J. Pharoah Doss:  The tyranny of the threatened

COLEMAN HUGHES Monnica T. Williams, a University of Ottawa professor, published an article in Psychology Today titled Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism in 2012. Williams argued that colorblindness tries to put into practice MLK’s famous dictum that we should judge individuals by their character rather than their skin color. This sounds good, but colorblindness is not sufficient to heal racial wounds. Colorblindness allows White people to disregard racism. It also ignores people of color’s negative experiences, rejects their racial heritage, and invalidates their individuality by refusing to see their color. In 2014, Mellody Hobson, an investment specialist, gave a TED Talk titled Colorblind or Color Brave. (TED Talks are brief lectures on a variety of topics.) According to Hobson, Americans need to have a serious discourse about racial inequality. To do so, Americans can’t be colorblind; they have to be color brave. The problem here is that Williams and Hobson condemned a literal version of colorblindness, which supporters of the true “colorblind principle” have never advocated. The “colorblind principle” was first articulated by Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan in his 1896 dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, which legalized racial segregation. Harlan contended that the United States...