Colorblindness In The Workplace
Relationships on the Campus, in the Workplace, and Beyond
I used to envy the “colorblindness” which some liberal, enlightened, white people were supposed to possess . . . But I no longer believe that “colorblindness”—if it even exists -—- is the opposite of racism; I think it is, in this world, a form of naiveté and mere stupidity. It implies that I would look at a black woman and see her as white, thus engaging in white solipsism to the utter erasure of her particular reality.
—Adrienne Rich, ‘Disloyal to Civilization,” Lies, Secrets, and Silences, 1979
White women are beginning to examine their relationships to Black women, yet often I hear them wanting only to deal with little colored children across the roads of childhood, the beloved …show more content…
For women who didn’t go to college or who attended schools where students were predominantly of the same racial background, the workplace may be the site of their first cross-race female relations. For still other women, sustained interracial relations may not develop until they meet as neighbors or as members of a political, religious, or social organization. But wherever it is that White and Black women first come into regular contact, some will be able to form lasting friendships, while others will run into conflict, hampered in their ability to get along by swirling undercurrents of racial in-equality and societal …show more content…
Before then, at those predominantly White colleges and universities that had already begun to desegregate, African American students were typically placed in dorm rooms by themselves. During the sixties, college housing officials surveyed all incoming White students on their racial attitudes so that only the most progressive among them would be assigned rooms with Black students. Ironically, at the same time, in the wake of the more militant Black Power movement, a growing number of Black college students, both male and female, began demanding separate housing on predominantly White college campuses. Today, it is illegal to make dormitory or room assignments by race, and all incoming freshmen and transfer students are informed on housing application materials that the school does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religious affiliation, and, in most places, sexual orientation. To avoid even the suspicion that race is a factor in room placement, questions about racial identification are carefully omitted on survey forms, while matters like smoking, drinking, and study habits are assessed in great detail. Although some housing applications may still include such vague questions as “What do you want in a roommate?” as a way to tap
I used to envy the “colorblindness” which some liberal, enlightened, white people were supposed to possess . . . But I no longer believe that “colorblindness”—if it even exists -—- is the opposite of racism; I think it is, in this world, a form of naiveté and mere stupidity. It implies that I would look at a black woman and see her as white, thus engaging in white solipsism to the utter erasure of her particular reality.
—Adrienne Rich, ‘Disloyal to Civilization,” Lies, Secrets, and Silences, 1979
White women are beginning to examine their relationships to Black women, yet often I hear them wanting only to deal with little colored children across the roads of childhood, the beloved …show more content…
For women who didn’t go to college or who attended schools where students were predominantly of the same racial background, the workplace may be the site of their first cross-race female relations. For still other women, sustained interracial relations may not develop until they meet as neighbors or as members of a political, religious, or social organization. But wherever it is that White and Black women first come into regular contact, some will be able to form lasting friendships, while others will run into conflict, hampered in their ability to get along by swirling undercurrents of racial in-equality and societal …show more content…
Before then, at those predominantly White colleges and universities that had already begun to desegregate, African American students were typically placed in dorm rooms by themselves. During the sixties, college housing officials surveyed all incoming White students on their racial attitudes so that only the most progressive among them would be assigned rooms with Black students. Ironically, at the same time, in the wake of the more militant Black Power movement, a growing number of Black college students, both male and female, began demanding separate housing on predominantly White college campuses. Today, it is illegal to make dormitory or room assignments by race, and all incoming freshmen and transfer students are informed on housing application materials that the school does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religious affiliation, and, in most places, sexual orientation. To avoid even the suspicion that race is a factor in room placement, questions about racial identification are carefully omitted on survey forms, while matters like smoking, drinking, and study habits are assessed in great detail. Although some housing applications may still include such vague questions as “What do you want in a roommate?” as a way to tap