November 10, 2005
The Folly of Color-Blindness
Juan Cole points out that the violence in France is a direct result of the intentional color-blindness of French civic culture:
The French have determinedly avoided multiculturalism or affirmative action. They have insisted that everyone is French together and on a "color-blind" set of policies. "Color-blind" policies based on "merit" always seem to benefit some groups more than others, despite a rhetoric of equality and achievement. In order to resolve the problems they face, the French will have to come to terms with the multi-cultural character of contemporary society. And they will have to find ways of actively sharing jobs with minority populations, who often suffer from an unemployment rate as high as 40 percent (i.e. Iraq).
This might add wood to the fire burning on the sf-bay-poly listserve about the color-blindness of the Bay Area poly community.
(via Avedon Carol)
Posted by abostick at November 10, 2005 02:24 PMI am often reminded of Samuel R. Delany's comment on colorblindness. Responding to a woman who said, "I never notice a person's race," Delany said (paraphrased), "I'm sorry to hear that. If you don't notice the problems that I face every day, then you can't be my ally."
Posted by: Debbie at November 10, 2005 11:20 PMThank you. Juan Cole offers material I can use for my research paper. Good point and in contrast to the less than convincing lecture I attended last week given by Dr. Francis Fukuyama, who would likely make the reverse argument -- that the riots are caused by the mainstream acceptance of multiculturalism. His conclusion supported the ideas of assimilation and was very nationalistic in focus.
Posted by: sabyl at November 13, 2005 10:59 AMI am particularly fond of Paul Gorski's writing on this, I haven't found the larger piece where he dis assembles "color blindness", but this one is representative, aimed towards educators.
http://edchange.org/multicultural/papers/edchange_10things.html
