It’s A Hardknock Teacher’s Life
A ToC trying to keep it real, in spite of the odds.

Colorblindness

This timely article says colorblindness is a myth.  I agree.

Whenever I hear the term, I cringe.  After all, it means that one sees no color, and in my mind, being blind to color, i.e. race, is denying a person’s identity, authentic self, humanity.  

I remember the first time a White person told me, “You know, I don’t see you as Black.”

I was rather young - 12, I think.  Although I felt an appropriate degree of discomfort and confusion by such  a statement,  I did not possess the tools at that point in my life to challenge it.  I mean, I saw the person in question as White.  So…why could she not see me as Black?  What was so hard/awful/wrong about it?

When such things are said to a person of color by a majority person, what the majority person is really saying is that he/she doesn’t want to be made to feel uncomfortable. For in doing so, he/she won’t have to confront his/her own beliefs about race.

Anyway, read the article for yourself if you haven’t already done so.  It’s worth your time.

 

2 Responses to “Colorblindness”

  1. I think the problem is that many of us in the majority don’t realize that by saying “I don’t see you as Black” they are in a way denying the differences of reality and basically claiming to live in a pretend world where everyone is white. There’s this tendency to see white as the default and so it should be a complement not to see someone as a minority. The truth is that that’s just as prejudiced!

    Thanks for the link to that article. Good to see research on the topic.

    penelope - January 26, 2008 at 7:31 pm

  2. I see color and I see culture when I look at my students as a white, middle class teacher.

    ms_teacher - January 27, 2008 at 10:05 pm

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