Don’t Tell Me You “Don’t See Race”

Originally posted at 5:52 PM, February 11, 2010

I’ve heard several people say that they “don’t see race” or “don’t see color.” Without exception, these people have all been white. All of them meant well, certainly; I assume that what they meant was that they do not consider themselves prejudiced against people of color. Still, a statement that one “doesn’t see race” — in this society, at least — reeks of white privilege. Allan G. Johnson quotes James Baldwin in Privilege, Power, and Difference: “To be white in America means not having to think about it” (22).