For those that don’t like the term colorblind:
If I were the boss of a company looking to hire an accountant, what would be wrong in being colorblind in my choice?
Nothing, it would be great. But how exactly are you going to achieve that?
By not being racist? Deciding to analyze them based upon their merit?
And this is verified how?
what do you mean?
I said I’d bail out of this discussion, but I’ll reiterate my point just this one time…
The whole “I’m color-blind” thing is supposedly an answer to charges of racism. But it’s circular logic. Being “not racist” and being “color-blind” is the same thing. I can say that I’m not racist, or I can say that I’m color-blind, but why should someone who has been oppressed believe me – just because I say so? I might not even know, because a lot of such things are subconscious. Do you think the Google guy who wrote the manifesto is color-blind? I bet he thinks he is.
Also, if I’m the CEO of some giant company, I may have to delegate the hiring process to senior employees below me. Even if I honestly want the hiring process to be “color-blind”, how am I going to guarantee that happens? How can I verify that my employees acted in a color-blind way? By accepting that it’s true if they say so? There generally need to be processes in place to ensure it is systemic and verifiable. Otherwise nobody would have any reason to believe it - it’s just words. It also wouldn’t hold up in court.
Being color-blind is an awesome goal, but again, just claiming that it’s so, isn’t compelling at all.