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Color Blindness, Whiteness, and Backlash
[edit]From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Color Blindness is a more contemporary form of ahistorical racism that is epitomized by the phrase, "I do not see color." In essence the term refers to one who places racism squarely in the past.
Whiteness is a vague racial-socio-economic category that has shifted definition over time. In the early-mid 20th century the category of whiteness was expanded to include people of Irish, Slavic, Greek, Jewish, and various other backgrounds which had previously been excluded from the category. This shift has been attributed to individuals within these categories attaining middle class status.[1] This gives whiteness an economic aspect in addition to the ethnic and racial aspects.
Backlash is a term used to describe the phenomenon of resistance to, or counter-movements against, movements of equality. Backlash can come in many different forms such as overt, bigoted, and violent resistance to progress, such as the K.K.K, or institutional regression such as mass incarceration as backlash to the movement towards racial equality in the 1960s. Color blindness is deployed as backlash to modern racial equality moments by claiming that race and racism no longer have a role in modern socio-economic inequality.
Bibliography
[edit]- ^ Brodkin, Karen. 1999. “How Jews Became White Folks.” In How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 25-52.