Colorblind

I'm not sure if I've covered this topic before, but it's worth covering again.

I read a story once about a feminist conference. There was a White man, a Black woman, and a White woman. If I remember correctly, the Black woman asked the White woman, 'When you wake in the morning, what do you see?' to which the White woman responded, 'A woman.' The Black woman followed with, 'I don't. I wake up and see a *Black* woman.' The Black woman didn't and many women of color *don't* have the privilege of just waking up and seeing just a woman. Their color is forever tied to their identity. It is as such for many people. I wake up and see a gay Black man. For many, their various identities all surface in a mirror.

There are those who support colorblind policies and approaches to social problems. 'We are all the same; we are all equal; I do not see color or sexual orientation, I see a human being.' Problem is, even though we are all human beings, we all have identities. What being colorblind does is erase those identities in the attempt to unify us as a collective. On the surface, this looks awesome. However, especially as it stands right now, colorblind approaches only serve to erase and negate the trouble history people associate with their identities, the history attached to various identities, and the barriers people without privilege face.

Now, we all operate under *some* privilege. I don't really believe that there are people with zero privilege, as it is a very contextual thing. But, if we were suddenly to switch to a colorblind style of life, the privileges that were set before the colorblindness will stay set. Problems will not be solved. It will effectively usher in a new era that says, 'Whatever happened in the past is in the past,' forgetting that some people have scars dealing with the past. For example, White people are considered to hold most of America's wealth. In a colorblind world, this would stay the same, leaving others at a disadvantage, unless the wealth was redistributed, which I'm not sure would indicate a truly colorblind world if we acknowledge that there is a gap in wealth among different demographics.

I call myself an idealist, yet I cannot go along with this colorblind approach. We have to fix problems before we are able to call everyone equal, because everyone, most assuredly, is not equal based on how things were and how things are going.