I am, basically, color blind. I am not a crazy person, of course I see that a black person is black, a white person is white and so forth when I am looking at them. It just doesn’t figure into my opinion of them. I first noticed this many years ago. I was in my 20s and attending some movie premier in DC with my husband. At some point, he leaned over and said, “Do you realize we are the only white people here?” I looked up, looked around and said, “No, I hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it.” That’s what I mean by color blind. You just don’t notice, unless you look.
I am lucky to be this way. I firmly believe that one can only truly become color blind by spending your life immersed in a multi-cultural community, as I have spent mine. Every day of my life has been spent interacting on many levels with people of all colors, religions, ethnic backgrounds and it’s made me a better person. I understand that we all belong to the same race, humans. We are defined by our thoughts and actions, not the accident of our births. All humans are equal and deserve basic human rights. That being said, I am just as guilty as the next person of what I am about to suggest.
We are all guilty of allowing racism to continue. It doesn’t matter our color, our religion, our background, we all do it. We sit back and say nothing when crazy uncle Charlie goes off on one of his racist rants. We roll our eyes. We may even get up and walk into the kitchen. We need to stand up and say “Hey, uncle Charlie, you are crazy if you think that way. It’s not OK to say that. I don’t want to be around you if you continue in this manner.” Or, “Charlie, your complaint about that person has nothing to do with their race. Let’s discuss a good way to handle this without bringing race into the conversation.” We are in line at the grocery and we accidently overhear an inappropriate conversation and stand there and say nothing. We watch these horrors on the news and bitch and moan, but change nothing.
Lately, I have noticed a new kind of racist. They’ve been there all along, I just wasn’t paying attention. They don’t understand that they are racist. They harbor no ill will toward other ethnicities. They don’t believe that they are superior. But, they do believe that races are different. They believe there are different races and don’t understand there is one race with multiple ethnicities. I once saw someone post on Facebook – “I decided to seek out an opposing position, so I asked an African-American and a Jewish person.” The assumption that someone’s opinion on a non-race related subject would automatically differ based on their skin color or religion is ridiculous. Those that choose to arm up and show up at white supremacist rallies are beyond hope, but these other racists can be swayed. We need to point out to them, gently and kindly, when they espouse a racist sentiment.
The time is now to start a movement. Stand Up, Speak Out against racism every time you encounter it. Don’t engage with people who are openly racist, even if they are family. Gently and kindly, find ways to expose racist attitudes for what they are. Turn those conversations around. Make a difference.