“I don’t see color“, ” People are people” Please!
If I hear this one more time, I may gag. Luckily, I don’t gag because that would take my level of distaste to a whole other level. I challenge those who often say this to discover for yourself why you make such statements. What is behind those words? It often follows a Black or Brown person making a statement about some racist, sexist, or other “ist” situation that has occurred. Are you trying to make us feel better? Let me clue you in….it doesn’t. Nor do we care to hear it. How about acknowledging and understanding and HEARING what we are saying? How about NOT saying something with zero substance?
Too often many in the majority hide behind this false sense of society. “I don’t see color” to me as a Black person is “I’m trying to avoid this discussion because it’s too difficult for me to just validate this Black person’s thoughts and expressions”. Or “here we go again, so let me see how I can make this person feel better because we as Caucasian people have been so horrible towards others that don’t look like us BUT I’m not really ready to accept that right now”.
A few days ago, I’m at my wellness center and suggested to my provider on having more pamphlets that show Black women and men on the cover page. Every pamphlet cover had a picture of beautiful white women but none of people of color and I knew that this center has Black women, including myself, as customers. As I’m having this discussion, a white male customer quietly sitting in the waiting room, decides to pipe in, “you know (pause), people are people and we don’t want to be racist”. Racist? Did this man just insinuate that I’m behaving like a racist? Hmmm, let me clue you in. This is the typical go-to for white people like this one. Several thoughts flooded through my mind as I imagined “bitch slapping” this clearly privileged white man. It’s amazing to me how white men feel so entitled to insert themselves into a conversation between two women without asking for permission. Setting aside my alternative ego, the bitch-slapping one, I simply turned around and commented, “that’s not racist, (as I pause, shaking my head and giving this “you are a complete idiot” look) and there’s nothing wrong with me wanting to see people who look like me in advertising”, then turned my head and continued MY conversation. As if! Then I gave him the finger (in my mind, of course!) on my way out to my next destination.
In an inclusive society, “people are people”, BUT we don’t live in that type of society. Yes, at a basic level, “people are people” but in our society, not all people are treated equitably, with respect and love and kindness. I “tip my hat” to those of us that do, and we need so much more of us. Besides, color is all around us, in nature, and the variety of tones in our skin. The blend of hues that we see is quite visible and to state “I don’t see color” is a false narrative. If you mean to say that you don’t treat others differently because of the color of their skin, then that’s what you need to state. Those are the words that you need to use. AND at the same time…….
How about taking ownership, acknowledge the s@$# that Black and Brown people are subjected to and stop it? How about NOT talking to us about how you “don’t’ see color”? It’s exhausting for us to hear it as we roll our eyes in our minds and sigh, “really”? Do they teach you these cliché words at some white school that we aren’t privy too? I must ask, where do you get this stuff from and who teaches it to you? Are you sitting around the dinner table with your family and teaching your kids, “this is what you need to say when you find yourself in a conversation with a Black person”?
Think about it.
