I’m sure you’ve heard at least one person claim “I don’t see color, I just see people.” At best, the person genuinely believes that race is nothing more than a social construct and refuses to accept the long-standing sanctions on ethnic backgrounds that have been imposed on us for centuries. At worst, the person is pretending to “not see color” as an excuse to ignore blatant examples of systemic racism in schools, hospitals, and nearly every federally-funded institution in America. The fact of the matter is that race is both a fictional concept and a very real part of modern day society. We cannot adopt a “colorblind” mentality when race is still an issue that remains yet to be solved. The days of being called a racial slur on the streets are thankfully behind us (for the most part), but Jim Crow laws and centuries of white supremacist, anti-immigration values are still deeply embedded in American society. There are too many people in this country that conveniently believe that all of the wrongs of racism were made right overnight with the passing of the Civil Rights Act. Guaranteeing people of different races the same rights as Caucasians was the start of the solution, not the end of the problem.

Proponents of "colorblindness" might argue that they are really just supporting equality for all, that their beliefs are humanitarian and work towards a better future for our country. Maybe race won't matter anymore in some distant future, but now is just not the time to act like we don’t see color. The U.S. Department of Education writes that black students are suspended or expelled at a rate three times higher than their white peers, despite the fact that whites make up the overwhelming majority. Black people made up 13 percent of the population in 2010, and held only 2.7 percent of the nation’s wealth. Black people make up one million of the 2.3 million prison inmates in the U.S., they’re six times more likely than whites to get arrested and they receive 10 percent longer sentences than whites for the same crimes. People can deny the significance of race all they want, and in a sense, they’re actually right. Race shouldn’t be such an issue. But the facts are out there for anyone to see. In this country, at this time in history, it is better to be white than it is to be colored.

The raw statistics do not reflect a system that is colorblind. On paper, our laws firmly state that all races are equal and have exactly the same rights. What they don’t take into account is that not all races are on the same playing field. There’s no way that they can be when the overwhelming narrative of American history is one of white supremacy. We unscrupulously forced Native Americans from their lands, and now we are building a pipeline over their primary water supply. We may have abolished slavery 150 years ago, but we followed it up with Jim Crow laws and voter disenfranchisement. You can’t be colorblind when our country’s historical narrative is one of racism, discrimination, oppression, and ultimately hatred towards people that are not considered white.