Color Blindness Concepts

One thing that brings race into affirmative action program is what concept of affirmative action is being used and discussed. When discussing white guilt and how it contributes to affirmative action, many people who experience the white guilt may be thinking about “affirmative action towards blacks versus affirmative action in general” (Swim and Miller, 1999, p513). This seems to resonate with the concept of color-blindness. There are two major settings of color-blindness concepts: color-blindness in general or color-blindness in regards to black and white relationship. When looking at the different expressions of color-blindness and individuals’ responses to how their color-blindness is process, there is implications of discussion of white …show more content…
Instead, there is more inequality and injustice as our society expand the new labels and categories that individuals give to themselves. As great as labels are, besides being proud and satisfied with the identity they have come up with, there are downside to having new labels because society aren’t prepared to and willing to adjust to the new forms of identity and individuality of a person. As much as our society is individualistic in the ways that everyone is expected to stand on their own, it is not about individuals but collectivity. It’s about belonging and conforming to the categories that already exist. It’s about finding one category that fits and not being able to be in two categories. This is not just with race, but with class and gender. There doesn’t seems to be an in-between category that society accepts. With class there is just the three defined categories: working, middle and upper. For gender there is just two defined categories: male and female (West and Zimmerman, 1987). There are definitely movements that are trying to address and expand these categories, but they are facing tremendous barriers and backlash (Coyote, 2016). Yet, with color-blind racism, white people themselves don’t really question the fact that there is still a separation and not a middle ground. Everyone falls into these categories of race, class and gender and they become ways to identify who we are as well as where we are and where they want to get to. As much as these identity helps us, they are also confine individuals into little boxes with expectations and norms that you have to follow. Even with the power to break these boxed categories, the acceptance of these new categories shows the fear people have in regard to what they are comfortable