This assignment contained two readings, so I will begin by first discussing my views on Armstrong and Wildman's   Colorblindness in the new racism.   Reading this article was difficult for me, it brought to light that although I always considered myself to not be racist, I do fit into the profile of colorblindness.  As quoted by the authors " If a racist is a person who categorizes based on race to the detriment of non-whites then, whites reason how can they be discriminating if they do not think about no -whites in a derogatory manner, especially when they are thinking about race at all".  This particular quote touched a nerve with me because I always considered myself as non racist because I don't see color at all I just see people.  However this author argues that not seeing race, and not doing anything about the discrimination's that non-whites face is pretty much the same thing.  The exercises that the students did concerning paying attention to discrimination's or white privileges they saw for a 24 hour period really opened my eyes up to the everyday struggles or privilege's that I encounter myself that I don't pay attention to.  For instance, one of the students spoke of going to a nail salon where Asians work, and observing how most people do not speak to or barely acknowledge the men or women whom are waiting on them.  Thinking back to the many times I myself have gone to these salons I can safely say that I have observed and participated in the same behavior.  Because of the language barrier and fear of being insensitive when I don't understand what they are saying, I myself have avoided conversing with these men and women.  I am always very polite but the conversation is usually pretty null and void.  Another quote from the article, pg 67 " White fear creating the impression that they are insensitive or prejudiced".  Is this me?  Am I colorblind?  Am I part of the new form of racism?   When I think back to Johnson I realize that he hit the nail on the head when he said that " we don't have a complete understanding of the problems we are all facing regarding gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity and social class".    Both authors also touch on the fact that it is difficult and uncomfortable to talk about race, however, Armstrong and Wildman state that " because colorblindness has become the new touchstone in race discourse it is more difficult than ever to recognize discrimination and talk about it" .  This again struck a chord with me because now I feel as though by participating in colorblindness, I am also participating in discrimination.   This article, however does believe that there is a way to work on overcoming colorblindness, and that is called color insight.  Color insight is defined by the authors on pg 67 as " Color insight admits that most of us do see race and underlines the need to understand what that racial awareness might mean".    They even go into 4 steps to developing color insight on page 65.   These steps are "considering context for any discussion about race, examining systems of privilege, unmasking perspectivelessness and white normativeness, and combating stereotyping and looking for the me in each individual".  While reading this article I kept thinking of the song Free your mind by En Vogue, which I am including here.



My favorite quote from this article is from pg 67, " Society cannot battle a phantom that it cannot recognize and name".   We can name it, it has been named as color blindness, now lets start to fix it.   Lastly on this article I am attaching a link that is a movie that is mentioned in the article, but also really supports the premises of the article that we don't realize how extensive the problems of race our in our culture.  This is Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible.

     Next on the assignment was All lives matter by Kevin Roose.  This article/blog has to do with people changing the slogan of Black Lives Matter to All Lives Matter and how this is again taking a movement that was designed to bring light the racism that African Americans face and making about whites.   Black Lives Matter is not just a slogan, but a movement that was started in 2013 to bring attention to the police brutality that black people face.  As Roose states " saying all lives matter is willfully going back to ignoring the problem.  It's a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means only black lives matter when that is clearly not the case".  This movement was started for a reason, can't we as people realize that that reason is important and stop trying to diminish what this movement actually means and stands for?  Are we that ignorant and uncomfortable that we can't even admit that this is a legitimate movement and leave it as it is and maybe support it instead of trying to change it to be more socially acceptable?