Adia Harvey Wingfield, a professor of sociology at Washington University, writes at The Atlantic that “Color-Blindness Is Counterproductive.”
Her evidence? The opinions of other sociologists. “Many sociologists,” she notes, as though what sociologists believe settles the matter,
are extremely critical of colorblindness as an ideology. They argue that as the mechanisms that reproduce racial inequality have become more covert and obscure than they were during the era of open, legal segregation, the language of explicit racism has given way to a discourse of colorblindness. But they fear that the refusal to take public note of race actually allows people to ignore manifestations of persistent discrimination.
Let us leave for another day the questions of whether the current manifestations of inequality that trouble Wingfield and no doubt “many sociologists” are in fact the result of “persistent discrimination,” and even if they are whether rejecting colorblindness in favor of policies based on race preferences would provide effective remedies.
Instead, let’s ask another, perhaps more fundamental question: Even if colorblindness is “counter-productive,” so what? To see why I think this question is appropriate, consider the following:
• Is prohibiting the police from engaging in racial profiling counter-productive because it allows some guilty perpetrators to go unapprehended? Advocates of “Black Lives Matter” oppose the police “singling out African Americans,” as Heather Mac Donald just quoted Texas legislator state Sen. Garnet Coleman, but why is “singling out African Americans” wrong if colorblindness is counter-productive?
• Is the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures counter-productive because it allows some guilty people to escape capture and punishment?
• Is the right to free speech or the free exercise of religion counter-productive because it protects the expressions of of some views and values that are not progressive?
The presence and exercise of many rights lead to some results that no doubt “many sociologists” believe are counter-productive. Does that mean that our rights should be restricted to ones that uniformly lead to results that sociologists approve?