I think as a goal to “not see color” is positive in the sense that if everyone strove to be “colorblind” racism wouldn’t exist. Others have pointed out correctly that it could also be construed to not empathizing with past wrongs or current hardships being leveled by racism which obviously wouldn’t be a positive.
I have a theory that the phrase “I don’t see color” has mostly been said as the joke, and was not a thing until that. Some writer for colbert overheard someone say it once and it became part of their output that day.
It was a perfect joke that colbert told, like one of his defining moments. I can remember hearing it.
Saying it straight is ridiculous. I just can’t imagine anyone doing it, unless as an explanation of something that is borderline racist.
It was certainly a thing, just very dated. My grandmother (born in 1916) used to say it. (IMO, she was perhaps not being totally honest with herself, but it certainly wasn’t offensive when it came from a person who was already middle-aged at the time of the civil rights movement; in her day, it was the progressive thing to say.)
I’ve never seriously engaged with a POC on the topic of racism, but I have hung out with them and made them baked macaroni. I am perplexed to be seen as just another sort of racist and am not sure what I should be doing in order to not be one.
When you say “I don’t see colour”, I hear “I am a liar, even if only to myself”. As testing can show, near enough everyone sees colour and has biases associated with it. I don’t equate it to “I try to treat everyone equally” because while the latter is aspirational, the former is self-delusion, and completely inauthentic.
Give me a break. This strikes me as a blatantly disingenuous question. By throwing all races together, you effectively deny the specific (and unique) struggles of people of color.
One guy I went to grad school with didn’t see color. Well, at least he didn’t see a difference between red and green. It got a decent chuckle from the audience for a technical talk when he described a diagram with a comment I’d paraphrase as “This part is X, which I’m told is red, and this is the Y, which I’m told is green…”
Personally I do see that people have different skin colours and I’m aware that they may have a history of oppression arising from that. (but equally may not).
What I don’t have is any inherent bias to treating people differently based on that and where I have seen it I call it out, just as I would and have done for prejudice towards many traits. That seems to me to be the basic level of human decency required to oil the wheels of society, I don’t see skin colour prejudice as anything special or worth tying myself up in knots over. I’ve seen far more sexism than racism but that’s probably due to the fact that I don’t have any black friends and few black colleagues but lots that are female. (Whether one has lots or none, I suspect it is probably racist to touch on the subject of black friends either way)
If your name is Stevie Wonder, it’s perfectly fine. Most people who say it (or some variation like “I don’t care if you’re black or white or green or whatever”) are, in my experience, racists themselves.
As long as you don’t extrapolate from your experience to making a generalisation then you should be fine. Someone can actually say those words, honestly mean it, and not be a racist.
Sure. “Articulate” is a term that white Americans disproportionately apply to black people who speak what is generally considered standard American English with a fairly neutral affect. White people who speak the same way don’t get called “articulate” anywhere near as much, because the ability to speak that way is presumed to be more or less the default for whites. So the term implies that it’s somewhat unusual or worthy of notice when a black person isn’t speaking what many whites perceive as “ghetto” or “gangsta” dialects.
In other words: For a black person in a professional or other position that involves speaking to the public, being able to express oneself verbally is kind of like being able to wear clothes. If you wouldn’t call a white person “articulate” just for having basic verbal abilities, don’t apply the term to a black person in the same circumstances.