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Showing posts from January, 2018

The Myth of Colorblindness

Recently I read a quote by a popular actor that troubled me. His words:  "The best way to stop racism today is to stop talking about it."  Interesting thought. Should we end poverty by not talking about it? Should we close the achievement gap by avoiding the topic? We could begin to change so much of what is wrong in our nation if we engaged in honest and courageous conversations about our biases, beliefs, and misconceptions. One of those misconceptions is the myth of colorblindness .  Colorblindness is the belief that we don't see color or race, that we see people and that we are all the same. These beliefs are widely held by wonderful and well intentioned people, including educators and school leaders. These are idealistic beliefs and there are a number of issues with this ideology: We are beautifully diverse. Colorblindness negates our diversity, race and culture We all see color and we all have biases. When we identify as colorblind, we are suppressin