Race-blind
Encyclopedia
Color blindness is a sociological term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics when selecting which individuals will participate in some activity or receive some service.
Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.
This article deals with the United States
, although similar phenomena exist in other cultures.
The term is sometimes also used in a non-political sense; for example, love
is often described as colorblind.
The name is by analogy with physiological color blindness
, a genetic trait that prevents some people from distinguishing certain colors such as similar shades of red and green. The term is figurative, as most color blind people can identify race reliably.
of the American Civil Rights Institute, has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)
), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
- MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor
Pete Wilson
to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.
Professor Carl Cohen
of the University of Michigan
, who was a supporter of Michigan
's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that led to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
Some national blog
gers and internet
resources who favor the "equal opportunity" approach over "positive discrimination" include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.
Actor-producer-director Kenneth Branagh
frequently uses race-blind casting in his Shakespearean films. In Much Ado About Nothing
, he cast Denzel Washington
as Don Pedro; in his version of Hamlet
, Francisco, one of the sentries in the first scene, was played by an African-American; and in his As You Like It
, David Oyelowo
portrays Orlando. There are also several Japanese
actors in the latter film.
, and privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality
.
Critics allege that majority groups use practices of color-blindness as a means of avoiding the topic of racism
and accusations of racial discrimination, and thus hide their true racial views, and that color blindness is used as a tool in attacking group legal rights gained exclusively by some minority groups.
Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal. As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks. Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people
can no longer point out the racism they face.
Sociologists
such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University
and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford
describe color-blindness as a dominant "racial ideology", or as Bonilla-Silva explains, "the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States. Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, "of finding good and bad people", but rather looking at the "collective" understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient "frames" of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as "I am all for equal opportunity and that's why I oppose affirmative action"),"biologization of culture" (e.g. "Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values"), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. "Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them"), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as "There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find").
Critics of color-blindness argue that color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue. While it is true that overt racism is rare today, critics insist that more covert forms have taken its place. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva suggests that racial practices during the Jim Crow Era were typically overt and clearly racial, whereas today they tend to be covert, institutional, and apparently nonracial. Another criticism is that color-blindness views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as "I don't own slaves" or "I have very close black friends" to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates. In an article in the journal New Directions for Student Services, Nancy Evans and Robert Reason argued that color-blindness fails to see the "structural, institutional, and societal" levels at which inequalities occur.
Color blindness (sometimes spelled colour-blindness; also called race blindness) is a sociological term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics when selecting which individuals will participate in some activity or receive some service.
Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.
This article deals with the United States
, although similar phenomena exist in other cultures.
The term is sometimes also used in a non-political sense; for example, love
is often described as colorblind.
The name is by analogy with physiological color blindness
, a genetic trait that prevents some people from distinguishing certain colors such as similar shades of red and green. The term is figurative, as most color blind people can identify race reliably.
of the American Civil Rights Institute, has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)
), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
- MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor
Pete Wilson
to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.
Professor Carl Cohen
of the University of Michigan
, who was a supporter of Michigan
's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that led to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
Some national blog
gers and internet
resources who favor the "equal opportunity" approach over "positive discrimination" include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.
Actor-producer-director Kenneth Branagh
frequently uses race-blind casting in his Shakespearean films. In Much Ado About Nothing
, he cast Denzel Washington
as Don Pedro; in his version of Hamlet
, Francisco, one of the sentries in the first scene, was played by an African-American; and in his As You Like It
, David Oyelowo
portrays Orlando. There are also several Japanese
actors in the latter film.
, and privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality
.
Critics allege that majority groups use practices of color-blindness as a means of avoiding the topic of racism
and accusations of racial discrimination, and thus hide their true racial views, and that color blindness is used as a tool in attacking group legal rights gained exclusively by some minority groups.
Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal. As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks. Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people
can no longer point out the racism they face.
Sociologists
such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University
and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford
describe color-blindness as a dominant "racial ideology", or as Bonilla-Silva explains, "the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States. Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, "of finding good and bad people", but rather looking at the "collective" understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient "frames" of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as "I am all for equal opportunity and that's why I oppose affirmative action"),"biologization of culture" (e.g. "Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values"), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. "Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them"), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as "There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find").
Critics of color-blindness argue that color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue. While it is true that overt racism is rare today, critics insist that more covert forms have taken its place. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva suggests that racial practices during the Jim Crow Era were typically overt and clearly racial, whereas today they tend to be covert, institutional, and apparently nonracial. Another criticism is that color-blindness views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as "I don't own slaves" or "I have very close black friends" to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates. In an article in the journal New Directions for Student Services, Nancy Evans and Robert Reason argued that color-blindness fails to see the "structural, institutional, and societal" levels at which inequalities occur.
Color blindness (sometimes spelled colour-blindness; also called race blindness) is a sociological term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics when selecting which individuals will participate in some activity or receive some service.
Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.
This article deals with the United States
, although similar phenomena exist in other cultures.
The term is sometimes also used in a non-political sense; for example, love
is often described as colorblind.
The name is by analogy with physiological color blindness
, a genetic trait that prevents some people from distinguishing certain colors such as similar shades of red and green. The term is figurative, as most color blind people can identify race reliably.
of the American Civil Rights Institute, has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)
), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
- MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor
Pete Wilson
to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.
Professor Carl Cohen
of the University of Michigan
, who was a supporter of Michigan
's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that led to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
Some national blog
gers and internet
resources who favor the "equal opportunity" approach over "positive discrimination" include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.
Actor-producer-director Kenneth Branagh
frequently uses race-blind casting in his Shakespearean films. In Much Ado About Nothing
, he cast Denzel Washington
as Don Pedro; in his version of Hamlet
, Francisco, one of the sentries in the first scene, was played by an African-American; and in his As You Like It
, David Oyelowo
portrays Orlando. There are also several Japanese
actors in the latter film.
, and privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality
.
Critics allege that majority groups use practices of color-blindness as a means of avoiding the topic of racism
and accusations of racial discrimination, and thus hide their true racial views, and that color blindness is used as a tool in attacking group legal rights gained exclusively by some minority groups.
Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal. As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks. Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people
can no longer point out the racism they face.
Sociologists
such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University
and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford
describe color-blindness as a dominant "racial ideology", or as Bonilla-Silva explains, "the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States. Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, "of finding good and bad people", but rather looking at the "collective" understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient "frames" of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as "I am all for equal opportunity and that's why I oppose affirmative action"),"biologization of culture" (e.g. "Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values"), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. "Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them"), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as "There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find").
Critics of color-blindness argue that color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue. While it is true that overt racism is rare today, critics insist that more covert forms have taken its place. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva suggests that racial practices during the Jim Crow Era were typically overt and clearly racial, whereas today they tend to be covert, institutional, and apparently nonracial. Another criticism is that color-blindness views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as "I don't own slaves" or "I have very close black friends" to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates. In an article in the journal New Directions for Student Services, Nancy Evans and Robert Reason argued that color-blindness fails to see the "structural, institutional, and societal" levels at which inequalities occur.
Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.
This article deals with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, although similar phenomena exist in other cultures.
The term is sometimes also used in a non-political sense; for example, love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
is often described as colorblind.
The name is by analogy with physiological color blindness
Color blindness
Color blindness or color vision deficiency is the inability or decreased ability to see color, or perceive color differences, under lighting conditions when color vision is not normally impaired...
, a genetic trait that prevents some people from distinguishing certain colors such as similar shades of red and green. The term is figurative, as most color blind people can identify race reliably.
Support of color blindness
Ward ConnerlyWard Connerly
Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly is an American political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent . He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences...
of the American Civil Rights Institute, has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)
California Proposition 209 (1996)
Proposition 209 is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. It had been supported and funded by the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, led by University...
), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative , or Proposal 2 , was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the...
- MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Pete Wilson
Pete Wilson
Peter Barton "Pete" Wilson is an American politician from California. Wilson, a Republican, served as the 36th Governor of California , the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator , eleven years as Mayor of San Diego and...
to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.
Professor Carl Cohen
Carl Cohen
Carl Cohen is Professor of Philosophy at the Residential College of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He is co-author of "The Animal Rights Debate" , a point-counterpoint volume with Prof...
of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, who was a supporter of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that led to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
Some national blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
gers and internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
resources who favor the "equal opportunity" approach over "positive discrimination" include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.
Actor-producer-director Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
frequently uses race-blind casting in his Shakespearean films. In Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing (film)
Much Ado About Nothing is a 1993 British/American romantic comedy film based on William Shakespeare's play. It was adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also played the role of Benedick....
, he cast Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
as Don Pedro; in his version of Hamlet
Hamlet (1996 film)
Hamlet is a 1996 film version of William Shakespeare's classic play of the same name, adapted and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars in the title role as Prince Hamlet...
, Francisco, one of the sentries in the first scene, was played by an African-American; and in his As You Like It
As You Like It (2006 film)
As You Like It is a 2006 film directed by Kenneth Branagh. It is based on the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. The play's setting is relocated from medieval France to a European colony in late 19th century Japan after the Meiji Restoration. It was shot at Shepperton Film Studios and on...
, David Oyelowo
David Oyelowo
- Background :Oyelowo was born in Oxford, England of Nigerian descent. He is married to actress Jessica Oyelowo and they have three sons.Oyelowo first attended a youth theatre after being invited by a girl to whom he was attracted. He then studied Theatre Studies for A level and his teacher...
portrays Orlando. There are also several Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
actors in the latter film.
Criticism of color blindness
In 1997 Leslie G. Carr published "Color-Blind Racism" (Sage Publications) which reviewed the history of racist ideologies in America. He saw "color-blindness" as an ideology being promoted in to undercut the legal and political foundation of integration and affirmative action. For example, in her book Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America, Stephanie M. Wildman writes that many Americans who advocate a merit-based, race-free worldview do not acknowledge the systems of privilege which benefit them. For example, many Americans rely on a social and sometimes even financial inheritance from previous generations. She argues that this inheritance is unlikely to be forthcoming if one's ancestors were slavesSlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, and privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
.
Critics allege that majority groups use practices of color-blindness as a means of avoiding the topic of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and accusations of racial discrimination, and thus hide their true racial views, and that color blindness is used as a tool in attacking group legal rights gained exclusively by some minority groups.
Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal. As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks. Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
can no longer point out the racism they face.
Sociologists
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford
University of Hartford
The University of Hartford is a private, independent, nonsectarian, coeducational university located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The degree programs at the University of Hartford hold the highest levels of accreditation available in the US, including the Engineering Accreditation Commission of...
describe color-blindness as a dominant "racial ideology", or as Bonilla-Silva explains, "the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States. Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, "of finding good and bad people", but rather looking at the "collective" understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient "frames" of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as "I am all for equal opportunity and that's why I oppose affirmative action"),"biologization of culture" (e.g. "Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values"), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. "Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them"), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as "There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find").
Critics of color-blindness argue that color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue. While it is true that overt racism is rare today, critics insist that more covert forms have taken its place. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva suggests that racial practices during the Jim Crow Era were typically overt and clearly racial, whereas today they tend to be covert, institutional, and apparently nonracial. Another criticism is that color-blindness views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as "I don't own slaves" or "I have very close black friends" to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates. In an article in the journal New Directions for Student Services, Nancy Evans and Robert Reason argued that color-blindness fails to see the "structural, institutional, and societal" levels at which inequalities occur.
Color blindness (sometimes spelled colour-blindness; also called race blindness) is a sociological term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics when selecting which individuals will participate in some activity or receive some service.
Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.
This article deals with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, although similar phenomena exist in other cultures.
The term is sometimes also used in a non-political sense; for example, love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
is often described as colorblind.
The name is by analogy with physiological color blindness
Color blindness
Color blindness or color vision deficiency is the inability or decreased ability to see color, or perceive color differences, under lighting conditions when color vision is not normally impaired...
, a genetic trait that prevents some people from distinguishing certain colors such as similar shades of red and green. The term is figurative, as most color blind people can identify race reliably.
Support of color blindness
Ward ConnerlyWard Connerly
Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly is an American political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent . He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences...
of the American Civil Rights Institute, has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)
California Proposition 209 (1996)
Proposition 209 is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. It had been supported and funded by the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, led by University...
), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative , or Proposal 2 , was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the...
- MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Pete Wilson
Pete Wilson
Peter Barton "Pete" Wilson is an American politician from California. Wilson, a Republican, served as the 36th Governor of California , the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator , eleven years as Mayor of San Diego and...
to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.
Professor Carl Cohen
Carl Cohen
Carl Cohen is Professor of Philosophy at the Residential College of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He is co-author of "The Animal Rights Debate" , a point-counterpoint volume with Prof...
of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, who was a supporter of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that led to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
Some national blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
gers and internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
resources who favor the "equal opportunity" approach over "positive discrimination" include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.
Actor-producer-director Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
frequently uses race-blind casting in his Shakespearean films. In Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing (film)
Much Ado About Nothing is a 1993 British/American romantic comedy film based on William Shakespeare's play. It was adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also played the role of Benedick....
, he cast Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
as Don Pedro; in his version of Hamlet
Hamlet (1996 film)
Hamlet is a 1996 film version of William Shakespeare's classic play of the same name, adapted and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars in the title role as Prince Hamlet...
, Francisco, one of the sentries in the first scene, was played by an African-American; and in his As You Like It
As You Like It (2006 film)
As You Like It is a 2006 film directed by Kenneth Branagh. It is based on the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. The play's setting is relocated from medieval France to a European colony in late 19th century Japan after the Meiji Restoration. It was shot at Shepperton Film Studios and on...
, David Oyelowo
David Oyelowo
- Background :Oyelowo was born in Oxford, England of Nigerian descent. He is married to actress Jessica Oyelowo and they have three sons.Oyelowo first attended a youth theatre after being invited by a girl to whom he was attracted. He then studied Theatre Studies for A level and his teacher...
portrays Orlando. There are also several Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
actors in the latter film.
Criticism of color blindness
In 1997 Leslie G. Carr published "Color-Blind Racism" (Sage Publications) which reviewed the history of racist ideologies in America. He saw "color-blindness" as an ideology being promoted in to undercut the legal and political foundation of integration and affirmative action. For example, in her book Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America, Stephanie M. Wildman writes that many Americans who advocate a merit-based, race-free worldview do not acknowledge the systems of privilege which benefit them. For example, many Americans rely on a social and sometimes even financial inheritance from previous generations. She argues that this inheritance is unlikely to be forthcoming if one's ancestors were slavesSlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, and privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
.
Critics allege that majority groups use practices of color-blindness as a means of avoiding the topic of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and accusations of racial discrimination, and thus hide their true racial views, and that color blindness is used as a tool in attacking group legal rights gained exclusively by some minority groups.
Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal. As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks. Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
can no longer point out the racism they face.
Sociologists
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford
University of Hartford
The University of Hartford is a private, independent, nonsectarian, coeducational university located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The degree programs at the University of Hartford hold the highest levels of accreditation available in the US, including the Engineering Accreditation Commission of...
describe color-blindness as a dominant "racial ideology", or as Bonilla-Silva explains, "the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States. Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, "of finding good and bad people", but rather looking at the "collective" understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient "frames" of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as "I am all for equal opportunity and that's why I oppose affirmative action"),"biologization of culture" (e.g. "Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values"), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. "Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them"), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as "There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find").
Critics of color-blindness argue that color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue. While it is true that overt racism is rare today, critics insist that more covert forms have taken its place. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva suggests that racial practices during the Jim Crow Era were typically overt and clearly racial, whereas today they tend to be covert, institutional, and apparently nonracial. Another criticism is that color-blindness views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as "I don't own slaves" or "I have very close black friends" to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates. In an article in the journal New Directions for Student Services, Nancy Evans and Robert Reason argued that color-blindness fails to see the "structural, institutional, and societal" levels at which inequalities occur.
Color blindness (sometimes spelled colour-blindness; also called race blindness) is a sociological term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics when selecting which individuals will participate in some activity or receive some service.
Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.
This article deals with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, although similar phenomena exist in other cultures.
The term is sometimes also used in a non-political sense; for example, love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
is often described as colorblind.
The name is by analogy with physiological color blindness
Color blindness
Color blindness or color vision deficiency is the inability or decreased ability to see color, or perceive color differences, under lighting conditions when color vision is not normally impaired...
, a genetic trait that prevents some people from distinguishing certain colors such as similar shades of red and green. The term is figurative, as most color blind people can identify race reliably.
Support of color blindness
Ward ConnerlyWard Connerly
Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly is an American political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent . He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences...
of the American Civil Rights Institute, has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)
California Proposition 209 (1996)
Proposition 209 is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. It had been supported and funded by the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign, led by University...
), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative , or Proposal 2 , was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the...
- MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006). California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Pete Wilson
Pete Wilson
Peter Barton "Pete" Wilson is an American politician from California. Wilson, a Republican, served as the 36th Governor of California , the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator , eleven years as Mayor of San Diego and...
to the University of California Board of Regents. Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.
Professor Carl Cohen
Carl Cohen
Carl Cohen is Professor of Philosophy at the Residential College of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He is co-author of "The Animal Rights Debate" , a point-counterpoint volume with Prof...
of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, who was a supporter of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
's Proposal 2, have argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted. Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that led to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
Some national blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
gers and internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
resources who favor the "equal opportunity" approach over "positive discrimination" include John Rosenberg's Discriminations, Tim Fay's Adversity.net, and Chetly Zarko's Power, Politics, & Money.
Actor-producer-director Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
frequently uses race-blind casting in his Shakespearean films. In Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing (film)
Much Ado About Nothing is a 1993 British/American romantic comedy film based on William Shakespeare's play. It was adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also played the role of Benedick....
, he cast Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
as Don Pedro; in his version of Hamlet
Hamlet (1996 film)
Hamlet is a 1996 film version of William Shakespeare's classic play of the same name, adapted and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars in the title role as Prince Hamlet...
, Francisco, one of the sentries in the first scene, was played by an African-American; and in his As You Like It
As You Like It (2006 film)
As You Like It is a 2006 film directed by Kenneth Branagh. It is based on the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. The play's setting is relocated from medieval France to a European colony in late 19th century Japan after the Meiji Restoration. It was shot at Shepperton Film Studios and on...
, David Oyelowo
David Oyelowo
- Background :Oyelowo was born in Oxford, England of Nigerian descent. He is married to actress Jessica Oyelowo and they have three sons.Oyelowo first attended a youth theatre after being invited by a girl to whom he was attracted. He then studied Theatre Studies for A level and his teacher...
portrays Orlando. There are also several Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
actors in the latter film.
Criticism of color blindness
In 1997 Leslie G. Carr published "Color-Blind Racism" (Sage Publications) which reviewed the history of racist ideologies in America. He saw "color-blindness" as an ideology being promoted in to undercut the legal and political foundation of integration and affirmative action. For example, in her book Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America, Stephanie M. Wildman writes that many Americans who advocate a merit-based, race-free worldview do not acknowledge the systems of privilege which benefit them. For example, many Americans rely on a social and sometimes even financial inheritance from previous generations. She argues that this inheritance is unlikely to be forthcoming if one's ancestors were slavesSlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, and privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
.
Critics allege that majority groups use practices of color-blindness as a means of avoiding the topic of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and accusations of racial discrimination, and thus hide their true racial views, and that color blindness is used as a tool in attacking group legal rights gained exclusively by some minority groups.
Critics assert that color blindness allows people to ignore the racial construction of whiteness, and reinforces its privileged and oppressive position. In colorblind situations, whiteness remains the normal standard, and blackness remains different, or marginal. As a result, white people are able to dominate when a color blind approach is applied because the common experiences are defined in terms which white people can more easily relate to than blacks. Insistence on no reference to race, critics argue, means black people
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
can no longer point out the racism they face.
Sociologists
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and Ashley Doane of the University of Hartford
University of Hartford
The University of Hartford is a private, independent, nonsectarian, coeducational university located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The degree programs at the University of Hartford hold the highest levels of accreditation available in the US, including the Engineering Accreditation Commission of...
describe color-blindness as a dominant "racial ideology", or as Bonilla-Silva explains, "the collective understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". He also explains that we have this new racial ideology because of events that occurred between the 1940s and 1960s that led to a change in the racial structure of the United States. Thus he stresses that studying the ideologies of color-blindness is not about accusing or blaming individual people, "of finding good and bad people", but rather looking at the "collective" understanding and representation produced by social groups to explain their world". Bonilla- Silva examines the most salient "frames" of these alternative racial ideologies and of color-blind racism. They are abstract liberalism (e.g. statements such as "I am all for equal opportunity and that's why I oppose affirmative action"),"biologization of culture" (e.g. "Blacks are poor because they do not have the proper values"), naturalization of matters that reflect the effects of white supremacy (e.g. "Neighborhood segregation is a sad but natural thing since people want to live with people who are like them"), and minimization of racism and discrimination (e.g. statements such as "There are racists out there but they are few and hard to find").
Critics of color-blindness argue that color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue. While it is true that overt racism is rare today, critics insist that more covert forms have taken its place. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva suggests that racial practices during the Jim Crow Era were typically overt and clearly racial, whereas today they tend to be covert, institutional, and apparently nonracial. Another criticism is that color-blindness views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as "I don't own slaves" or "I have very close black friends" to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates. In an article in the journal New Directions for Student Services, Nancy Evans and Robert Reason argued that color-blindness fails to see the "structural, institutional, and societal" levels at which inequalities occur.