[throwaway1959]

Can you expand on what do you mean as being blind to race? Do you want them to see your race, treat different races differently? Aren't we supposed to be a color-blind society? Maybe I am just not understanding what you mean.

[meowtimemania]

I think on an individual level we should be “blind” to race but when it comes to solving some of the big problems of society we have to recognize the role that racism plays in those problems and

[devdas]

There's a context implied, but not explicitly stated here.

Being "blind to race" means that the context in which the other person exists is being ignored. Seeing things like race and gender mean that you are keeping context in mind when interacting with people.

Systemic racism isn't necessarily about your personal intent, but it is about the results of your actions. Being blind to race effectively results in supporting the racist status quo. Being blind to sexism effectively results in supporting the sexist status quo.

The current default for American society is white. PoC have a different lived experience, and white people don't often know what it is like to have that lived experience. Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.

https://www.salon.com/2021/05/18/rich-people-actually-do-hav...

There are a number of axes where discrimination exists, and being blind to those axes means that you support the discriminatory position in practice.

[xenocratus]

> Being "blind to race" means that the context in which the other person exists is being ignored.

No, it does not. It means that the colour of their skin is ignored. If a white family has the same socio-economic status as a family of colour, should we treat them differently simply based on colour?

I think you mean we should assume the family of colour is actively discriminated against so they can't be in the same socio-economic group, but at the same time you claim that "systemic racism isn't necessarily about personal intent"...?

> Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.

This is probs what you actually want to control for, but it's easier to go for the low-hanging fruit that's also culturally fashionable right now, I get it.

My view is certainly coloured by being a white Eastern European living in Western Europe. Not all white people have the same background, certainly not in Europe. I'm sure there are shades of white in America as well. Point being: colour is only an easy proxy for the real issues that need solving.

Here's my "race-blind" take: give help to the people who need it, in the way that they need it. The implementation can then have a race-driven approach, but the policy is race-free. Or is that not good enough?

[kortilla]

Ignoring is not the same thing as supporting, no matter how many times you repeat the mantra.

[crooked-v]

"Blind to race" claims often go along with smugly ignoring systemic racism in society and acting like it's a solved problem because a black man was elected President.

[bhupy]

I think it’s possible to hold the following two views at the same time:

- “systemic racism” is real and not 100% solved

- of all the possible strategies to solve systemic racism, racializing all facets of everyday life, including emojis, may not be the most productive

[JamisonM]

"racializing all facets of everyday life, including emojis"

Every representation of humans is racialized, they exist in a social context where race exists.

Pretending that it is not and then complaining when someone says, "hey, we maybe should make it so not everything looks like white folks" is just silly stuff. Emoji diversity is good and 100% harmless!!

[bhupy]

> Every representation of humans is racialized, they exist in a social context where race exists

This is only true as long as we go out of our way to make it true. The concept of “googly eyes” for example, is totally race agnostic. Likewise, emojis represent emotions that don’t inherently need to be coupled to race. Emojis aren’t even a new concept, we had emoticons in the ‘00s in AIM, where 99% of the emotions had nothing to do with race.

I say this as a brown man; it really doesn’t matter to me if the “thumbs up” I use in a coworker’s merge request is brown or the default yellow. On the flip side, emoji diversity is yet another reminder that I’m different from others, especially in a context where I would rather focus on what makes us the same.

[JamisonM]

Then you use the yellow one, problem solved.

[crooked-v]

I don't really see how that relates to my explaining the subtext of the 'blind to race' thing, though.

[bhupy]

It relates to your explaining the subtext because that subtext is a straw man.

I can’t speak for the GP commenter to whom you responded, but I can speak for myself when I say that I strive to to treat everyone the same regardless of their race (and not make a big deal out of race), while also being well aware of the prejudices and injustices that might affect someone on the basis of race out in the world. If that doesn’t describe “race blindness”, then we probably need to come up with a phrase to represent that person.