On being "Colorblind"

I hate it when people tell me that they wish that other people would be "colorblind". First of all, it's almost always a white person mentioning it. Secondly, it's almost always coming from someone that has not faced discrimination before due to their ethnic heritage or color of their skin.

I'm not going to claim that a white person can't understand what it's like to experience discrimination. I'm absolutely certain that they can. After all, a poor white person certainly doesn't have the same mobility and access as a wealthy white person in our society. However, what this concept of "colorblindness" fails to do is acknowledge the full range of experiences that formed someone into who they are today. 

For many people of color, whether they like it or not, their ethnic heritage is often central to their lived experience. It's constantly mentioned or pointed out to them. They are always aware of it. It's no different than someone that is used to always being told that they should be interested in sports because they are male or that girls should like pink. As a woman, I realize that it's "weird" to many people that I love sports. If I were a male, however, it would simply be expected. These assumptions are everywhere in society and we need to learn to acknowledge that they exist or we will never be able to move forward.

I have a friend who has often said that they can never forget to use their indicator light when driving because the police might pull them over (they have beautiful dark brown skin inherited from their Hispanic/Latino parents). We always laugh when he says that because there's enough sad truth in the statement that it's believable. There would never be a question of wrongdoing if he were white and didn't use a turn signal. After all, white skin is more likely to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Brown skin isn't.

I have never heard a white friend say, "I gotta make sure to use my blinker or else I might get pulled over." The only friends I have that say that are people of color.

So what? Why does this matter? People make silly jokes like this all the time, right? The more important question to ask is why do my friends that happen to be POC make these jokes to begin with and my white friends don't?

The truth is that society treats people of color differently. This is something that pretty much every POC is very well aware of from a very young age. I was made aware of it when people would make fun of me for my "slanty eyes". There's no more reason to make fun of someone for that than to make fun of someone for having blond hair, but people do it anyway. 

Growing up, people assumed a lot of things about me. I was told that I didn't need any extra help in math class because I'm Asian (by the way, I needed a lot of help because I really suck at math). It was assumed that I would be able to get into any college I wanted to because I'm a minority, not because of my own abilities, intelligence, or merit. The idea was always that something would be made "easier" for me somehow because I'm a minority. However, whenever I excelled at something that didn't fit the box that they had put me into, they would suddenly focus on a different aspect of my heritage or identity. If I did well in athletics, I'd hear people say, "Oh, you're good at sports because your dad is white" (I kid you not, this was literally said to me). When I did well on an exam, I was told that I was "so Asian." I did well at a track meet once (and I really do mean once, as in a single time. I was awful at pretty much every track event I tried) and was told that it was easier for me to do well because the equipment for girls was lighter than for the boys. Nothing I did was because of the hard work I put into doing a good job, it was all attributed to my genetic makeup.

So now we look at the adult I've become. If someone treats me as if I've never had someone tease me for the shape of my eyes or had my ethnic heritage called into question, it seems like they would be ignoring a pretty important aspect of who I am, right? I mean, we are all a product of our past. Ignoring something that has had such an impact on forming me into who I am seems like you'd be missing a pretty big aspect of, well, ME. 

We exercise a form of "non-colorblindness" every day. We realize that sometimes we shouldn't say things too sarcastically around certain friends because they are very sensitive. We avoid certain topics that we know bring up bad memories or associations for friends and family. We compromise on what movies we watch because we realize that not everyone is into horror/romcom/insert genre here movies. Sometimes we stop making short jokes around people because we know that they are particularly self conscious of their height. All of these things acknowledge that people are NOT all the same. People are NOT coming from identical backgrounds. People are NOT entities that we can view and act upon in a vacuum.

Acknowledging race should not be viewed negatively any more than acknowledging height, weight, hair color, gender, or any other part of someone.

So can we please stop aspiring to be "colorblind"? Instead can we aspire to be someone that sees everything? Let's try to be the opposite of colorblind. Let's be colorful. Let's rejoice and celebrate our differences and embrace how these differences have worked to create such a dynamic and thriving group of people. Let's get excited by our differences rather than trying to ignore them. Let's ask one another to talk about things that other people in the group have never experienced, seek out new information, and truly revel in the diversity around us.

Come on, people. Get colorful.