“Let’s move past our differences and strive to see each other for what we are on the inside! Creed nor race nor faith divide us, it’s the intertwining of diversity that makes our cultural friendship bracelet as strong and beautiful as it is. So let’s be colorblind. Be colorblind!”
Things like these have been said on countless city hall and county sheriff department steps to launch countless terrible city council and county sheriff and town comptroller campaigns throughout blue states throughout this country. Politicians, speakers, and news programs with substance steer clear of such stupid cliché and might say, “Hey, let’s not be bigots, okay?” But it’s the roaring din of mediocre pickled brains that handily drowns out any real ideas.
Be colorblind! How does that make an actually colorblind person feel? 4th grade Mickey is sitting there in art, petrified that his classmates will discover his secret. He says his collage is abstract. Austin says that the sky is supposed to be blue, stupid.
That’s not very inclusive, is it?
Should we strive to be blind-blind, so as not to alienate the blind? Easier, ’cause you only have to sound like you’re not prejudiced.
Deaf-blind? Or we could say dumb mute, but that’s mean. So Hellen Keller it is.
And what about in this case:
“Be colorblind!”
“Okay.”
“Hey, why are you being really mean to Jewish people?”
“I said I’d be colorblind. I didn’t say I would give up antisemitism.”
“Shoot. I’ll tell you not to do that just as soon as I find a cute way to say it. But until then…”
So, please, everyone, next time you are compelled to tout the goods of colorblindness, make sure that you’re referring to the inability to visually detect hue.
Plus, if we were all colorblind, think how dangerous that would be at traffic lights–
How would you know to be cautious of the Asian in the oncoming lane?
