Thread by @deonteleologist

Thread on "colorblindness"

Here @coldxman defines "colorblindness" as a normative ideal: "we should treat people without regard to race in our personal lives & in our public policy." I think he is wrong to claim MLK as a supporter of this principle. 1/n

@coldxman There are a few MLK quotes that Coleman uses to support this characterization of MLK. First: "The basic thing in determining the best candidate is not his color but his integrity."

But this only says integrity matters more than race; it doesn't say race should be ignored. 2/n

Another: "Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. And God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race."

Again, nothing here supports "colorblindness" so defined. 3/n

Admittedly, the above clip is quite short, so Coleman wouldn't have space to flesh out his full defense there. So let's take a look at a much longer video of a talk he gave at the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard: 4/n

Coleman: "The validity of colorblindness doesn't depend on how much racism exists or what alleged era we're living in... it stands or falls based on the soundness of the principle itself."

Okay, but how does Coleman go about demonstrating the soundness of this principle? 5/n

The first point he makes in favor of colorblindness isn't explicitly used as a point in favor of it as a normative ideal (which is good, because it would be fallacious to do so): he cites the 2019 statistic that 74% of Americans think hiring decisions should disregard race. 6/n

Coleman goes on for several minutes about how there is majoritarian support for colorblindness and it is only highly educated elite Democrats who support the alternative view--an "ideology" which "goes by many names," including "intersectionality," "PC," and "wokeness." 7/n

Coleman calls it "race consciousness"--a much better name than the others. So Coleman's task is to explain why colorblind antiracism is preferable to race-conscious antiracism. To understand the race-conscious critique of the former, Coleman says, we must understand CRT. 8/n

He boils CRT down to 2 principles. First, the neutrality principle, which (he claims) holds that there are no neutral standards for anything: in a society shaped by white supremacy, all standards--from those of academic merit to those of truth itself--are white standards. 9/n

[Side note: this seems like a strawman to me, and potentially one based on the writings of people like Lindsay and Pluckrose. I've never seen a critical race theorist argue that all of our standards, including those for truth itself (in all domains!) are biased by whiteness]10/n

Coleman explains the power principle in terms of the so-called "power plus prejudice" definition of racism. To be clear, I too reject this definition of racism--but it's not one I have seen from serious CRT scholars. DiAngelo's the only author I know of who endorses it. 11/n

"Compare this to [colorblindness]" Coleman says, "which defines racism as a deviation from race-neutral treatment. To treat someone without regard to their race is to treat them according to rational, objective standards." 12/n

This claim desperately needs to be supported. We all want to be treated according to rational standards--in practical contexts, "rational" is simply synonymous with "good"--but why should we think that colorblind standards are rational rather than irrational? 13/n

All Coleman gives us here: "To treat [someone] with regard to their race is to give into your irrational biases, to stray outside the goalposts of impartial treatment."

Taken as a defense of his view, this simply begs the question; it assumes impartial treatment is best. 14/n

Coleman wraps up with a brief defense of colorblindness. Besides his criticisms of CRT--one needn't endorse CRT to oppose colorblindness--all he says is colorblindness doesn't rule out the possibility of anti-white racism. (But neither does non-strawman race-consciousness.) 15/n

Unfortunately, Coleman hasn't actually given us an argument for colorblindness, unless his argument begs the question or is based on an appeal to popularity.

Let's turn to the question I began with: the question of whether MLK ought to be considered pro-colorblindness. 16/n

The quote most often invoked for this characterization of MLK is his best known quote: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." 17/n

But to take this as evidence for MLK's endorsement of colorblindness is to confuse means and ends. Every antiracist has MLK's dream as an end goal. The crucial question is whether realizing such a dream is possible without race-conscious policies. MLK, what do you think? 18/n

“And they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with. Now this is the reality. Now when we come to Washington, in this campaign, we are coming to get our check.” 19/n

Doesn't sound very colorblind to me--is the idea that MLK is referring to some check EVERYONE is supposed to be given? Is "we" here supposed to refer to Americans of every race? I sincerely doubt it. 20/n

Coleman's only option, I think, is to argue that MLK was in favor of reparations based not on race but on ancestry--that only people whose ancestors were enslaved in the US would be given reparations. If so, he ought to make this explicit; otherwise, his prospects are dim. [fin]