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Actually Color Blindness Isn't Racist | Video Essay

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Conversations With Coleman   Jan 17th, 2023

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In this special video essay, I share my thoughts on the long running national debate on color blindness.

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watcher   January 27 2023 at 02:43 am

 That was a wonderful talk that every 'wokist' should hear. It's so absolutely true that racism cannot go away as long as there are people who claim they are anti-racists and at the same time, through their language and actions, actually reinforce racism by constantly focussing on it and claiming it won't go away. (As if they're cynically afraid the problem will one day go away, and with it their self-styled importance as activists.)


When can we finally appreciate and cooperate with individuals in their own right, with their own dignity, with their abilities and achievements and goodness and decency, and just take it for granted that everybody has some colour or the other: the so-called 'blacks' who usually are some shade of brown or the other, the so-called 'whites' who usually are some shade of pink or the other, etc. etc.? MLK!


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Soma   January 27 2023 at 02:33 am

Though the essay has many strengths, I think it fails to examine racism in its wider contexts of discrimination and biology. We make most of our decisions through a type of thinking psychologist Daniel Kahneman called 'fast thinking' - the intuitive decision making that was essential for the survival of our ancestors. Foreign trines are dangerous. Another source of fast thinking is the dominance hierarchy and social relationships that impact safety within one's tribe. Yes, "we must strive to be colorblind", but it is a struggle to achieve a perfect balance between two competing cognitive processes (and to correct historical injustice (though we should be wary of judging the mast with modern ethics)). All races and individuals are racist - that is human biology. Let's just be kind to and tolerant of each other.

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Wm. "Mark" Parry   January 26 2023 at 09:32 pm

 Thanks Coleman,


I appreciate this it helped me understand why I was getting such push back for being colorblind. I was raised by a liberal democrat intellectual snob. While my brilliant mother's wide band width was good to help me learn to evaluate people as complex beings, multifaceted and unique- it had its limits. Race is one of those facets. It informs ones being but it is not ones totality. My snobbish mother respected all people but stupid ones. She "hated" stupid people. It did not take me very long to realize how ignorant that particular prejudice was. It was however part of the inherited intellectual (idealized) snobbish superiority of the left. It is an ignorance of the complexity and nuances at the core of humanity. Tyranny has been best defined as the elimination of nuance.

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MPH   January 26 2023 at 07:54 pm

 I would maybe add that racism needs to be defined. Is there good racism? When I was in Japan, everytime I stopped in the street, someone offered to help me. Because I am a member of an inferior race. I got care and kindness because I was seen as a child. Racism, the belief that one race is superior in all aspects to other races can only exist in opposition to reality. That is true even when we talk about beauty: if someone says that they find any black woman more beautiful than any white woman, everybody agrees that this is a quirk or maybe stupidity. Let's talk more about logic than about morality when talking about race.

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AndyPants   January 26 2023 at 07:15 pm

 I really wanted to watch this whole video, but the nonstop popups drove me away. I will follow on YouTube instead.

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Borntobemild   January 26 2023 at 05:48 pm

 I see color, but it doesn't rank on my list of how to judge someone so far as their values, personality or trustworthiness. For example, all the people that have done me wrong and that I don't like, are all white.