Do We Really Want to Become a Colorblind Society?

[rusty river]

Actually Rick, you did a pretty good job in pointing out how American society is fixed so that the poor and minorities of this country are perpetually trapped in a cycle of social injustices, poverty, and marginalization. You're kinda stealing the liberals' thunder here...

[Rick Rowlands]

I'm surprised that our liberal friends have no opinion on this.  The silence speaks volumes.

[sfc_oliver]

When you are deep in a hole, and someone offers you a hand up, you do not first look at the color of that hand.

(Paraphrased from a General I heard speak once, years ago)

        The only color in this platoon is green, if you have a problem with that speak up now.

(SFC Oliver on the assumption of his command of his first Platoon)

[Oldmill]

Rick, I have been wondering that for years ! When we quit using descriptions such as black or Caucasian (other than using those terms to describe a wanted person) it keeps us aware of a persons race. I don't care if a person is green ,if he/she is a decent person it shouldn't matter ! Yes judge a person on the content of their character not the color of their skin.

[Rick Rowlands]

I'm not so convinced that the so called goal of our society is to "judge a person by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin" as Martin Luther King stated.  I think that there is a vested interest in many people to perpetuate racism, and the classification of people.

Yesterday I was looking at a grant application form and was struck by two questions. I've pasted the questions here:

# Primary group served?
(Select one):

    * Women
    * Children
    * Seniors
    * Underprivileged
    * Disabled
    * Other (Please specify):

# What is the approximate ethnic/racial breakdown of the student population? Please enter a percentage in each box below. Numbers must total 100%.

    * Caucasian
    * African American
    * Hispanic
    * Asian
    * American Indian
    * Other

I was dumbfounded by the questions and don't know how to answer.  I've never classified the people that our organization serves, and do not intend to start.  I do not care what is the skin color or ethnicity of the people that we serve, nor do I care if they are seniors, women, children or handicapped.  I treat every visitor as an individual, and frankly if I were to start categorizing people I would be practicing the very same racism and profiling that we are told that we must overcome.

So basically my question is, do we as a society truly want to treat all people as equals, or are we being hypocritical by saying that while continuing to pigeonhole everyone into little subgroups?  I would say that questions such as those above actually serve to perpetuate class, racial and ethnic tensions by forcing people to think of others in terms of what group they belong to, instead of thinking of others simply as fellow humans.   

BTW, if I were to answer the above questions, the answer to the first one would be "Other: Humans"  and the answer to no. 2 would be: "Other- Americans".  That would of course disqualify us right away but I simply will not play the race and ethnicity game.