On "Being Colorblind"

I haven't made a post in a while, but I feel that it's time again.

As the semester drives to a close, my Diversity/Identity class is putting the finishing touches on our exhibit, which we hope to soon have up in front of the Co-Op. My specific part of the exhibit deals with "Diversity on Campus." Let me share a few quotes from opposite ends of the spectrum:

“There’s diversity—but I don’t know, I just feel like everyone is—there’s people of every ethnicity here, but it’s not like we’re intermingling with one another. It’s like we’re all in our little cliques. So it’s’ kind of like some people say like a melting pot or a salad. It’s like somebody just threw a big chunk of lettuce in there, and then somebody threw a whole tomato in there, instead of chopping it up and mixing up the whole salad.”

“And so I guess with UT, I don’t see it as diverse because I see really—for me, I see the population being really Asian and White. I don’t really see anything else, and so I don’t really see it as diverse…to define diversity, I guess you have to look at the—not only just the different species or types that are in one little area, you also have to look at the numbers. I mean, I don’t think you want to say that just because you have one of each one, that’s diverse; because you can have one of one species, and fifty of another species, and I don’t think that’s diverse at all, and that’s kind of what I see at UT.”

“…I think that UT could use more diversity not for my sake but for everyone else’s sake—because I think that it is really sad when people have to rely on stereotypes to know a race because they don’t know a lot of Black people and have misconceptions and ideas that are most of the time just wrong. And if there were more Blacks or if there were just more of anything I think it could open people’s minds.”

(I'm keeping all quotes anonymous although all narrators have signed appropriate release forms)

While extracting quotes from a series of about 24 interviews, I came across many that had to do with the concept of "being colorblind." And I present:

“I’ve just been brought up in a way that’s colorblind and I don’t understand how people can be like that [so conscious of race]. When I was younger, I used to think that people were Black if they had Black hair, so I thought that my grandpa was Black because he had Black hair. But he was White. And I thought I was White because I had blonde hair, so I just don’t understand how people—how they can be like that and why it means so much.”

“It doesn’t matter what race I am. To me, it’s wherever you grew up at, wherever you were raised is how you’re going to act.”

“And so that’s always been sort of my stance as far as that, that you know, race and color doesn’t really matter. And I try to prove that performing well academically, and showing people that everything is based on skill, and that’s what’s important, not color.”

All interviews were conducted with people of color.

I've run into a huge problem while putting together my exhibit. Obviously, my narrators care about diversity, no question about it. But if all we should strive to be is colorblind, WHY IN THE HELL WOULD DIVERSITY BE IMPORTANT?!

Explain that one away and I'll give you...hell, I'll let you have the A on my project.

--jp