal success, talks about the need to eschew color blindness in favor of “color bravery”. It takes a lot of courage, she acknowledges, to be willing to broach the subjects of race, racism, color, and systemic discrimination in contemporary life. In other words, to see color – in all its dappled, uneven, and often regrettable shades. But, as she explains through anecdotes from her own story, remaining blind to any of them is tantamount to reinforcing their stranglehold.
The world is full of color. We don’t always see it in the same way, and that will probably never change. But if we refuse to see what’s right in front of us, we’ll never succeed in building something braver and more beautiful, where true equality might finally stand an actual chance.
Porter Braswell
