The New Racism, Part 1: How ‘Race and Ethnic Studies’ Made Color Blindness a Bad Thing

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | August 1, 2018 | John Staddon

[reaganaut1]

Like most Americans, I have always assumed that color blindness is our ideal. Not any more: color blindness is now become the new racism. So much for a 70-year struggle to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.’s wish that his children be “judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” So much for the noble aim to treat people as individuals rather than as representatives of an identity group.

How is color blindness not a virtue? Is it really racist now? Where on earth does such an idea come from? The answer seems to be “race and ethnic studies,” a mushrooming specialization which pops up in in several traditional academic disciplines such as cultural anthropology, political science, social psychology, and sociology. The problems I will describe infect all, but I focus on sociology, where MLK’s idea of color blindness has been turned on its head.

Sociology began as a science. Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and other founders of the field insisted on objectivity: empirical measurement and logical argument. Remnants of that tradition remain, but a non-scientific movement now threatens to take over.

Sociology is complex because it necessarily intersects with psychology, economics, politics, anthropology, and even evolutionary biology. Sociologists are no smarter than other social scientists. No one could possibly master all these disciplines. It is no surprise, then, that this mélange has evolved in multiple directions that often have little connection with one another. The study of race and ethnicity is possibly the dominant, certainly the most visible, part of contemporary sociology with “gender studies” a close second. It has explicitly abandoned any allegiance to science, as we will see.

Contra Karl Marx, science is about knowledge, not action.

[PapaBear3625]

Sociology is complex because it necessarily intersects with psychology, economics, politics, anthropology, and even evolutionary biology. Sociologists are no smarter than other social scientists. No one could possibly master all these disciplines. It is no surprise, then, that this mélange has evolved in multiple directions that often have little connection with one another. The study of race and ethnicity is possibly the dominant, certainly the most visible, part of contemporary sociology with “gender studies” a close second. It has explicitly abandoned any allegiance to science, as we will see.

When a "study" has strong political implications, you can forget about scientific objectivity.

Look at "Climate Science". Your results had better align with the political objectives of the people who fund your grants, or else.

[KarlInOhio]

The momochromats, dichromats and anomalous trichromats will be raising their red banner of outrage against the offensive term in this article. No, the red banner. Red. You've raised the green banner of outrage... I think. Raise them both just to be sure.

[KarlInOhio]

Oops. momochromats -> monochromats

[cyclotic]

Oh, so now as a white guy, I’m supposed to discriminate against people with different skin color?

No thanks. I prefer color blindness. Content of character and all that sort of stuff.

[CharlesOConnell]

Couple of sane sociologists.

Carle Zimmerman. Family & Society, 1947.

Pitrim Sorokin. Founded Harvard Sociology.

They don’t have to be crazy

[Desron13]

"According to Bonilla-Silva, only race traitors (an odd term, since they seem to be the only non-racist whites)—“whites who do not dance to the tune of color blindness”—can escape from whiteness. Color blindness is part of the whiteness strategy and is therefore racist."

You would have to have some really serious worms crawling around in your head to think something like this up. What astonishes me is the number of imbeciles out there that buy into this nonsense and blather.

SAY IT WITH ME KIDS... FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!

[IronJack]

Those classes are, by definition, racist, since they generalize about an entire group of people based on nothing more than their ethnicity. The assumption is that all members of that ethnic class share characteristics. Which may be true to some degree for phenotypes, but is almost certainly NEVER true for personalities, abilities, and values.

[cyclotic]

I actually met a guy yesterday who was the first outright racist I’ve met in decades.

He was a successful business owner, meeting me for the first time and knowing nothing about me but my name.

It was sick the stuff that was coming out of his mouth.

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

Yes, I grew up with the idea that race was irrelevant, and character is what mattered.

But today, if someone does not acknowledge the racism of the past, they are racist.

So now, it is not character that matters because the acts of the past have inhibited character development.

It is a rationalization that will prolong the disparity, not end it.

[A_perfect_lady]

The goal is to wipe out capitalism. The values that created capitalism (freedom, private property rights, individual responsibility) are seen as “white” values, and the only way to be rid of the taint of whiteness is to work to undercut all results of white values: capitalism, freedom, individualism. They may never say “socialism” or “communism” until you are deep inside the cult, but the notion that all disparities in wealth are the result of racism and absolutely no other explanation is allowed, and equality of outcome is the only acceptable goal... makes it clear.