The Danger of Racial Colorblindess

2:10 – The growing relevance of color blindness as a decision making tool and the phenomenon of avoiding race as a social interaction strategy to try to be more culturally sensitive.

5:20 – Understanding and defining racial color blindness.

6:15 – A summary of the research and findings in “Racial Color Blindness: Emergence, Practice, and Implications,” (Evan P. Apfelbaum, Michael I. Norton, Samuel R. Sommers, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 21, No. 3 (JUNE 2012), pp. 205-209)

and how those findings hold up today.

9.53 – Discussing the mistaken belief that color blindness can prevent prejudice and discrimination. E.g., “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” ~ John Roberts, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

14:30 – Discussing how people do notice race when perceiving others, and why nevertheless by the age of 10 color blindness becomes children’s main approach for dealing with race.

18:00 – Discussing how color blindness can facilitate and justify racial resentment, thereby creating more bias in attitudes and behaviors.

21:58: Discussing how White individuals who ignore race come across as less trustful and more likely to be prejudiced to Black conversation partners.

24:23 – Discussing the affirmative action decision in Students for Fair Admissions and how universities and other organizations must now rethink their approach to diversity.

30:58 – Discussing the educational benefits of diversity using research findings on diverse juries vs all white juries.

35:27 – Discussing the problematic trend of using diversity as a reference for everyone except straight white men.

40:29 – Discussing fairness and the finding that when race is made salient, many White people shift from viewing color blindness as “everyone should have equal outcomes” to viewing it as “everyone should receive equal treatment, regardless of existing race-based inequalities.”

44:51 – Discussing the different concerns of liberals and conservatives when it comes to topics like fairness and affirmative action.

47:36 – Discussing how liberals and conservatives don’t actually have starkly different values on a whole but rather different understandings and concerns of fairness in relation to diversity.

49:25 – Discussing multiculturalism as an alternative approach to color blindness.

53:12 – Discussing Dr. Apfelbaum’s current research on how promoting diversity affects people’s beliefs on fairness and meritocracy in decision making processes.