Editing Racism (section)

=== Color blindness ===
{{main|Color blindness (race)}}

In relation to racism, color blindness is the disregard of racial characteristics in [[social interaction]], for example in the rejection of affirmative action, as a way to address the results of past patterns of discrimination. Critics of this attitude argue that by refusing to attend to racial disparities, [[racial color blindness]] in fact unconsciously perpetuates the patterns that produce racial inequality.<ref name="Ansell 2008">{{cite book |last=Ansell |first=Amy E. |editor-last=Schaefer |editor-first=Richard T. |title=Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society |date=2008 |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |isbn=978-1-4522-6586-5 |pages=320–322 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=STR1AwAAQBAJ&q=%22color+blindness%22 |chapter=Color Blindness}}</ref>

[[Eduardo Bonilla-Silva]] argues that color blind racism arises from an "abstract [[liberalism]], biologization of culture, naturalization of racial matters, and minimization of racism".<ref name="Bonilla-Silva">{{cite book |last=Bonilla-Silva |first=Eduardo |author-link=Eduardo Bonilla-Silva |title=White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era |publisher=Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. |year=2001 |pages=137–166 |isbn=978-1-58826-032-1}}</ref> Color blind practices are "subtle, [[institution]]al, and apparently nonracial"<ref name="Bonilla-Silva1">{{cite book |last=Bonilla-Silva |first=Eduardo |author-link=Eduardo Bonilla-Silva |title=Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States |year=2003 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |location=Lanham |isbn=978-0-7425-1633-5 |pages=2–29 |url=https://archive.org/details/racismwithoutrac0000boni_b6w1 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> because race is explicitly ignored in decision-making. If race is disregarded in predominantly white populations, for example, whiteness becomes the [[norm (social)|normative]] standard, whereas [[people of color]] are [[Othering|othered]], and the racism these individuals experience may be minimized or erased.<ref name="Parker">{{cite book |title=Race Is – Race Isn't: Critical Race Theory and Qualitative Studies in Education |last=Parker |first=Laurence |year=1999 |publisher=Westview Press |isbn=978-0-8133-9069-7 |page=184}}</ref><ref name="Social">{{cite book |title=Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology (Condensed Version) |publisher=Sage |year=2015 |location=Los Angeles |isbn=978-1-4522-7575-8 |first1=Jeanne H. |last1=Ballantine |author1-link=Jeanne Ballantine |first2=Keith A. |last2=Roberts |edition=3rd}}</ref> At an individual level, people with "color blind prejudice" reject racist ideology, but also reject systemic policies intended to fix [[institutional racism]].<ref name="Social" />