In a time of mounting racial and political tension, you may have heard the phrase, “oh but that doesn’t matter to me, I’m colorblind” in relation to race. You might have paused for a second and thought, “Well, what does that mean?”, and for starters, no, it is not likely that the person means they can’t distinguish between red and green.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Colorblind as “treating people of different skin colors equally: not affected by racial prejudice”. In all actuality, this seems to be something everyone should want to strive for, a social ideal, and who knows, maybe one day it may become a norm. But you have to stop and think about the implications associated with colorblindness because it runs deeper than you would think.
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I didn’t realize that the whole concept of colorblindness, while good-natured in origin, is actually problematic until one day my boyfriend pointed out that he had an issue with a line in a song. The line (from Todrick Hall’s “Color”) goes, “And whenever you’re there, Darling I swear I don’t see color”. I asked my boyfriend why he had an issue with it, and he responded, “Because I want people to acknowledge my blackness”, and it hit me.
Colorblindness is unintentionally erasing the heritage of those who are affected by it.
By saying that you are colorblind, you are putting aside the fact that the person you are talking to may have experienced major injustices and microaggressions throughout their whole life simply because of their skin. It does not harm you by wanting to put everyone on a clean slate, on the same level, but it may harm the other person, and it may not even be apparent to them (which may make things all the worse).
I do understand that colorblindness may be coming from a good place, a place of equality, compassion, and of objectivity, but I urge everyone to please recognize the importance of someone else’s skin color. When you skim over the color of someone else’s skin, you skim over hundreds of years of heritage and culture. You effectively are saying, “I know your people have gone through a lot, but that doesn’t really matter to me”.
I also urge you to recognize that colorblindness is a privilege that not everyone gets to express. I am very certain that you would be hard-pressed to find a black person that identifies as someone who is colorblind. It is much easier to be part of a majority and claim colorblindness as an act of benevolence when you yourself haven’t experienced its negative effects. Colorblindness is turning a blind eye, and that is not okay.
I repeat; we are in a time of great racial tensions, and therefore it is very necessary that we, as a species, work towards being mindful of our relations to one another. We must work together in acknowledging our differences and embracing them.
