Colour blind America and The New Age of Liberal Racism

 It was Martin Luther King who famously said that people should be “judged on their content of their character and not the colour of their skin.” During this period stretching back to into times of slavery, the public domain was smeared with overt racist discourses and people were wrongly distinguished biologically according to ancestry. The landmark civil rights movements in the 1960’s brought an upheaval on racial perceptions.

 The concept of people being judged on their individual merits rather than wholly on race was born. Colour was no long a crucial difference justifying socially enforced segregation, instead it was sold as an attribute of little importance. Consequently, the most overt racism practiced became shamed and social egalitarianism gobbled it up. This concept promoted the idea that people are always equal which was deeply embedded in the dearly held beliefs of liberalism and individual rights. This ideology in principle is noble and initially led to untold positives stretching beyond the American borders. Many still passionately hold these beliefs and would fight for them. However, ironically, it has become a double-edged sword that modernly facilitates the majority’s interests by its institutional unwillingness to reaffirm long lasting inequalities.

 America is on the very fringes of the low-context and low-power cultural markers, which create a society obsessed with individualism. Consequently, it is why various group still viciously oppose state intrusion even for the collective greater good. Guns and the irrational reaction it provokes from various groups is an excellent example. It is also a cultural philosophy that enables them to rationalise racial problems on broader societal patterns from their microscopic focus on the individual.

 According to Chief Justice John Roberts, "The way to stop racism is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." However, racism in the 21st century is generally not perpetuated from overt individual attitudes, since the minority is protected vigorously under law, but it is the statistical facts in terms of incomes, housing, health and opportunities that can be categorised purely through race. Interestingly, present strategies cannot dismantle broader racist inequalities, and therefore the entire liberal philosophy on race no longer offers a suitable path to progress. Despite reaching the pinnacle of progress in individual rights the wealth gap in America between African American and White European American’s has tripled since 1980. Currently white employment post-credit crunch is 6% but African-American`s is standing over 13%.

The implementation of colour blindness into politics compounded with the myopic focus on the individual, has shushed the identified race disparity and allowed it to silently continue unchanged. The problem with blindness in pretending people of all groups are equal is that it functions on the assumption that the playing field is balanced when it evidently is not. It allows the perpetrators behind the policies, many whom are well meaning or vocal minorities themselves, to aggressively deny any trace of racism through no mention of race.

 Such political stoicism by turning race into a non-issue, which is contrary to the disturbing facts, can ultimately only favour those who hold an unfairly advantageous position through a lack of interference. Scientists universally deny biological difference between the so-called ‘races’, and therefore societal indifference cannot be attributed to genetics. However, it is proven by academics to still be an important element of identity and social classification.

If race is such a non-issue why has the topic of race gradually become taboo in which white majorities evade? Such taboo facilitates its omission meaning it cannot be understood and addressed sensibly, instead we simply try to pretend it doesn’t exist and therefore cannot come to terms with centuries of disadvantage from cultural, physical, economic and legal discrimination. Unfortunately this race ideology has become dominant in many of the western democracies, which indirectly enables racism through misattributing current racial problems.

Ultimately political irrelevance of race in America is a dead-end which selectively ignores the obvious sociological problems America suffers from. Progress will only be initiated further when the current journey of progress itself is challenged. The mere idea of this will no doubt be an affront to very foundations of the unshakable values many of you have been spoon-fed as ideological commonsense over the years. So, when will we start talking about race again?