Colour-blindness and Racist Ideology

Recently there was an interesting news item which discussed the high proportion of young Muslim men in prison. It was noted that the degree of overt institutional racism within the Met Police had reduced and other factors were to blame. This sparked my writing on this topic, as I believe that our definition and understanding of institutional racism within society has shifted and colour-blindness now appears to be a prevailing ideological perspective.

Colour-blindness, in sociological terms, is defined as ‘the disregard of racial characteristics; making no classifications, categorisations, or distinctions upon race’. This is no new phenomenon, but the existence of such attitudes has become more prominent in our society today as political correctness has extended its control over our freedom of speech. Advocates of colour-blind practices believe that treating people with no acknowledgement of race would lead to a more equal and tolerant society, whereby racial privilege would no longer exert the power it once did. However, those in opposition to such practices believe that racism and white privilege still remain defining features of many Western societies.

Claiming to be colour-blind simply refutes the cultural values, norms, expectations and life experiences of people of colour. These people behave as if racism is just a matter of words and language, when it is far more than that. They mistakenly suppose that if they do not verbalise words associated with skin colour, then racism will somehow disappear. It has become a defence when someone is afraid to discuss racism due to assumption that all conversation concerning race or colour is racist.

Colour-consciousness does not equate to racism.

Racism, instead, is a combination of racial prejudice, institutional power, and / or the belief that a certain human race is superior to any or all other races. Some of the more recent public cases of racism are those associated with social institutions, such as the police and courts in regards to the Criminal Justice System. Critical Race Theorists argue that if we were to strip the police and courts of racism, there would be a very different set of statistics because the police are prone to committing institutional racism via labelling based on stereotypes (Cicourel). As a result, this institutional racism leads to ethnic minorities as victims of crime being overlooked (Smith). This is supported by the MacPherson Report from 1999, which found that ethnic minority victims were not treated equally, and so this had led to a distortion of crime figures. Unfortunately, little has changed.

Therefore, colour-blindness must be considered as an extension of racist attitudes and beliefs, because by not seeing colour, you do not see racism either. It encourages the idea that being different is bad and that in order to be accepted you have to somehow be seen as the same. Consequently, this keeps society just as it is, nothing improves for people of colour and racist ideology continues to pervade societal institutions at all levels.