To be fair, this can be a true and neutral statement. It took me years to learn to distinguish "color" with any degree of certainty, and even now I can't ever be sure whether I got it right without asking (just as I can't tell a mid-Western accent from an East Coast one, although people tell me there's a world of difference). I can, however, easily distinguish an Armenian from a Georgian and either of these from a Jew - because this is the kind of ability one picks up in childhood and it's heavily dependent on what kind of faces one saw as a child.
Even if that's true, it may not be neutral. If you were gender-blind, would you interrupt a woman talking about institutional sexism to point out that you couldn't reliably tell a person's gender by looking at them?
No, but interrupting is rude regardless of the comment, and discussion of an overall evil is different than discussion of a specific type of comment, so the cases are dissimilar in at least two ways. That said, of course any comment may or may not be neutral, even, famously, "good morning".
One aspect of this that I've only a few times seen articulated well is that not only does the idea of these kinds of phrases (I don't see colour, I don't see gender) is that while it implies that one does not discriminate along stereotypic lines, it can also negate the actual experience of the individual.
Basically saying one doesn't see colour can not only be meant to be supportive, it can also be dismissive of a POC's actual lived experience and the important factors of that. Often it's more bluntly stated as "but race isn't important". Which, for me at least, is close but not quite there. Race shouldn't be important but it is demonstrably a factor in a person's upbringing. I guess for myself (I'm at the thinking out loud stage of my comment so please understand not specifically directed at you) it's not "important". It's does it have impact and should it have impact. Importance is a whole other mess
( ... )
Comments 7
Reply
Reply
Reply
Basically saying one doesn't see colour can not only be meant to be supportive, it can also be dismissive of a POC's actual lived experience and the important factors of that. Often it's more bluntly stated as "but race isn't important". Which, for me at least, is close but not quite there. Race shouldn't be important but it is demonstrably a factor in a person's upbringing. I guess for myself (I'm at the thinking out loud stage of my comment so please understand not specifically directed at you) it's not "important". It's does it have impact and should it have impact. Importance is a whole other mess ( ... )
Reply
Leave a comment