Why Millennials Can’t Afford to Be Colorblind

[KamaAina]

http://time.com/3944697/millennials-race-confederate-flag/

Because we have been taught to believe in happy endings, it’s easy for young people to view racism as a problem that will inevitably be solved, or perhaps already has been. In the history books, racial progress for African Americans occurs on a comforting positive slope, evolving from slavery to Jim Crow discrimination to the post-Civil Rights era of equality under the law. And in our own lifetimes, we reached a new racial milestone when Barack Obama became the United States’ first black president, thanks in a large part to a groundswell of support from young voters of all races who were optimistic about the future.

What the history books miss is that change rarely happens in orderly progression. There are fits and starts. There are retrenchments. There are debates. Change occurs not only on the macro level, in soaring proclamations by presidents and civic leaders, but also on the micro level, through a shift in the thinking of everyday people. And big racial progress is always met with a measure of resistance–some of it passive, some of it active, some of it horrifically violent. That is what we are experiencing right now in America. That is what happened in Charleston, S.C. last month. And it isn’t going to stop just because an older generation passes away....

Millennials claim to be racially progressive but are often ill-equipped to have frank discussions about race. In a 2014 survey by MTV, 91% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 said they believed in racial equality, and 72% said their generation believes more in equality than older Americans. Many of these young people see “colorblindness” as valuable measure of racial progress, with 68% saying that focusing on race “prevents society from becoming colorblind.” But only 37% of respondents were raised in households that talked about race, and just 20% of those surveyed said they felt comfortable talking about biases against specific groups.

This is the crux of the problem. Many young people take “not seeing race” as badge of honor that proves their progressivism and absolves them from engaging in discussions on the topic. Colorblindness allows you to escape the racial rancor that is playing out in our streets, on social media and now even in our churches.

So Stephen T. Colbert, DFA is a millennial? "I don't see color. People tell me I'm white, and I believe them."

[Nye Bevan]

1. Yeah, when my 10-year old daughter is playing with her racially diverse friends,

and none of them seem to give the slightest shit about anyone else's color, I guess I need to have an earnest conversation with her about how she's doing it all wrong.

[OrwellwasRight]

2. As a member of the forgotten generation,

(you know, Gen X, the ignored generaton stuck between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials -- both of who suck up all the bandwidth)

here's my two cents:

My generation was lucky in many ways. As a child who started school in 1972, we had some of the first interracial Dick and Jane reading books. Our music class featured Where Have All the Flowers Gone and This Land Is Your Land, not just America the Beautiful. The entire school performed an African Dance to the strains of Miriam Makeba's Pata Pata at open house night in first grade. Race was right there, in your face, and inclusive, and we were too close to the formative events of the civil rights movement for it to be any other way. No one could pretend to be "color blind," which some wear now as a badge of honor, but in fact is not. Being "color blind," also blinds you to injustice, insensitivity, and history. Clarence Effing Thomas purports to be "color blind."

The millennials are not going to save us from ourselves and people need to stop pretending they are the generation that is going to solve all of our remaining social justice problems. Not with attitudes like this they aren't.

That is all. Thank you.