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[Siegcram]

No, I;m saying that race blindness is the best thing you can hope for when it comes to white people. If you push them to notice races more and more they will begin to notice not just other races and their problems, but they will also start to indentify with their own white race more and act in that race's interest.

Racial indentity politics inevitably creates feeling of "us vs them".

Yeah, god forbid white people develop some sort of superiority complex. Could develop into a sort of racial supremacy that lasts hundreds of years to the detriment of every other race on the planet.

Thanks for the warning.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

No, I;m saying that race blindness is the best thing you can hope for when it comes to white people. If you push them to notice races more and more they will begin to notice not just other races and their problems, but they will also start to indentify with their own white race more and act in that race's interest.

Racial indentity politics inevitably creates feeling of "us vs them".

From a historical standpoint, I feel you've got this completely backwards.

Colorblindness is a problem not because it's incorrect to not be bigoted, but because it's only part of the equation. The problem is the large percentage of whites who find it difficult to conceptualize that bigotry and societal racism are different things. Some argue that there has been a concerted effort to muddle the two.

Whites have the luxury of an existence largely divorced from historical context should they choose to ignore it and they think because it's easy for them it should be easy for anyone else to just turn away from the past and move forward. No one is responsible for the world they inherit, but we all inherit very different things.

 

[ShyMel]

My head would go supernova if I were in the sociology class of one of these professors:

Whiteness and Farmers Markets: Performances, Perpetuations … Contestations?

You must not have read the paper because a whole lot of effort was put in the research and it demonstates several race issues, such as "white as the default".

 

[Bobby Roberts]

This is at least the 2nd time in two days someone's basically entered the discussion just to suggest "I don't see color, and neither should you" is the best-case, most correct viewpoint.

It isn't. As Ham just pointed out, it's pretty much backwards.

And again: A lot of people seem to, without recognizing it, advocate for a back and forth between whites and blacks that assigns 100% of the responsibility for white engagement on black people's ability to gently shepherd them through the conversation. Every time someone argues "you'll never get white people on your side if you keep using the language you use," even though the language being used is, already, pretty damned mild, the assumption behind the statement is that white people cannot, should not, and will not be expected to push past whatever trivial discomfort is incurred there to continue trying to understand black people.

That's not black people's fault.

That's oversensitive white people's fault.

They are in the wrong in that case, for self-righteously giving up at the slightest possibility of pushback the first instance they feel it.

That is a cop-out.

 

[Htown]

And again: A lot of people seem to, without recognizing it, advocate for a back and forth between whites and blacks that assigns 100% of the responsibility for white engagement on black people's ability to gently shepherd them through the conversation. Every time someone argues "you'll never get white people on your side if you keep using the language you use," even though the language being used is, already, pretty damned mild, the assumption behind the statement is that white people cannot, should not, and will not be expected to push past whatever trivial discomfort is incurred there to continue trying to understand black people.

That's not black people's fault.

That's oversensitive white people's fault.