The race is still often the determining factor in a number of court decisions, political activity, and the characteristics of social life. López reminds readers of two significant court cases that, in one way or another, contributed to the overcoming of racial segregation – Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka (1954) and Hernandez versus Texas (1954). The author highlights that even though Brown is widely regarded as a landmark decision recognizing school segregation as unconstitutional, Hernandez initiated a more critical debate regarding the social role of race (López 1). Moreover, the article questions the policy of colorblindness, appealing to the risk of underestimating the correlation between social practices and structures incorporated into the concept of race and the social inequality issue (López 22). Thus, the problem of neglecting the coherent meaning of race through colorblind refrain policy is raised in the article and discussed in the Hernandez case perspective.
The concept of racial color blindness is reflected in more relevant critical academic articles. For example, Rosino investigates the so-called racial neutrality across different disciples (law, politics, social life, etc.). He characterizes the discussed phenomenon as “advanced by predominantly white elites as a preferable, albeit ineffective, remedy to racial discrimination” (Rosino 256). Indeed, ignorance is a convenient position that allows the ones in power to turn a blind eye on the oppression existing in the various societal structures and More than that, under the guise of a benefactor, they tend to neglect the real problems that ethnic and racial groups are forced to face routinely, thus, strengthening inequality instead of fighting it. Rosino (256) also underlines that colorblindness finds a reflection in ignoring racialization when generalizing the needs of women or LGBTQIA people. The article’s central message, thus, is that racial neutrality represents a threat to social equality being a transdisciplinary issue. Overall, more race-conscious approaches have to be adopted to implement institutional changes in education, health care, politics to facilitate the termination of racial oppression.
Furthermore, the role and type of leadership in the problem of racial color blindness are of particular interest. In research from Flores and Gunzenhauser (968), education is identified to be an area significantly influenced by excessive racial generalization. As a result, education leaders (e.g., teachers) seem to lack race recognition and demonstrate inactions towards various races’ inclusion. Moreover, in this area, indifferent and neutral school leadership risks allowing internal confrontation in the team based on the lack of sufficient understanding of the problem of racial discrimination among schoolchildren (Flores and Gunzenhauser 978). Obviously, the unworked critical thinking of children often leads to primitive opposition towards “others.” In conclusion, the authors assert that “open dialogue about race and racial issues need to occur critically and openly <…>, we must recognize the ramifications of race and what it really means to provide equal opportunities” (Flores and Gunzenhauser 979). In principle, the study illustrates a specific example of how colorblindness might overlook racial oppression.
All in all, the article by López discusses the ironical erroneousness of the concept of colorblind ideology, which is supposed to build human relationships without the burden of racial and ethnic labels. Rosino further strengthens this thesis by overviewing the transdisciplinary perspective of the phenomena and concluding that racial colorblindness only worsens racial oppression, ignoring its roots and avoiding institutional changes. Finally, Flores and Gunzenhauser, using the education sector as an example, show how a racially neutral leadership role affects the neglect of racism in a team. In general, all the articles cited to support the thesis that racial colorblindness is not an effective policy in the fight against social inequality.
Works Cited
Flores, Osly J., and Michael G. Gunzenhauser. “The Problems With Colorblind Leadership Revealed: A Call for Race-Conscious Leaders.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 32, no. 8, 2019, pp. 963–81. Crossref.
López, Ian Haney. “Race and Colorblindness After Hernandez and Brown.” Chicano-Latino Law Review, vol. 25, no. 1, 2005. Crossref.
Rosino, Michael L. “Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines.” Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, vol. 49, no. 3, 2020, pp. 255–57. Crossref.