The Problem with Colorblindness

 

This is the section I did with my group for the presentation. What I think was the most surprising part of my reading was that Stephen Colbert thought he, as a single person, could apologize for years of racism and say it is suddenly over. And that was before George Floyd, and Breyonna Taylor's death happened! I think there will always be a struggle with race just because all these years later, it seems we're still making the same mistakes as our ancestors. When it comes to colorblindness and combating it, I think we need to learn to teach more about other races and cultures in school for people to understand the meaning and history behind their fight and how we got here today. We do not teach the same kind of history about black people as white people, and if we were to teach more about black history, I think it would maybe enlighten people to see that it's important we don't ignore diversity. This is just to say that we see and appreciate people of all backgrounds. In 2020 when people were protesting for George Floyd and all the black people we were losing, I remember my mom bringing up the idea of being colorblind. I knew it was a problematic mindset, but I was having trouble finding the words to tell my mom how it was problematic. The easiest way to describe it and give her food for thought was that by being colorblind, you aren't acknowledging the past and differences other races face that white people don't, and Stephen Colbert's "People Tell Me I'm White" is the perfect instance of that. One of the many examples he said was, "I know I'm white, and I believe them because the police call me 'Sir'(Lind)." Deconstructing why colorblindness is problematic is the easy part, but making people listen is the hard part. I made my mom see the error in that way of thinking, and I hope we as a society can work to eliminate this mindset toward race eventually.

Lind, Rebecca Ann. Race/Gender/Class/Media. 4th ed. Taylor and Francis, 2019. Web. 15 Oct. 2022.