“If you want racism to end you have to stop talking about it.”
“You guys are so sensitive, you see racism in everything.”
“Black people always pull the race card, they’re the real racists.”
“I don’t even see colour.”
Liberals and minorities hear these complaints all the time,
Coming from people who both benefit from racism and want to silence discussion of it, or people who are genuinely well intentioned but also very ignorant,
Even figures like Morgan Freeman have championed this post-Civil Rights era mindset,
And the people who find racism tough to discuss were quick to follow his lead,
To someone with this mindset, the large gaps between employment and median income between whites and minorities have a simple explanation,
Minorities, especially blacks, don’t work hard enough and use racism as a crutch to avoid improving themselves,
It’s a very enticing mindset,
It makes racism a taboo topic,
Whites can deny that their race has any impact on their daily lives,
And they can easily shut down any discussion of racism by arguing that the people who discuss it are racist,
A common maneuver is to use Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, “…when a man will not be judged by the color of his skin…”
Although MLK used the words in his fight against racism, “colour-blind” people now use it to argue that anyone who discusses racism is racist,
A newer one is paraphrasing Obama and saying “We are all one race. Human.”
Although Obama has discussed the lingering effects of racism in multiple speeches throughout his presidency,
People still like to use his line out of context
It is a fact that people do see colour,
Even the ones who say they don’t,
Some of the same people who say they don’t see colour do not support interracial marriage and would be opposed to more minorities moving into their neighbourhoods,
Colour-blindness is just a crutch to avoid discussing racism, and to avoid doing anything about it,
It is all part of a lingering belief that a cancer that is deeply entrenched throughout the world, can jut be ignored and swept under the rug
I always hear people use the analogy of a cut,
Why do we keep picking at a cut instead of letting it heal?
If you keep talking about racism it makes things worse,
To someone who is supposedly “colour-blind”, there is no cut,
They will ignore the cut, bleeding, and infection because they will stubbornly argue there is no cut,
“You have a cut.”
“No I don’t.”
“On your arm. I can see it.”
“I’m fine, you’ve got to stop being so sensitive.”
“I’m not being sensitive, but it’s a pretty bad cut. Maybe you should get a Band-Aid or something.”
“I don’t need to do that since there is no cut. Even if there was, it’ll go away if you stop talking about it.”
“What? You don’t need to let the cut ruin your life but you need to acknowledge it and take care of it. It’s right there, you’re bleeding.”
“Yeah I’m bleeding, but the blood’s not coming from a cut. You’ve got to stop pulling the cut card.”
This is what it is like to argue with someone who denies racism,
Their denial is often followed by anger at people who dare to point it out,
To break the illusion,
Acknowledging race does not equal racism,
Acknowledging biological differences does not equal racism,
It is only racism if we believe one race is inherently superior to another due to their race, such as believing that white people are naturally more intelligent than black people,
It is a disservice to minorities to repeatedly tell them all their experiences with discrimination are only in their head,
And to tell them that if they simply have the right attitude, things like housing discrimination and racial profiling will go away,
Sadly this mindset is so prevalent nowadays and has become even more popular with Obama’s election,
We are living in a “post-racial” world where many people still prefer to date their own race and live in areas surrounded by their own race.
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