Prometheus 6   

Colorblind Versus Blindfolded

It's easy to condemn discrimination, segregation and racism. It's harder to agree on what practical steps are needed to combat them.

We all believe that everybody should be judged on his or her own merits, but many people, including a majority of Supreme Court justices, say race should be used as a "plus factor" in admitting students to public universities. And though everybody says we should strive for a colorblind society, some people still use racial and ethnic categories to describe why some people are different from others.

One way to end the problem, in the opinion of University of California Regent Ward Connerly, is to abolish the use of race and ethnicity as identifying factors. His Racial Privacy Initiative, slated to be voted on in October, would prohibit any government agency in California from collecting data on race, ethnicity, color or national origin and using it to classify those involved in public education, public contracting or public employment.

…I recall how frustrating it was to study law enforcement in Britain, where, at the time, the racial and ethnic identity of victims and suspects was not disclosed. You got the impression there that race made no difference when, in fact, it made a very large one - a fact that finally came home to the British when London was convulsed by racial tension occasioned, in part, by police action.

I wish we lived in a colorblind society but we do not. I take comfort from the fact that more and more college applicants, like more and more citizens, are refusing to select a single racial or ethnic identity when they fill out a form. These changes, accompanied by intermarriage, may in time make this a country in which ethnicity does not matter very much.

But we are not there yet. If you are a liberal, racial data are important in order to learn about social progress or its lack; if you are a conservative, they are useful to learn whether a national identity is or is not superceding separatist ones. Knowing in what direction we are moving is essential.