Color Insight Usurping Colorblindness: But, Will it Work?

Johnson defined privilege and power in Privilege, Power, and Difference and Delpit applied what the "culture of power" means in the classroom by asking teachers to recognize different learning styles and expectations. In "Colorblindness is the New Racism", Armstrong and Wildman posit that "colorblindness" needs to be assaulted via "color insight".  They theorize that "society purports to prize colorblindness and that reality makes it hard to 'see race' in public discussion." In essence, white Americans deny racism via not recognizing being racial and society has encouraged colorblindness through the mantra of 'we are all equal; color, race, gender should not matter'.Their solution is to encourage the recognition of privilege via drawing attention to the privileges people of power attain.

They begin by noting that white people have an "everyday option to not think of herself in racial terms at all" because this is the societal norm in America. They say whites can claim they do not discriminate if they do not think about race. However, if they do not think about the privileges of their positions of power, discrimination ensues. Whites who are "colorblind" assume this is the attitude that equates to being non-racist; however, if whites are colorblind, Armstrong and Wildman assert, they are also blind to their own privileges within our society. To combat this, the authors insist "it would be more helpful to notice the everyday presence of racial privilege and to think about how to combat it." Their solution is to promote "color insight", to "observe, discuss, an analyze the operation of race and privilege in contemporary society." Exercises to do so include observing, in a 24-hour period, the racial composition of your environment: races and jobs, interactions etc. Another is to  place one's self above or below a "power line chart" and a third is to see the "me" in others such as sharing stories about maternal grandmothers.

While these exercises are laudable, and will help students understand the culture of power and privilege, it will not change most people's long-term understanding of the culture of power. Why? Because all people, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, experience discrimination and the ego will always point to negative individual experiences as a starting point. I am privileged as a white woman in America; however, I also have been discriminated against in other areas. When flying, for instance, I am usually pulled for an extra security check. I have assumed I am chosen because I fly alone, without children, and I fly often and widely. Also, as an undergraduate, I was denied a place at a certain university while a friend, a new immigrant from S.Africa, whose high school grades and SAT scores were lower than mine, was accepted. No, she was not black, but rather her father used his religious affiliations/contacts to "pull strings." So, every sub culture has its own plusses and minuses in a society that, while pluralistic, is not egalitarian.

Furthermore, some of what Armstrong and Wildman writes is bogged down by hyperbole. For instance, they note that "inequality in opportunity and caliber of education remains rampant...white students are generally afforded the best educational opportunities in the United States, while these benefits elude many students of color." The caliber of education - teacher preparation and pedagogy, curriculum, et al - in Providence is not the problem; the caliber of understanding the culture of education and academic expectations by many families and students is. Per student funding in Providence is over $16,000. All high schools now offer a full load of AP courses. Many schools, mine included, have smartboards and full access to technology. All students are afforded a free breakfast and lunch. After-school and Saturday tutoring is now the norm, and all students in the city have new, updated textbooks. But, the education in Providence is different from that of a suburban or rural school district because the needs of the majority of our students are different. Providence, as is the norm in most urban areas, educates many immigrant students - students who arrive here to live with relatives in order to learn English and have more opportunities. Many of my students do not move here with their parents but rather are sent here so that they can eventually attend college in this country. The result of a high immigrant population, many of whom arrive with low literacy skills in their first language, is that more resources must be used to remediate, resulting in classes with students who are not on grade level in English. Exacerbating this fact is the disconnect between the expectations of the students' families concerning what the role of a student entails vs. the expectations of the schools and society. As Delpit pointed out, when students are not taught the culture of academic readiness, the culture of power, they will have more difficulty in reaching circles of power. Our immigrant students want to succeed academically but many resist the solutions to do so: completing homework, for example. Perhaps this is because their parents/guardians are not recipients of a culture of academics. However, this is not because of white racism in this country. In fact, I will boldly state that the level of education in Providence is different because in many respects we are educating other countries' children - and that is what makes it difficult for native born students to receive an education equal to that of their suburban counterparts- of any race.

So, I agree with the basic premise of Armstrong and Wildman; their advocacy of racial awareness will benefit people in their self-awareness of societal privilege or lack there-of. However, privilege and discrimination comes in many guises. People of all races, of both genders, of any sexual orientation - will always look at their own individual lives - and how they have been or haven't been a recipient of privilege due to numerous factors - as a benchmark.