Here is a useful translation key for all of us for speaking on the race subject in the future:
Colorblind:
New use:
Not-Colorblind: sensitive to the problems others may experience that you do not experience.
Colorblind: Thinking of other people as just like you without noticing significant differences.
Old use:
Not-Colorblind: A restaurant owner in Arizona instructs his waiters to wait on whites first, then blacks, then Mexicans.*
Colorblind: The restaurant owner instructs his waiters to wait on all customers in order of their entrance into the establishment.
*–I used this particular example because a friend just described to me having seen this happen repeatedly where she lived.
Folks who use the new meaning: please keep in mind that those of us who have not heard you speak before do not mean what you mean by the term colorblind. We don’t mean “Seeing everyone as ourselves without consideration.” We mean “Not treating people like dirt because they are a different color.”
If you take the time when you open a conversation to explain this idea—a very interesting idea and worthy of discussion—your chances of succeeding in getting your point across goes up substantially.
Now, a word to the Rudeness Buffs—while the idea “you aren’t owed politeness” is interesting and a rather clever way of justifying anger and bad behavior—the opposite is true, too. A person does not need to interact with someone who is not polite.
So…any comment to this post that is phrased politely can stay. If you want discuss ideas, you are very welcome here—no matter what your idea.
If you want to insult people, you shall have to do it somewhere else.
