Angry: To Be Seen

Even when you don't see color, you still see race

Things you should stop saying: 

"I don't see you as black"

"I don't care if you are black, white, red, green or purple, I'm going to treat you the same/I love everyone the same"

"I don't see color."

"Aren't we all just one human family? There's just one race--the human race."

Hold on a minute. In your last post, didn't you just say race is societal and cultural construct?  Haven't you opined about the freedom of just being a person while living abroad as opposed to being defined by your race? Aren't all of the statements above just expressions of that very same sentiment.

I get that it can be confusing to say one wants to be judged as a human being and not defined by their race and then object to statements like the ones above.  The key to reconciling that seeming contradiction is by understanding a couple of key things.  

Race is real. Yes, race is a social construct but that doesn't mean it's not real. There are things that occur in nature and there are things that are man-made, but both man-made things like cell phones and cars and race as well as naturally occurring things like trees and elephants and skin tones are real. When you act as if race doesn't exist... well, that's kind of like crossing a highway without looking because cars are "just man-made constructs." It reminds me of one the nastiest responses I got to the first post in this series.  The offended person declared that he just refuses to accept racism, as if in so doing he could make it go away.  My post angered him because it raised an issue that he was determined to believe did not exist.   Race is vitally important to acknowledge because it still determines so much about what the experiences of different people will be like.  

When you say you don't see color, you're lying:  There are no green or purple people.  The no-nonsense race educator Jane Elliot lays it out in this old Oprah Winfrey episode far better than I could.  This statement reduces race to skin color, which as has already been pointed out is not entirely how people view race. It creates a false reality and then dismisses that reality. Pretending we don't see color (and that's what it is--pretending; the same people who said I don't see you as black would sure as hell not let me date their daughter.) allows us to also to turn a blind eye to the injustices meted out on the basis of race. 

These statements are anti-black. They imply that there's something wrong with being black. You disagree? How does the phrase "I don't see you as black" come up in the first place?  Usually it's in the context of something negative about black people.  People would say "I don't see you as black" to reassure me that whatever criticism was being launched at black people in the aggregate didn't apply to me. "We don't you mean you,"  friends would say. "You're not really black anyway, just really tan." The result of this "compliment"  for me was deeper self-hatred and shame for my blackness. As if being black would just be the worst thing ever.

These statements are often used to silence. Here's an example I shared with a friend on Facebook Messenger.  She'd asked me what was wrong with just seeing everyone as part of one human family. Here's what I said:  Think about it this way: Let's say you have a #metoo story and you're telling me about it.  And I say something along the lines of: "Ugh that is so awful. And so upsetting. I wish you wouldn't talk about it. I mean I don't even think of you as a woman. I just think of you as a person. Honestly, I wish we could all just forget about gender and just appreciate each other as humans, ya' know?"  That wouldn't be cool, right?  It would be a way of shutting you down, preventing you from talking about things that make me as a male feel uncomfortable or challenged.  I would imagine women want to be treated as equal, with respect, and to be free of harassment without their identity as women being erased.  It's similar when it comes to race.  Dr. King didn't say "I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be recognized by the color of their skin."  He said he didn't want them to be judged based on the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I want to be seen. I do not want to be judged based on what you see.