I’m just trying to imagine how this questioning goes. I mean do you ask the guy after the interview “Are you black? Oh, that’s interesting. I’ll check this box here then.” But then what is black exactly? I mean what % counts? 1/2? 1/4? 1/16?
And why does it matter?
It seems to me it only matters if someone’s trying to figure out what “they” think. Which obviously means that “they’re” a group. Which obviously means there’s a common thought being pulled from that group. Which obviously means someone somewhere will be tempted to say: “Black people think this way. Black people vote this way. Black people are this way.”
If that’s not grouping by race and labeling by race I’m not sure what is. I mean what’s the difference between being racist (judging based on race) and playing with racial statistics (predicting based on race)?
I think you need to do some research into why “color blindness” is considered problematic.
All I know is that I don’t spend any time wondering what guys of Irish decent like me think about something compared to guys of French decent. Seems like the reason we’re doing it with black people is because we can see the color of their skin.
I mean if we’re really interested in finding out how “they” think? We’d be scanning for what kind of tribe they came from originally. Instead of grouping them into a “group” that sort of looks the “same” to us.
I don’t know.
As long as systemic racism exists we can’t pretend that all the races are “equal” and therefore are treated exactly the same by everyone. What I mean is that, one’s situation is often very much influenced by their race, and we can’t ignore that. There are current and historic factors at play here and to neglect them out of a misguided (though well intentioned) yearning for “color blindness” is ignorant, at best.
Trust me when I say this topic has been well covered by many others (who are much smarter than me and have more relevant experience). Feel free to google.