Color Blind Society="Pretend we're all White"

Great Debates
1

I once considered myself in favor of a “color blind” society. One in which everyone was treated the same regardless of color.

While I still believe in full equality, I now think that the “color blind” idea is being used as a strategy to further homogenity in US culture. While culture and color do not always link directly, there is within the US, often a very strong correlation.

I would like to frame the debate along these lines:

  1. Are we ready for a color blind society?

  2. Is it really a good idea?

As for #1, I would say No, we are definitely not ready, because there is still economic oppression and racial violence and the only way to deal with it is to recognize it. It goes much deeper than hate groups like the KKK. It has to do with cultural ignorance, economic exploitation and European ethnocentrism which has marginalized other cultures, histories, and perspectives.

Until we understand and recognize our differences, IOW cultural differences in behavior, speech, history, and culture, that seperate us, we cannot come to an understanding of each other that would allow for true harmony. Therefore we must recognize race at least as a social construct which affects people’s lives and we should not expect our differences to dissapear in the interest of conformity.

That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing more fluidity between cultures and a recognition of how much the combination of cultures have affected each other and blended despite large economic disparities. For example, I think that the average white american has more African cultural heritage than they are actually aware of. In recognizing and celebrating a different culture, I think they could actually begin to understand where in fact they have true commonalities without expecting conformity.

Thus African history, for example, is not just important for African-Americans, it is important for all americans to understand the background of this nation and the current state of american culture(s). It is not divisive for us to recognize this history if we can understand how it has affected us all.

As for #2, I can only say “Maybe”. Because I don’t know that #1 will ever be completely achieved and if one doesn’t have the requirements listed in #1, I would say it is a bad idea.

2

“And then I got brainwashed at some leftist University…” :wink:

What they’re not teaching you, is that groups like the KKK are well tracked and statistically irrelevant, odious though they may be. Their methods and ideology are simply not taken seriously by any sane portion of society today.

The truth of the matter is a white is nine (9) times more likely to be killed by a black than the reverse, which may be a surprise to you, given your heartfelt screed.

So, before you start lamenting race relations in this country, at least start from a basis in reality, instead of the “lets bash whitey” mentality that passes for scholarship at our universities these days.

3

I have a question:

Why not “pretend we are all coloured”?

Salaam. A

4

Ummm…that’s why I said it’s more than the KKK.

First of all, I’d like a cite. Second of all, do you believe that these murders are racially motivated? Thirdly what exactly is this “matter” that you’re talking about?

So where exactly did I “bash whitey”?

5

Well there’s no need to pretend that. We are. Nobody’s transparent.
The fact is we are different colors. And while on the one hand I don’t think that makes people inherently different, our society still treats everyone as such. Hence, people have different needs in recognizing color and the ethnicities associated with it.

My exprerience with “color blind” has unfortunately been in people’s attempts to deny people the opportunity to address the realities of racism and redress the disparities resultant from it.

6

I consider “colour blindness” to be a bad idea. At face value, sure, to not care about someone’s colour is a great idea. And it is! But, colour denotes race, race denotes culture. There are exceptions (say, an African raised in a Causcasion’s culture), but generally, it’s true. Personally, I don’t think race should be ignored. Legally, it should be ignored, just like sex, and sexual preference. However, if someone is blind, they cannot see. A comedian made this remark, but it is very true. What do you have if you ignore every indicator about a person’s personality, habits, etc? You have nothing to go on… whether we like it or not, we DO judge, and that is completely necessary to get along. It is not a bad thing unless one cannot see where one is judging, and fully recognise the matters of probability and the fact that not everyone DOES fit generalisations.

7

As I understood it, the OP meant that race should be irrelevant in the legal sense. As far as daily life goes, you can’t really imagine someone not noticing that a person is black, white, etc. But there are some people that are truly non-judgemental (certainly in terms of race), and such an outlook is obviously useless to them. Certainly stereotypes are bad (there is no such thing as a “good” stereotype [e.g., the Asian intelligence stereotype was called just that in a GD thread a while ago]), but, when discussing them, people often stick to “popular” stereotypes–such as black people being athletic, white people being poor dancers, etc. In a thread about why the word oriental seems to currently be considered unacceptable, the point that a person should be called whatever they wish to be called and so, for that specific example, it is wrong to call Asians Oriental because that is not the generally preferred nomenclature. This of course raises other questions, such as why should the apparent majority of a race (which is really only the activist majority) determine the label to be accepted by every member. The fact is that any assumption is a stereotype and all stereotypes are detrimental to society. Moreover, the ban on stereotypes has to be universal. In another thread, a poster said that he/she didn’t care what White Nationalists preferred to be called and that he would call them White Supremacists. As much as you may not like a certain group, consistency is important.

But how far should this go? It’s a very vague issue made especially so by the fact that there are no definite/empirical rules in social relationships. Should you refer to your co-worker as Joe-the-black-guy-who-hates-rap-music-but-likes-chitlins-and-plays-basketball-and-watches-golf-on-the-weekends?

Also, errata says that we should learn more about other cultures. This would obviously be beneficial to everyone, but you couldn’t really expect eveyone to know everything about every culture. Much of what people learn about this is taught in public schools. But the history curriculum is determined by the local lobby groups, so, ultimately, whatever the majority race of a neighborhood is, that will be the race they will learn most about in their school.

8

I think the point Aldebaran was getting at was the same thing that struck me; ‘pretend we’re all white’ sounds a bit like a tacit assertion that whites are somhow superior (like if I said to a black person “You know, even though you’re black, I think you’re as good as any white person”).

9

Well 9/11 did do somewhat of a “color-blindness” in the US… or at least I had that impression. (How long it lasted or is lasting I dont know.) Suddenly “hating” your black neighbor wasnt as relevant as hating Arab and Terrorists. Correct me if I am wrong… but prejudices were transplanted to a foreign “enemy”. Pretty natural actually. Happens in Brazil whenever some kind of international incident makes some foreign country seem bad to our eyes… suddenly we are all brazilians vs this “outsider” thingy.

A Common Foe makes old enemies into Allies goes the saying ?

Well back to color blindness. Its a "tribal" thing. Its not so much about color, religion or other specific details... its about IDENTITY. Any identity is better than none... so if I put (choose minority) down... then somehow by analogy I am superior or better. I am not white trash anymore... I am part of the White or (insert power group here) "Tribe".

So if we do manage a color blind society... what happens next ? We will have a wealth blind society to acheive next ? After we live in total equality of race and money ? We will have the Church X vs Church Y issue to settle... these things never end. So my point is that this will always exist. Problems should be minimized thru education and tolerance. To preach that color shouldnt exist is denial... not a solution. More respect for difference should help... avoiding ghettos from forming and isolation between groups too.

Back to 9/11... suddenly every minority in the US was an American before he was black, chicano or Asian. (Arab Americans unfortunately were put in a bad spotlight). "American" became the main tribe. The focus just changed to the foreign level.
10

What some people attibute to “racism”, is not racism at all.

I contend that there is no, or very little racism, in the United States. We are already “color blind”. The color of someones skin has nothing to do with it.

Its not that we dont “understand and recognize our differences”, its that we already “understand and recognize our differences” and the differences are NOT!!! color!

For example, lots of people think whites do not like blacks, when what those particular whites they speak of really dont like: is the attitudes of a group of people “who just happen to be black”.

Blacks vote 90% democrat, and some people just dont like democrats, have nothing in common with democrats, and dont want anything to do with them. Its not that whites dont like blacks, its that they dont like democrats who happen to be black.

The same people who are accused of being racist, really actually sincerely love “black” people like Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes, J.C.Watts, etc. who are not democrat.

“Good ole white boys” in the south might not listen to Hip Hop or Rap music, but they love country singer Charlie Pride and go to his concerts in droves.

From what I can see, liberal democrat whites seem to get along with liberal democrat blacks, and conservative republican whites seem to get along with conservative republican blacks.

To answer your question, I think we in America are already “color blind”, and that racism ended long ago, and now is virtually non-existant.

Of course, the only way to prove it is to somehow find a way to get blacks to stop voting 90% for liberal democrat candidates, to have them vote with the same patterns as the rest of the general populace, and to change their preference in music from Rap to country music.

11

So if they would just act like (some mythical large percentage of) “white” people they’d be OK? Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight.

(And there are a lot of white Democrats who don’t like blacks, a majority of white people (outside certain regions) who don’t like C&W music. And nothing about politics or music has caused the various white landlords and bosses I have met to discriminate against blacks in situations where they would have no way to know about the musical or political preferences of the person that they were discriminating against. Similarly, those blacks I have met with general anti-white attitudes never asked any whites what music or politics they preferred, they just didn’t like people based on skin color as filtered through their own experiences of society.)

12

As for #1, I would say No, we are definitely not ready, because there is still economic oppression and racial violence and the only way to deal with it is to recognize it. It goes much deeper than hate groups like the KKK. It has to do with cultural ignorance, economic exploitation and European ethnocentrism which has marginalized other cultures, histories, and perspectives.

Absolutely right. Claims of color blindness are often an attempt to sweep these issues under a rug. Pretend these problems don’t exist, and we won’t have to work to solve them. These issues are bigger than just black versus white. There’s black versus Latino, Latino versus Asian, white versus Native American.

That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing more fluidity between cultures and a recognition of how much the combination of cultures have affected each other and blended despite large economic disparities. For example, I think that the average white american has more African cultural heritage than they are actually aware of. In recognizing and celebrating a different culture, I think they could actually begin to understand where in fact they have true commonalities without expecting conformity.

Thus African history, for example, is not just important for African-Americans, it is important for all americans to understand the background of this nation and the current state of american culture(s). It is not divisive for us to recognize this history if we can understand how it has affected us all.

True. In an ideal world, more people would recognize all of America’s roots. The best you can do is make the information available to those who are interested - in those “leftist universities” among other places.

Assimilation of minorites doesn’t have to be homogenization. Ideally assimilation would involve keeping what’s best about the minority culture and marrying it to what’s best about the majority culture. Sort of meeting halfway.

You have as an example the Native Americans of the Southewest who experienced huge problems with obesity and diabetes once they switched from their traditional diets to contemporary American foods. When these folks went back to their traditional diet, their health improved substantially. It’s likely that all Americans could benefit from this kind of diet.

Another example was the surprising (to some) finding that black teenaged girls were less likely than white teenaged girls to smoke cigarettes. White girls were smoking as a way of staying thin. Black girls had less problems with their body image and were less inclined to resort to self -destructive behavior in pursuit of an artificial standard of beauty. Having a booty that’s a little big ain’t all bad. Sometimes it’s even a good thing.
Which brings me to the troglodyte…

Tedster, they teach reading comprehension at those “leftist universities.” You could benefit from a few courses. Good idea to read a post before you jump all over it. Errata was talking about homegenization and a color blind society. The primary focus of the post was not “lamenting the state of race relations.”

The stat you threw out was both irrelevant and inflammatory. The majority of white murder victims are murdered by other whites, just as the majority of black murder victims are murdered by other blacks. You get worked up over blacks killing whites, but whites killing whites doesn’t concern you very much. You want to use the tragedy of murder to further your anti- black agenda.

Errata was right to question you on your evidence. You have none.

13

I’ve mentioned this before and I really believe it. Most people that I know personally who don’t like blacks have spent very little time with them. They make no effort to speak with other groups they profess not to like & for the most part base their opinion on a few circumstantial occurances. It seems to me that most black vs. white conflict follows the same pattern as male vs. male conflict.

We could all be the same color & I would not want to have to deal extensively w/ someone this close-minded.

hmm… I really don’t know where to start.

The stat you threw out was both irrelevant and inflammatory. The majority of white murder victims are murdered by other whites, just as the majority of black murder victims are murdered by other blacks. You get worked up over blacks killing whites, but whites killing whites doesn’t concern you very much. You want to use the tragedy of murder to further your anti- black agenda.

Errata was right to question you on your evidence. You have none.

[/quote]

I’ve seen stuff similar to the evidence he posted. I’m working towards looking it over carefully per request of my conservative although not racist brother-in-law. He’s always ready to discuss problems w/ race relationships, and IMO he represents the part of white america that can be swayed by convincing liberal or conservative “evidence”.

I’m trying to find time to debunk this, but honestly, I’ve only glanced over it briefly & I’m discouraged in my efforts. It seems that I would need to know a bit about statistics to fight the claims, but I suppose I need to look more closely.

Similar evidence can be found here:

14

No racism in the US ? Wow… when did that change ? Thats pretty naive Sussana. It might be a different racism from what we have in Brazil… but it surely exists. Comedians like Chris Rock make a fortune on joking with a non existant issue ?

Maybe the fact that blacks vote democrat and that 60% of them were against the Iraqi invasion means they dont see things quite the way whites see it in terms of politics, economics and equality. Maybe its the fact that most of them are poorer…

15

Damn, I thought i was gonna look cool.

16

No.

It would work the other way too, if whites became 90% democrat and prefered to listen to Rap music.

Its just easier/more likely for 10% of the population to assimilate into the majority culture than for the other 90% to conform to the culture of the 10%. Same is true of any other nationality. It is easier for eastern eurpeans, asians, arabs, etc, to be accepted by the rest of society if they assimilate into the majority culture of what ever nation they come to, than for the majority culture to change their attitudes of the minority.

Its not just the (country/rap)music that differentiates, those were just examples.

If whites and blacks had the same exact attitudes on guns/right to bear arms, schools, school vouchers, income taxes, school taxes, college admission standards, zoning restrictions, foreign policy, drugs laws, education, H1-B visas, hunting and fishing laws, immigration, unions, ADC, food stamps, prisons, police power, etc. then I dont think we would even be discussing this topic.

The point is, that skin color has nothing to do with people not liking each other or with some people not wanting to be with other people who are different in what they want.

17

Who’s this 90% of the population that blacks should assimilate into?

18

Several assorted comments:

  1. Should we also get Jews to stop voting at around 80% Democratic levels?

  2. The largest buyers of rap music in my area (and, I can safely presume, many others) aren’t blacks, they’re white suburban teenagers. My stepbrother makes his living playing rap music in Portland, arguably the lilyest-white major city in this great land of ours.

  3. I’m on the border of an area that likes country music. Should I have to like it?

  4. What regular voting patterns do you want? Those of Sacramento City (around 65% Democratic)? Those of Sacramento County (around 50% Democratic)? Those of California (around 55% Democratic)?

  5. There’s a way for Republicans to get more of the black vote, but, odds are, you aren’t a Tom Kean or George Voinovich Republican.

19

That is almost totally meaningless as far as racism, no matter how true it is.

The simple fact is, that 99%+ of all blacks, and 99%+ of all whites, murder no one.

The vast majority of any race in America, are not murderers.

Therefore, it is irrelevent.

20

Jared Taylor and his comrades at amren.com are self-avowed white supremacists and long time associates of David Duke, former Klan leader and convicted felon. I wouldn’t use them as a source for anything.

This is somewhat off topic, but since you brought it up - Tim Wise on Race and Crime:
http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/ZMag/articles/march02wise.htm