Color Bind

Chidike Okeem on why the conservative embrace of 'color-blindness' is short-sighted. (Hat tip to BookerRising.net)

The fanciful idea of living in a colorblind society is one of the greatest impediments to sophisticated discussions about race in America. If there is going to be a soothing of racial tensions in American society, there first has to be an understanding that race -- albeit a social construct based on some biological realities -- exists and matters, and it is not just a vestigial figment of centuries-old white racism.

The message conservatives need to be advancing is that race matters vis-à-vis specific issues. By championing the fallacy of colorblindness, the conservative's authority to discuss race in the public sphere is inadvertently ceded to liberals.

Okeem also suggests that conservatives should not wage war against the notion of people regarding themselves as "African-Americans" or "Asian-Americans."

One of the main ways in which the colorblind theory is manifested is through the diligent effort to fight against the manufactured foe of hyphenated Americanism. Rather than simply refuting liberal lies about race head-on, conservatives have lamely adopted the weird belief that somehow dropping the many prefixes of "American" is the magical panacea that ends the reality of racial animosity.

The real conflict is against race-baiting liberals; it is not against an innocuous hyphen. Whether or not people choose to put "Asian," "African," or "Latino" in front of "American" does not change the reality that these communities not only exist, but that they overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
Moreover, the war against hyphenated Americanism falls into the politically correct trap of running what I call a "dictionary dictatorship," which is the Orwellian prohibition of words -- in this case, words that cannot be used to describe oneself if one desires to be considered "authentically American." This is the left's insidious game that Republicans are playing in the name of improving race relations.

Fighting against hyphenated Americanism also seems inherently problematic inasmuch as it conveys a notion that genial interracial relations are impossible unless all racial and cultural differences are childishly ignored. These racial differences are trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it is the conservative unwillingness to acknowledge these differences -- meshed with a demagogic liberal message -- that creates the artificial appearance of grandiosity.

The sad reality is that the fruitless war against hyphenated Americanism -- unwisely fought by conservatives -- breeds anti-Americanism, as liberals use this as a tool to convince minorities that conservatives are uncultured crazies who wish to scrub society of every last suggestion of ethnic diversity.

It is a profoundly depressing myth in America that the only way race relations can be improved is by pretending that race does not exist. Race does exist and matter, but who is convincingly articulating the conservative side of the story on important racial issues on the national stage? Furthermore, who is shattering the intellectual manacles that liberals have locked on the minds of minorities with their sophistical bromides?

(Answer: Nobody, because conservatives are too preoccupied with politically correct pleas for colorblindness and pugilistically engaging the boogeyman of hyphenated Americanism.)

A must-read piece.