Color-blind Racism

QUESTION: “Why didn’t you critique how the black guy responded (re: the first animated sequence)?”

RHO’S REPLY: We critique them all the time. Don’t kneel. Don’t protest. Don’t sound so angry. That’s just not where my mind was. I was more concerned about us keeping our own house in order. Besides, my hope was that if you understood what I did say, that the black guy’s reaction would be self-explanatory.

QUESTION: “When you encourage white awareness of other races aren’t you encouraging stereotyping?”

RHO’S REPLY: This concern is actually quite common among white people.  The most critical / practical problem with this view is that it sabotages attempts to make progress toward safety and equality for people of color by shutting down conversation. Personally, I find this all-or-nothing approach to be a very strange argument for a white person in particular to make, because it clearly implies that we are doomed to be biased… that the only possible outcome of white people acknowledging the race of others is a bad one: we will treat them poorly. That is ridiculous. We can do better than that.

QUESTION: “But didn’t the civil rights movement in the ’60’s itself actually advocate for racial colorblindness?”

RHO’S REPLY: People of color calling for our society to become one in which racial categories do not limit a person’s opportunities is very different from what we are talking about here. I am addressing white individuals right now in the present functioning as if racial differences do not exist (in terms of opportunity, etc.), when in fact they do.  That said, there are debates about whether policies should be “colorblind.” That might be an interesting area for you to research.