Colorblindness, not the ophthalmological condition but the notion of aspiring to treat people as individuals, without regard to their race, has taken a beating these past few years. Prominent left-wing thinkers such as Ibram X. Kendi, and “anti-racist” training sessions based on their work, have painted this ideal as nothing more than a way of ignoring or hiding racism. “The only remedy to past discrimination,” Kendi famously insisted, “is present discrimination.”
Coleman Hughes, a young writer and podcast host, has stepped up to defend race neutrality in The End of Race Politics. His point is not that race is irrelevant in modern America but that we should strive to make it so — and that this is best achieved by making race less salient rather than obsessing over it.
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Perhaps it’s contrary to the spirit of the book to begin with the fact that Hughes is black and Hispanic, but his background growing up mixed-race in Montclair, New Jersey, sets the scene for his arguments. One of his formative experiences was a series of microaggressions: In sixth grade, he switched from a public school to a ritzy private one, and his new peers found his afro to be quite the novelty. “What began as an understandable curiosity about my hairstyle,” Hughes wrote, “grew into a ubiquitous and apparently irresistible urge to touch it.” He ended up cutting it off.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Washington Examiner
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Robert VerBruggen is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
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