Color-Blind Racial Ideology

Helen A. Neville

Over the past 2 decades scholars and popular authors have written about racial color-blindness as a way to characterize racial beliefs in the post-civil rights era. At its core, racial color-blindness refers to the belief that racism is a thing of the past and that race no longer plays a role in understanding people's lived experience. Conceptually, racial color-blindness has its roots in the law field and traditionally has been applied mainly to the Constitution. More recently, scholars have redefined the term to better capture the new social relations within the current racial climate. As early as 1997, the field of psychology questioned the underlying assumption that ignoring race and color was a desirous and appropriate approach to interracial interactions. In a pamphlet on color-blind racial attitudes, the American Psychological Association (APA) concluded that “research conducted for more than two decades strongly supports the view that we cannot be, Color-Blind ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.