I was never a big fan of “color blind” when applied to “race” as a concept. But then I admit up front to having a lot of suspicion of, and bias against, those ethnicities that aspire to teach us about their various “races” (is this a sporting event?).
I accept the kind of “blindness” (we call it) that makes what most would see as two colors seem the same. But then someone had the idea to extend this ophthalmological usage into the realm of eying skin color, making it a be virtue to have a kind of blindness to color, versus an illness or disability.
My views are more statistical: it’s easy to picture a world wherein skin color really is a reliable guide to ethnicity and who knows what else, maybe extreme correlation in other attributes. After centuries of eugenic breeding, we probably could create the racial regime we (faux “we” as in “not me”) wish we had. Speculative fiction has shown us some of the ramifications.
We’re good at creating mono-cultures. Sucking all the imagination out of something is one of our specialties. We could have a world wherein everyone was a card-carrying white, brown, black, yellow or red (pure races) with recognized admixtures as “mixed race” impure. If you’re into racism, that probably sounds like heaven.
However as more migrants wander the world, growing to adulthood as itinerants, they learn that skin color in itself is not a reliable guide to much of anything, until maybe one starts to localize, in which case this white guy standing next to me in the supermarket probably is carrying, they all do in this town, people of any color.
Like duh if she’s wearing a uniform, the kind designed to advertise one’s state supported right to exercise violence against others (talking about “police” but exactly what that means varies widely).
I’m just saying as a matter of self interest and self survival, don’t leap to conclusions based on a facile, unconscious manner, regarding other attributes of a person going on too few clues. And how many clues are too few is what statistics is all about as a subject.
How small and efficient a data set might I rely on, to predict the future?
That’s like asking what dashboard of what instruments. You need a temperature gauge (let’s say) and a sense of altitude (aloofness?). What instrument panel would you dare fly by?
I’m saying “skin color” as a dashboard instrument likely dates your dashboard i.e. I can assume more about you if you jump to more conclusions than you should about me, just because I act and look “white” in some sense (including skin color).
The clueless hick in some movie, most benignly a harmless clown, will behave in a stupid manner towards someone he incorrectly and absurdly concludes he should diss. The crowd roars with laughter.
My ethnicity may not be readily apparent even to me. In novels and movies, those of a certain type, raised by those of another type, are finally reunited with others of their own kind. These make good animal stories sometimes. The chosen all converge, having been seen as strange in their respective villages.
I’d like people to be pleased with their skin color and looks more generally, as I tend to benefit to the extent the planetary population experiences a satisfying enough level of happiness. My living standards drop to the extent everyone around me is miserable, as I’ll feel miserable too in that case.
I’m all for others having happiness, starting with being OK with themselves. But all that is easier said than done as people may have unrealizable ideals for themselves and thereby experience much frustration if there’s no clear progress happening towards that end. Sometimes who you want to play is not how you’re cast. Many could characterize their situations in these terms, whereas a few claim to be living their dreams.
In such a happy world, getting a read on your skin color in RGB terms (it would vary around your body) would not seem surreal or creepy as you would not be thinking in paranoid terms, any more than when you color match a paint to the color of your house.
You have the eye of an oil painter with a canvas, brushes and pallet. With such any eye, you’d hardly wish a form of blindness upon yourself. You’d wish for the contrary. Skins are beautiful, eyes too. That’s what I mean when I say I’m not into color blindness.
To be fair, I could translate the so-called virtue of color-blindness into terms I’d more agree with. We want to be able to tune out the irrelevant given finite bandwidth to what’s relevant. We all want the sense to sense what’s important and that includes schooling our senses to overlook, marginalize or otherwise deprioritize what’s not germane.
Sometimes metaphors, like mattresses, need to be turned over and lied on their other side. To overturn and air out is not an implicit criticism of those who went before and flipped them from where they were. Every generation begets its flips or tries to. Some ethnicities pretty much specialize in flipping (or “revectoring” as I call it).
