Colorblindness

 

 

 

"I don't see color." That statement by itself might sound harmless and I honestly believe that many of the people saying that phrase is in fact anti-racist. According to Armstrong and Wildman, not seeing color is a major issue in perpetuating discrimination. To aid in the fight against discrimination, we do need to see color, we need to acknowledge the privilege that exists for certain groups over others. The authors suggest we can help switch from a mindset of color blindness to color insight.  

The process for developing color insight through classroom exercises is outlined by the author 

1. consider context for any discussion on race 

2. examine systems of privilege 

3. unmasking perspectivelessness and white normativeness 

4. combating stereotyping by looking for the me in each individual  

The first step is to make the educational setting a place where students and teachers feel safe to discuss race and inequality. The classroom exercise had students look at situations in real life to see privilege and discrimination in action. They were then able to take what they observed and discuss within the setting of the classroom.  

The next step was to take a look at one's own privileges using the power line. This was interesting to me because I am very much a visual learner. I have always struggled with reading comprehension and it seems to only have gotten worse with age. So seeing this on a nice chart was helpful for me. With this task, students are able to put themselves in the different categories that are either above or below the power line. I did this for myself and found that I have a surprisingly higher number of attributes under the line than I do above it. This was shocking to me because I don't ever feel like I am discriminated against, and I think that is largely because I am white and can also easily pass as a straight woman.  

Step three is unmasking perspectivelessness and white normativeness. What this means is taking a scenario where race isn't outwardly stated and adding a hypothetical to it. This can be used when default assumptions are of whiteness to help make privilege more visible to students. 

The final step is combating stereotyping by looking for the me in each individual. This step is used to urge students to see the person outside of the stereotypes associated with them. The example used was to have students share the stories of their maternal grandmothers. This is to show and share with others the importance of one's history and to connect with other individuals.  

 

In her TED talk, Hobson made mention of when her mother asked her how she was treated at a birthday party rather than the usual questions asked, that was heartbreaking to hear. Hobson, like all the other people we have either heard from or read from, makes mention that race is a subject that makes people so uncomfortable to talk about. She discusses how we need to have these tough conversations and how we need to be color brave.