Color-blind standards & decision-procedures also encode racial preferences.
Given the fact that White people are MUCH less likely to see "race" as a significant aspect of their identity or personal formation when compared to, especially, African Americans (& for good reason) 1/
2/ then institutions which downplay or censor race-consciousness tend to deselect for people of color. In other words, color-blind institutions simply normalize dominant White cultures and self-identities as race "neutral" and treat those who inescapably connect socially applied
3/ racial categories with self-identity and personal history and story are treated as aberrant, illicitly race-conscious. And if the latter choose, therefore, to self-censor in such institutional environments, they also are left unable to be known authentically, to be able to
4/ tell their own story, to offer what they believe to be unique perspectives, and to find authentic community. They are, to be frank, discriminated against by a racial preference. And the racial preference arises from ignoring history, context, and social difference.
5/5 Hence, both on the enforcement end of color-blindness and at the censored end of color-blindness, very clear racial preferences are built in, no matter the intention.
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After having studied Critical Race Theory, I don't think I can take any negative critiques seriously that do not at least explicitly interact with the following essays:
[thread]
1. “Serving Two Masters: Integration Ideals and Client Interests in School Segregation Litigation," by Derrick Bell
On the topic of racial formation and Intersectionality, this quote is so helpful, IMO:
"[B]ecause races are constructed, ideas about race form part of a whole social fabric into which other relations, among them gender and class, are also woven. … This close symbiosis was 1/
2/ "reflected, for example, in distinct patterns of gender racialization during the era of frontier expansion—the native men of the Southwest were depicted as indolent, slothful, cruel and cowardly Mexicans, while the women were described as fair, virtuous, and lonely Spanish
3/ "maidens. … This doggerel depicted the Mexican women as Spanish, linking their European antecedents to their sexual desirability, and unfavorably compared the purportedly slothful Mexican men to the ostensibly virile Yankee. Social renditions of masculinity and femininity are
A refresher: What is Critical Race Theory after all?
As drawn from the explicit answers to this question given by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, Charles Lawrence III, Richard Delgado, Devon Carbado, and others, we have, ordered thematically:
[Thread]
1. Race is Socially Constructed
Race is not a natural, biological, “out there” entity such that it exists independently of law and society. Rather, it is a product of human social interaction, a construction of social reality. Further, race and racial categories were
historically created to justify and maintain social hierarchy, slavery, and other forms of group-based exploitation, as well as to distribute rights, citizenship, privileges, access, and disparate advantages/disadvantages.
Here are some broadly accepted commonplaces, drawn from CRT scholars' own answers to the question, presented in logical progression.
A thread:
1. Race is Socially Constructed
Race is not a natural, biological, “out there” entity such that it exists independently of law and society. Rather, it is a product of human social interaction, a construction of social reality. Further, race and racial categories were ...
... historically created to justify and maintain social hierarchy, slavery, and other forms of group-based exploitation, as well as distribute protections, rights, citizenship, privileges, access, advantages, and disadvantages.
I love how he ignorantly invokes Dr. King, and then in the next breath COMPLETELY ignores Dr. King's message, especially as in his Letter From Birmingham Jail. Typical Spirituality of the Church racist complicity.
And the footnotes for this "difficult" topic? DiAngelo, DiAngelo, DiAngelo, DiAngelo, DiAngelo, Kendi. Hahahaha! Great research! Pretty much studied the whole topic in detail!
In 1883, Frederick Douglass put together a "colored" convention. The White folk tried the old reverse racism claim on him. In his response, we see an early refutation to both the "reverse racism" claim and a reaction to "color-blindness" in general.
A longish thread: 1/
2/ "We are asked not only why hold a convention, but, with emphasis, why hold a colored convention? Why keep up this odious distinction between citizens of a common country and thus give countenance to the color line? It is argued that, if colored men hold conventions, based
3/ "upon color, white men may hold white conventions based upon color, and thus keep open the chasm between one and the other class of citizens, and keep alive a prejudice which we profess to deplore. We state the argument against us fairly and forcibly, and will answer it