Anyway, background: The narrator is part of a group of little kids in a mixed neighborhood playing together. Then, a couple older kids (about fifteen) asked what they were doing:
"Satchel the Banjo Player said we should all be color-blind, " Adam said.There are so many excerpts I've read that just make me want to read the whole book... maybe I'll just start a list.
"He said we shouldn't see people's skin," I said. "So we're trying not to."
"So far, it isn't really working," Michelle said.
"Yeah," said Juan, squinting up at the sky and lolling his head back and forth like Stevie Wonder. "So far, everyone's just a little fuzzy."
William and Georges [the older boys] looked at each other.
"Ho, shit, man," Georges said, shaking his head. He exhaled with a whistle, then threw his basketball against the wall and caught it on the rebound.
"Color-blind? Are you kidding me?" William hooted. "You're supposed to pretend you don't see who people are? You supposed to act handicapped? Shit. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."
He leaned down and draped his arms around me and Michelle conspiratorily.
"Look. Let me tell you something," he said gently, squeezing our forearms in a brotherly fashion. "Every day of my life, I know that I'm black. And Georges here, he knows he's Puerto Rican. And both of us, we know that you two are white. And you should, too. In this world, everyone's gotta know who they are and where they come from. Understand? Don't let anybody tell you that's not important. Because it is."
Then he stood up and grinned at us. "I don't want any of you pretending to be blind, you hear? Not color-blind, not blind-blind, just 20/20, you got that?"
Obediently, we all nodded. He smiled and made a "Right-on!" fist at us, and we all made one back. Then he and Georges headed off to play basketball.
-Gilman, Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, p46
2 comments:
I've heard something like this before. And while I agree...I dunno. I don't believe "blind" is being used in a way to suggest ignoring differences between the ethnicities. Rather, it's more a comment of the assumed and arbitrary value system and hierarchy placed on those ethnicities, a hierarchy that, as we all know, doesn't really exist. *That's* what we should be "blind" too--not necessarily the skin color, but the fact that skin color shouldn't qualify or quantify a person. Because in the end, we're all just people. People with various backgrounds and histories. I don't mean to imply that ethnicity isn't a part of our identities as humans (which is actually what this passage is suggesting), but again, it's when we start placing irrational hierarchical value on the various ethnicities, and judging them based on those ignorant assumptions, that we get into trouble.
I agree with you... and I took this to mean that it IS saying that its a part of who you are:
"In this world, everyone's gotta know who they are and where they come from. Understand? Don't let anybody tell you that's not important. Because it is."
The reason I posted this is because it challenged the idea I've heard that if we just pretend that we all look the same then race won't cause people to treat each other differently. But simply because we ARE treated differently means that race plays into who we are and cannot be ignored in that way.
To do so assumes that the playing field is currently equal and we can start treating each other the same now, in this current moment, and that will make everything okay... but it doesn't... its just a symptom of the deeper issue and I think it would be dangerous to treat the symptom and think that the disease is going to leave, too. So it all depends on how you define the use of "blind" in this context... I was addressing how I've heard it used.
All I was intending to say was that we can't treat the symptom and pretend the issue is resolved.
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