Is the Term "Colorblind" Silly?

[DudeistMonk]

I've concluded that the racial divide in America, or at least here in Jersey comes for a cultural separation more than anything else. I think if we (whitey) started thinking of Black American Culture like we think of any other culture we would all be better off. Instead we spend so much time trying to burry and forget issues of "race" and being "color-blind" that we don't stop to enjoy and appreciate stuff like soul food and the Meters...The stuff that could bridge the divide. We should celebrate differences not try to eradicate them.

Then there is the whole inner-city poverty issue, which is a whole nother can of worms holding this nation back. We won't have racial equality until we have economic equality, educational equality, and end the drug war that is ripping America apart. There is a vicious cycle apparent in places like Newark where you can't get a true public education.

Watch the Nat Geo Special on high school after Katrina in New Orleans for an excellent documentary on the problems with inner city education. You lock a kids father up for dealing or whatever and trying to make a buck for his family and then his son steps into his shoes, and winds up in the same place, a father too young with no education, no money and dependents. You put enough kids stuck in this kind of situation and soon your teachers can't teach, you have students with guns and staff afraid to do anything about anything, and it all snowballs further and further out of control, more kids with no education, turning to dealing and crime, more pregnancy, more broken homes.

It's a huge issue with no clear solution, that's just my .02.

 

[sloasdaylight]

Watch the Nat Geo Special on high school after Katrina in New Orleans for an excellent documentary on the problems with inner city education. You lock a kids father up for dealing or whatever and trying to make a buck for his family and then his son steps into his shoes, and winds up in the same place, a father too young with no education, no money and dependents. You put enough kids stuck in this kind of situation and soon your teachers can't teach, you have students with guns and staff afraid to do anything about anything, and it all snowballs further and further out of control, more kids with no education, turning to dealing and crime, more pregnancy, more broken homes.

Proper parenting and upbringing solves that issue. The problem is getting people to do it.

 

[MatticusMania]

Proper parenting and upbringing solves that issue. The problem is getting people to do it.

Though this is getting a little off the topic at hand, youre absolutely right.

I often have this discussion with various people... its a social issue.

Too many people are having kids when they shouldnt, which ultimately leads to improper parenting. Ive seen some horrible examples of it first hand. With each generation there are more and more kids being brought up without proper guidance and that will be society's downfall.

 

[hrodbert696]

"Black" and "White" (and any other races that one cares to bring up) are very artificial constructs that pick on a handful of arbitrarily chosen physical characteristics (skin color, most obviously) to classify people. The tendency to do so is nearly irresistible.

However, "race" as we normally conceive of it is genetically meaningless. Both African and European populations are composed of multiple overlapping gene pools, and these gene pools in turn have lots of characteristics that overlap with non-African or -European populations. If you actually trace the history of racism, you'll find all kinds of people who would say that Italians, or Greeks, or Irish are not "white" because they don't look quite like Scandinavians or whatever. A pastor I once had who had been a missionary to Eritrea, in east Africa, told me the population there classified people into eight races on the basis of skin color -- and that just local groups, not counting "white" Europeans!

So objectively speaking, "race" in the sense of "skin color" is meaningless.

On the other hand, we live in a culture with a long and deeply-ingrained tradition of loading these "meaningless" distinctions with LOTS of meaning. It's not going to disappear just because we wish it away or pat ourselves on the back for being allegedly "colorblind." The arbitrary physical marker becomes a cultural marker for people who belong to particular communities and have a claim, or a liability, to the heritage of those communities.

There's a further problem here, though; Barack Obama can hardly be called a product of the African-American community, in the sense of the community of people descended from the victims of slavery in America. His skin color comes from his (relatively privileged) African father, not ancestry going back to any slave plantation, and his mother of course was white and raised him in largely white surroundings. That's why for a while it was an open question whether the African-American community would embrace him or Hillary Clinton, for he was not entirely "one of them" even though he had the physical appearance of such, while she had a more proven track record of working for civil rights. Also, I have known a few people who did not look "black" but nevertheless DID come from that heritage and claimed it.

In the end, we need to be aware that we all live in a culture in which people will classify us by our physical appearance, including color but also things like attractiveness, weight, etc. We need to acknowledge that we ourselves can't help noticing these things and that they tend to set the parameters for our expectations of other people. But acknowledging that, I still think it's possible to judge people, not in a "colorblind" way, but as Dr. King said, by content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

"Black" and "White" (and any other races that one cares to bring up) are very artificial constructs that pick on a handful of arbitrarily chosen physical characteristics (skin color, most obviously) to classify people. The tendency to do so is nearly irresistible.

However, "race" as we normally conceive of it is genetically meaningless. Both African and European populations are composed of multiple overlapping gene pools, and these gene pools in turn have lots of characteristics that overlap with non-African or -European populations. If you actually trace the history of racism, you'll find all kinds of people who would say that Italians, or Greeks, or Irish are not "white" because they don't look quite like Scandinavians or whatever. A pastor I once had who had been a missionary to Eritrea, in east Africa, told me the population there classified people into eight races on the basis of skin color -- and that just local groups, not counting "white" Europeans!

So objectively speaking, "race" in the sense of "skin color" is meaningless.

On the other hand, we live in a culture with a long and deeply-ingrained tradition of loading these "meaningless" distinctions with LOTS of meaning. It's not going to disappear just because we wish it away or pat ourselves on the back for being allegedly "colorblind." The arbitrary physical marker becomes a cultural marker for people who belong to particular communities and have a claim, or a liability, to the heritage of those communities.

There's a further problem here, though; Barack Obama can hardly be called a product of the African-American community, in the sense of the community of people descended from the victims of slavery in America. His skin color comes from his (relatively privileged) African father, not ancestry going back to any slave plantation, and his mother of course was white and raised him in largely white surroundings. That's why for a while it was an open question whether the African-American community would embrace him or Hillary Clinton, for he was not entirely "one of them" even though he had the physical appearance of such, while she had a more proven track record of working for civil rights. Also, I have known a few people who did not look "black" but nevertheless DID come from that heritage and claimed it.

In the end, we need to be aware that we all live in a culture in which people will classify us by our physical appearance, including color but also things like attractiveness, weight, etc. We need to acknowledge that we ourselves can't help noticing these things and that they tend to set the parameters for our expectations of other people. But acknowledging that, I still think it's possible to judge people, not in a "colorblind" way, but as Dr. King said, by content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

Off topic:

At a very basic level, President Obama's background is irrelevant. Segregation and racism in America never made an exception for background or how a person was raised. It was based solely on appearance, and if someone had known black ancestry. In the sense that a man looking like Obama walking down the street would probably considered black by most passersby, Barack Obama is part of the African American community.

More to the point, I think this has little or nothing to do with my original question.

 

[Jimmy Bones]

Off topic:

At a very basic level, President Obama's background is irrelevant. Segregation and racism in America never made an exception for background or how a person was raised. It was based solely on appearance, and if someone had known black ancestry. In the sense that a man looking like Obama walking down the street would probably considered black by most passersby, Barack Obama is part of the African American community.

More to the point, I think this has little or nothing to do with my original question.

Except that if I do question his background and experience, I get called paranoid or a racist, depending on who's listening to my question.

Accusations of racism are based on a lot of things, and used in both constructive and destructive ways.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Except that if I do question his background and experience, I get called paranoid or a racist, depending on who's listening to my question.

Accusations of racism are based on a lot of things, and used in both constructive and destructive ways.

Now you are getting into purely political issues that have nothing at all to do with the original premise of my thread. Believe it or not, it is possible to use the Matthews/Obama situation to discuss the notion of colorblindness without mentioning politics. It's just that most of you guys really want to talk politics, and my thread gives you a cover to do so.

 

[sloasdaylight]

Now you are getting into purely political issues that have nothing at all to do with the original premise of my thread. Believe it or not, it is possible to use the Matthews/Obama situation to discuss the notion of colorblindness without mentioning politics. It's just that most of you guys really want to talk politics, and my thread gives you a cover to do so.

With a person like Barack Obama, you have essentially 1 thing to look at and judge him by that everyone knows at least a little about, which is his politics, because he is such a political figure. Jimmy's point is valid when he brings up the fact that disagreeing with the president based solely on political issues often times gets one labeled as a racist or a bigot, when it is an honest attempt to judge a man based solely on everything he does that does not have to do with his race, which is to say, attempting to be colorblind when judging him. It is a perfect example of how many in this country refuse to see past one's skin color.

To answer your question point blank: No, the term "colorblind" is not silly.

If you honestly didn't want people to discuss Obama and Matthews, then you should never have created this thread or you shouldn't have brought them up as the example. The discussion of "colorblindness" will invariably lead to a politically or racially charged discussion due quite simply to it's very nature of being a racially and politically charged subject, including everything from welfare, affirmative action, "reverse" racism, whatever that is, racial quotas, and yes, the President himself. When some one provides a statement like Jimmy did, it is relevant to the discussion, I have no idea where you're getting off saying it isn't, because anyone whose paid attention to the thread can see that it is, unless you're just trying desperately to keep any real discussion of the term and the issues surrounding it squashed because you want a simple yes or no answer. If that's the case you should have just made a poll and gotten it over with.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

With a person like Barack Obama, you have essentially 1 thing to look at and judge him by that everyone knows at least a little about, which is his politics, because he is such a political figure. Jimmy's point is valid when he brings up the fact that disagreeing with the president based solely on political issues often times gets one labeled as a racist or a bigot, when it is an honest attempt to judge a man based solely on everything he does that does not have to do with his race, which is to say, attempting to be colorblind when judging him. It is a perfect example of how many in this country refuse to see past one's skin color.

To answer your question point blank: No, the term "colorblind" is not silly.

If you honestly didn't want people to discuss Obama and Matthews, then you should never have created this thread or you shouldn't have brought them up as the example. The discussion of "colorblindness" will invariably lead to a politically or racially charged discussion due quite simply to it's very nature of being a racially and politically charged subject, including everything from welfare, affirmative action, "reverse" racism, whatever that is, racial quotas, and yes, the President himself. When some one provides a statement like Jimmy did, it is relevant to the discussion, I have no idea where you're getting off saying it isn't, because anyone whose paid attention to the thread can see that it is, unless you're just trying desperately to keep any real discussion of the term and the issues surrounding it squashed because you want a simple yes or no answer. If that's the case you should have just made a poll and gotten it over with.

I believe that President Obama and Chris Matthews could be used as examples of the use of the term colorblind. The fact that there is a video of Matthews using the term is a wonderful illustration of what I was talking about that made the concept more tangible than my mere words ever could.

I think discussing perceptions of the idea of "colorblindness" does not require us to discuss people who might have saud something or whether we think the current president is qualified for his office. People get off on those tangents because that is what they want to do. This thread is still active because I have called people on it or else it would have devolved into arguments, and it would have been closed by now.

 

[hrodbert696]

Off topic:

At a very basic level, President Obama's background is irrelevant. Segregation and racism in America never made an exception for background or how a person was raised. It was based solely on appearance, and if someone had known black ancestry. In the sense that a man looking like Obama walking down the street would probably considered black by most passersby, Barack Obama is part of the African American community.

More to the point, I think this has little or nothing to do with my original question.

Actually, this was my point. What does it MEAN for a commentator to say that he "forgot Obama was black?" Part of my point was that in a culture where skin color gets used as a marker for all sorts of cultural implications, a person with that skin color will get classified in ways that have little to do with their actual individual cultural background. The president is not just a product of the black community who defies negative stereotypes about that community, he's actually someone from outside that community who, thanks to the physical marker, is nevertheless able to operate within it (and thereby show how arbitrary the classifications can be). Obama is what the sociologists call a "boundary crosser," someone who can move back and forth between cultural groups who normally are divided from each other.

And -- to the original point -- let me repeat that while I believe color is an artificial and arbitrary marker of identity, the history of this arbitrary marker has made it a very powerful one, which cannot be ignored or dismissed. So no, I don't think that it's honest or realistic to speak of being "colorblind."

And I'll use myself as an example; I'm white, grew up in a state with hardly any blacks around at all. Over the course of school and work I've had a couple of black friends, a couple of black girlfriends, one black boss and some co-workers. Without falling back on saying "some of my best friends are black people," I know from experience that there are some blacks who live up to every nasty stereotype and some who are among the best people I've ever known. I suppose that if any white person should be colorblind, it ought to be me. Now, back home in my mostly-white state, I STILL have to stop myself doing a double-take when a black person walks down the street -- something in my gut just reacts with surprise to see diversity coming into my little white world.