I Refuse to be Erased
Why Colour Blindness is Not the Answer to Racism
Hang out among any mixed group of people discussing race, politics and current events and at some point, you will hear it at least once. “I don’t see race, I treat everyone the same.” Most likely it will be coming from someone who is white, and middle-class; someone who has no experience of being oppressed or discriminated against for their race or culture, and no genuine concept of being outside the social default in this country. The colour blind refrain is not remotely new, and it is admittedly not exclusive to middle-class, white, heterosexual men — though adherents to this utopian creed do tend to be awfully pale in general — but it is seemingly gaining favour among a new generation of self-styled progressives in America. Sadly, colour blindness is not the answer to racism we need; it’s just another form of racism in denial.
On the surface, it’s easy to see why many progressives might be attracted to the lie of colour blindness. It does after all make the laudable claim that everyone should be treated equally. Unfortunately, the real issue lies in what is not said; what for many is not even recognised as being implied by this particular theory of equality. Namely, that by being colour blind and refusing to see or recognise race, culture, and the racial experiences of people who fall outside of the social default narrative perspective of the middle-class, white, heterosexual male in America, you are effectively erasing the entire identity of most people of colour and burying in an unmarked grave their personal experiences of systematic, institutionalized oppression. Refusing to acknowledge the lived experiences of an entire group of people — any group of people — is erasure, and erasure is a dangerous and damaging act of aggression and racism.
As a queer, mixed-race, native transwoman, my perspective on life, my opinions, feelings, and my view of self are informed and defined by the not only the historic, but still ongoing, systematic oppression, and genocide of my peoples and culture. My experience of life and the world cannot be separated from these facts of my history or my racial identity. To try to force me into the default, pre-packaged, dominant experience of a straight, cis, white male that is the assumption and standard of colour blindness rejects and denies everything that makes me who I am. I do not and can not see the world in that manner. I refuse to have my identity, my struggles, my uniqueness erased in exchange for my equality.
Refusing to acknowledge the lived experiences of an entire group of people — any group of people — is erasure, and erasure is a dangerous and damaging act of aggression and racism.
The young black man, growing up amid the institutionalised racism and damaging expectations of criminal violence that lead others in society to fear and stereotype him, does not have the same experience of the world as the poor latina immigrant who crosses the border illegally to seek underpaid and exploitive work just to send money home to support her children. The Navajo girl, raised in poverty on a reservation who everywhere sees her people treated as mythical figures worthy of ridicule by comical and racist sports mascots, does not have the same experience as the white son of a successful Boston businessman who grows up unaware of and unchallenged on his privilege in society. We are not a homogenous culture in America. We each are shaped by very different and intersecting forces that create unique struggles and obstacles. The Harvard law professor who grew up in fear of racist police officers in his economicly depressed neighbourhood in Detroit should not have to sacrifice his black identity to be equal to his white peers. The Muslim girl, who leaves her family behind to immigrate from Iran seeking freedom and safety from oppression and violence back home, should not have to erase and reject her history, religion, and experiences to avoid similar oppression and violence in America.
It may be a shock for many white people to realise, but not everyone wants to be or be seen as white. Whiteness and white European culture should not be the default experience of America by which we expect everyone, regardless of their background, religion, race, or culture to subsume themselves into. We cannot demand that the price of admission to our equality be the erasure of our own selves; that is not freedom, it is not equality, and it is not justice. It is just another form of oppression.
Unfortunately, white America has a problem with seeing the hypocrisy that is innate to their demand that everyone be judged by the standards of whiteness. We are all the products of our cultures and our experiences, and it is difficult for any of us to truly grasp the truth of someone else’s lived experience and world view. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is already demanded of every single person of colour in America right now. In order to navigate our daily lives, we must constantly be looking to understand the white culture that we are surrounded by, that has control of the institutions of governance and power that control our lives. POC do not have the luxury of not knowing how white society and white people see and experience the presence of non-white peoples. Our lives often depend on anticipating the possible reactions of whites and white institutions, including all the issues of overt and repressed racism, white privilege, and yes, even colour blindness that can directly impact us in so many negative ways each and every day.
The false utopia of colour blindness is not the answer that so many white progressives would have us believe that we are looking for in this fight against oppression and pervasive racism. It is nothing more than another aggression aimed at erasing the non-white narratives in America. Another temporary strawman that white society can hide behind and deflect looking at their own guilt, an enabler of white denial; a denial of the experiences of POC who struggle day in and day out against a systematic accumulation of white supremacist assumptions that the society does not want to look at or admit to. We do not need to hear yet another quiet reminder of how whiteness and the white experience is the default in this country, which is all that the claims of colour blindness can offer us. What we need is for white America to stand up and accept accountability for the systems of repression they continue to enable. We need, and deserve, an answer to racism that recognises and celebrates our diversity, rather than attempting to whitewash it into nonexistence. Only once we can all take a harsh, brutal look at racism in America will we ever have a chance to change the underlying issues and find real equality. Until then, don’t even think about trying to erase my identity as a WOC, because you will have to pry my pride in my past and my culture out of my cold, dead hands.
© 2015 by Zoé Grey
Photo Credits:
Top Image (White Canvas): Impossible Queens / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
Silence = Betrayal: Stephen D. Melkisethian / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Your Utopia My Dystopia: mermaid99 / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Courage: Stephen D. Melkisethian / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
