Colorblindness is the New Racism (Assignment B)

 Colorblindness is the New Racism & All Lives Matter

Margalynne Armstrong and Stephanie Wildman & German Lopez

                         

In Armstrong and Wildman's work "Colorblindess is the New Racism: Raising Awareness about Privilege Using Color Insight" the authors promote deep analysis into the "colorblind" discourse surrounding race in the United States. The authors ask readers to think critically about the approach of "not seeing color" and to instead use an approach called color insight. Throughout the article Armstrong and Wildman make claims that colorblindness in action is actually an act of racism in itself, maintaining the privilege of some and perpetuating the discrimination of others. The work also challenges the audience to instead practice color insight, which works to explicitly think about race,  systems of privilege, white normativeness, and individualism. Color insight is said to provide, "an appropriate antidote to colorblindness, one that remedies the omission of context in racial discourse" (Armstrong and Wildman page 65). The article moves to prove that although the intention of colorblindness is usually positive, the impact is actually the opposite.

Armstrong and Wildman raise the idea that some people are so privileged that they do not acknowledge privilege exists. This idea reminds me of Lisa Delpit's The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children when she says, "I believe that to act as if power does not exist is to ensure that the power status quo remains the same" (Delpit, page 292). Both articles discuss the comfortability the dominant race has in the United States and how there is a defensiveness that occurs when naming the privilege that they have. Armstrong and Wildman say that the use of colorblindness only acts as an excuse to prevent real change towards equality from happening. 

In this same vein, the Vox article "Why You Should Stop Saying 'All Lives Matter,' Explained 9 Different ways" by German Lopez, discusses the harm that the 'all lives matter' rhetoric creates in our country. Another way that the dominant culture has tried to minimize the discrimination in this country is by trying to take away from the true purpose of the BLM movement. Lopez says, "It’s also a complete misunderstanding of what the phrase “black lives matter” means. The person on the receiving end interprets the phrase as “black lives matter more than any other lives.”(Lopez) The immediate response that white people had to the Black Lives Matter movement was to deny their privilege and therefore prevent the discrimination that exists from being acknowledged and mitigated.

As a country we cannot deny that everyone has differences. To say that you "do not see color" is to take away people's individuality. Armstrong and Wildman say, "Discrimination cannot end absent an understanding of the privilege dynamic that enables discrimination to continue" (Armstrong and Wildman, page 65). In another article Allan Johnson said, "we can't talk about it if we can't use the words" (Johnson, page 11). The pieces we have studied this far have all made the same plea; we need to address privilege directly, in order to initiate the change needed to end the discrimination that is still so prevalent in this country.