Dear “Colorblind” people,

[Scootaloo]

9. No, your assumption is just wrong.

You perceive race. You see racial issues. You acknowledge and interact with racist attitudes and preconceptions. You realize that these biases have been beaten into all of us since an early age.

What you describe is not you being "colorblind." What you describe is you actively denying the racist training you've been getting since day one. When you interact with people, you know and understand that they are a different race from yourself (or maybe they aren't, you recognize that too) but you make a conscious decision to ignore the years of bias and preconception that have been pounded into your head regarding people of their ethnicity.

If you were "colorblind," you would not acknowledge race-based issues, much less understand them (or even try to understand them.) You'd see someone talking about racism, tell yourself that "there are no races!" and then chide the speaker for being racist.