'Colorblind' pursuit of racial equality shown not to work as well as values-diversity

Diversity as a value, enhanced by conversation, differs from 'colorblind' style

Carol Forsloff -- We need to stop talking about race.  After all slavery was a long time ago, and most people who believed that way are dead.  Besides people talk about it too much. I don't have that problem myself."

This is the response Caucasian people often use when there is a highlighted racial dispute, such as the controversy surrounding Michael Brown and other incidents in the news referencing police officers shooting unarmed black men.

But research several years ago established that de-emphasizing racial differences does not lead to equality, tolerance and inclusion.

Over the years "Colorblindness" emerged as central strategy for managing racial diversity in schools, business, politics, and the law.  This meant not referring to one's race, or even talking about racial issues, was somehow going to help dissipate, or even virtually eliminate, racial bias.  Research observes that this strategy does not really confront the problem of discrimination.

The Kellogg School of Management researchers found that promoting colorblindness can

lead people to turn a blind eye to even overt examples of racial discrimination and hamper the prospect for intervention.  Their research was conducted using elementary school students and was published in Psychological Science in 2010.

This is what the researchers said with reference to the use of colorblindness as a mechanism for reducing discrimination: "In many ways, the logic behind colorblindness is understandable, that downplaying racial distinctions should limit the potential for bias. We

see this ideology prominently displayed in many social settings, from the strategies people use to avoid discussion of race in interracial interactions to broader efforts at education reform in which administrators are challenged with managing diversity among school
districts and within classrooms.  However, our research suggests that exposure to  colorblindness can actually reduce individuals' sensitivity to meaningful racial differences. And as a result, when discrimination does occur, individuals with a colorblind mindset often fail to see it as such," he added.

A values-based approach to discrimination and its issues was shown to work better than a colorblind approach. This is when values are placed on acts that discriminate where students see a negative consequence when this attitude is used in a manner to hurt others.

The researchers concluded from their study the need to explore the effectiveness of values-diversity rather than color-blindness as a way to promote egalitarianism

The implementation of this, however, seems not to be incorporated in how the media presents news of incidents like that of Michael Brown, who as an unarmed, African American young adult was shot by a white police officer in an altercation between the two that ignited a storm of controversy---and even confrontation---when it was reported.

Perhaps the media might examine the research and incorporate the values issue in reports in order to help defuse the anger, and lack of agreement between the races, when black-white disputes occur and most especially when they turn to rioting and violence.