The problem with "colorblindness" is that it doesn't address racial injustice. It just ignores it. We shouldn't be colorblind, we should be aware of actual realities of inequality and injustice as faced by people of color.
Colorblind is not ignoring racial injustice. Much of the civil rights movement with Dr King was based on colorblind principles that black not get special treatment but just the same treatment as everyone else. As the Declaration and Human Rights upheld that all people regardless of race, religion or sex have those same rights.
Much progress was made with colorblind policies. The same injustices could have been identified with colorblind policies and would have maintained even and equal treatment without robbing one to benefit another as with the reverse descrimiination policies of equity where as one group are privildged for attention another is neglected.
It can be easily identified that one demographic may be disadvantaged and need support by using the human individual as the measure regardless of identity. Its simple. Any human no matter what who is being disadvantaged needs support full stop. Because we can always find a disadvantage with any group no matter if they are white, brown, black, male, non binary or female.
When black people tell white people, "This is what we experience", the correct course of action isn't to ignore it, dismiss it, or call black people liars, or tell them they "have a victim mentality"--it's to recognize that this is the real and lived experience of people who, because of centuries of real issues that are STILL ongoing, are still not treated the same as white people. And it gets worse when the response is simply to call this "woke" as a pejorative term, or get upset rather than have genuine compassion.
No one is ignoring minorities and thats the lie ideologues push. That whites are inherently racist and ignoring blacks. This is simply not the case especially today. We bend over backwards to acknowledge minority disadvantage. In fact overly so some thing.
We listen to peoples stories, its part of everyday life. We are constantly immerced in them to the point everyone has a story. But thats ok and not really the issue. The issue is that these narratives have become the only measure of reality and no one knows whats real or not anymore. We are told to just believe all narratives coming out of the mouths of people like its a religion. When we know or use to know that this was not necessarily the reality. That people imagine things or subjectively feel things that are not necessarily true.
So its not that peoples stories and narratives are irrelevant or true but that the ideology has made it that stories and narratives are thye only truth and fact and thus rendering any way of determining reality from
My comfort, as a white person who doesn't experience racial prejudice at a systemic and social level, should not be prioritized over the real sufferings of real people who suffer solely because they were born with a higher concentration of melanin in their skin, and whose ancestors were slaves. And that's what "colorblindness" is, it's "I don't want to think about this unpleasant reality, so I'm going to stick my head in the sand".
No its not. This is false and a misrepresentation. Even the way you word this "my comfort as a white person' like being white = comfort. Tell that to the large white population in abject poverty. Or the many whites addicted and homeless on the streets or white boys who now have dropped below Asians and women in education.
We can find disadvantage for all groups in some way, shape or form.
But what this narrow view that makes everything about race also does is it falsely blames at least some if not much of the disadvantage caused on whites when it had nothing to do with them. Whereas much may have to do with class or even social norms such as the dissolution of marriage which affects all but black families disproportionately. But that is nothing to do with race.
You may not like it, but the past informs the present. We don't get to where we are now without what happened before. And if we don't address the sins of the past, and actually address the pains of the present, then we don't get healing in the future. Instead we just maintain a status quo.
That is what we have been doing. In case you didn't notice there was a civil rights movement which really began all this. WE have had movements of all sorts since on breast cancer, every possible disease and disorder has some reprentation. We have disproportionally spent millions on programs education, and have laws that forbid descrimination.
Compare this to some of the cultures even western ideologues support against the west who gave them the right to protest and most minorities would either be enslaved or thrown off a roof for such expressions of freedoms.
The west are not a nations of inherent racists and its racist to even say that.
A bare amount of empathy is all that is required here. I don't know what it's like to be black in America, and I never will.
Well I do as my ancestors are black and were slaves. My grandfather married a black women whose decendents were free slaves in Nova Scotia. .
We need empathy for all at the same time. Know one knows what its like for a young white kid in the suburbs with ADHD and a single mum struggling on benefits in a violent relationship. Know one knows what its like for a white dude who has a mental illness homeless and addicted to drugs. Know one knows what its like for many situations where certain demographics make them more supceptible to disadvantage.
Its not about not having empathy. We all have empathy as we are human. Its about upholding the individual as soverign and not the group. Empathy for just being human. When you throw your empathy behind one group more than the other you are devaluing empathy for the other.
But when my black neighbors tell me what they experience, when they tell me their struggles, when they tell me the truth of their lives in a country that, historically, hates them. The absolute least I could do is listen and believe them, and take them seriously.
Of course. here you have another human in front of you pouring their heart out. We should have empathy even if we have problems ourselves. We want to help in some way and not just walk away. Its a pit people don't do that more. But I think people who lack empathy don't descriminate. They just don't want to get involved. Their time is too precious or they are scared of getting inolved.
And if I am going to take Jesus seriously when He says "Love your neighbor" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", then I should do more than just listen, I should want to see a positive change in how this society operates. That my black neighbors be afforded every single bare minimum right and privilege that I, as a white person, have and experience.
Yes and thats not just a Jesus thing. Its Human Rights and the foundation of most western nations Declaration. That as individuals regardless of race we have certain inalienable natural God given Rights. So when we see our neighbour regardless of race like the Good Samaritan we help them.
Race should not come into it. We should be saying oh here is X identity group and I need to make sure they are helped. We should automatically be thinking individual made in Gods image. In that way we are seeing them not just through their skin color or gender but as a child of God. Having that individual value rather than group value.
So, yeah, that means focusing on race. The history of race in the context of American history. Being honest about past and present failures of America as it pertains to race. And focusing on systemic changes that actually create beneficial long term affects that are positive toward reconciliation and healing of these deep wounds.
Fair enough. But I think we can do all that without making race the only focus. It needs to be done in balance. Considering all factors including non race factors that contribute as well as doing the same for all individuals that suffer disadvantage below a certain level such as human rights.
And the same is true when we talk about, gender. I'm a man, so I don't know what it's like to be a woman in America. But I can believe women when they tell me what they've experienced. I don't know what it's like to be afraid to go to a social gathering because someone might put drugs in my drink. I don't know what it's like to be objectified by total strangers out in public who tell me all the gross and dehumanizing things they want to do to me or my body. I don't know what it's like to be statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted, or when sexually assaulted have people ask me what I was wearing. But I have known a lot of women who have been good, close personal friends. And 9/10 of them, when they open up to me, have shared these sorts of experiences. Almost every single woman I have known has experienced sexual assault or rape. And chances are, that's the same for the women you know.
Um no not really. I know of women who don't think every mans a potential rapist. Though male abuse is real and we should always believe a women who has experienced such abuse or decrimination I can say that many men have a deep respect for women and will bend over backwards to help them Thats really a sad indictment on society if its a bad as you say. Somehow I dont think so. And I work in industries that support women so have first hand experience.
But referring back to the difference between your genuine Christ empathy compared to the ideology that makes race, sex and gender the only measure of reality. Women are a good example when it comes to believing subjective gender identity. Women are ignored when they say they feel uncomfortable or disempowered when a biological male posing as a women comes into their spaces.
This is an example of how the ideology works. By making identity like race and gender as the only measure even trumping objective reality its a religion itself. We are literally being descriminant and winding back woemns rights in promoting such nonense.
And, I don't know, it seems pretty antithetical to everything I believe as a Christian to dismiss it, or trivialize that, or to say "well I don't experience that, so it doesn't really affect me", or to lack empathy, compassion, or to want things to be better for women. Or to tell myself that women are all just lying, or "being emotional", or whatever excuse someone might want to offer to either avoid thinking about uncomfortable topics, or worse, avoid taking personal responsibility and change how we act or how we think.
And to dismiss all of this as just "woke", demonstrates not merely a lack of basic empathy and compassion for one's neighbor; but comes across as an active disdain for your fellow human beings.
-CryptoLutheran
Unfortunately at least some of it if not most nowadays within our public institutions at least but also socially on line its Woke. It began as PC and cancel culture but has morphed into something of weird proportions that you cannot define it as Woke. I think that is why some are getting specific and naming its foundemental basis such as DEI.
DEI is a real thing and based on fringe critical theories such as Critical Social Justice, Feminist, Black and Queer studies. It also has aspects of Marxism but is not Marxism in the traditional sense. That is why behind many of their ideologues such as climate activists, Trans, Pro Palestinian, BLM ect you will also find that theres a socialist underpinning. To dismantle the status quo and replace it with some socialist Utopia.
There is also some Postmodernism which is in most of the Humanities today. The idea that there is no truth or objective reality and reality is self referential and relative and created through narratives, feelings and experiences. All else is power. Western knowledge is power, Math is power, science is power. So scientific facts are a way of abusing power.
Thats how they can make the belief in being a women trump the objective reality of biological sex. Because its a white mans construction to disempower those who don't conform to binary sex. You will need to do some research as this is cannot explain to you what is happening.
