Anti-Racism is not unifying. Will Colourblindness Help?
In The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, Coleman Hughes calls for an end to racial identity as a primary marker for people, because it has not produced a more flourishing and equal society. His argument is “that colorblindness is the wisest principle by which to govern our fragile experiment in multiethnic democracy” [1].
I was born in 1970, and grew up one hour from the Windsor-Detroit border. It was the major city we frequented for concerts, arts, sporting events, and conferences. Because of the race riots in the 1967, I lived with the storied impact of that era, what History.com refers to as full of “urban blight, poverty and racial discord” [2]. On the heals of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the struggle against racial disparity was met with deep-seated anger and violence in those riots.
This is not our first encounter in this program with racism, or Critical Race Theory (B. Fuller, 2021, Y. Mount, 2023). So this book reinforced things I know from lived experience and from other authors. Let me unpack a couple of already-known ideas, and some new ones.
Race, racial discrimination, and racial bias have all been studied and applied throughout the 20th C, particularly in the United States, where race has been used to justify slavery, to fuel segregation, and to exclude Black Americans from certain inalienable rights and privileges within USA society, and racism is therefore seen by anti-racists as the root of every evil. Coleman Hughes simply suggests that that argument is overplayed.
The very concept of race, he argues, is “neither completely natural nor completely socially constructed. It’s a social construct inspired by a natural phenomenon” [3] He adds that those he calls Neoracists (anti-racists who are in fact perpetuating racism) are the ones who have created a red herring with race that prevents dealing with the real issues. He explains, “There’s no version of “white people are X” or “black people are Y” that provides an accurate rule of thumb for addressing issues like poverty or historical injustice”[4].
His thesis uses a word that I have often heard of as being harmful – colourblindness. I have avoided using it, because I have not intended to diminish the pain and torment from slavery, systemic injustice experienced by Jim Crow laws, and the accompanying higher numbers of incarcerations and socio-economic disparities that are experienced across the Black American community.
I’ve never heard the kind of colourblindness that Hughes is presenting. “To advocate colorblindness is to endorse an ethical principle: The colorblind principle: we should treat people without regard to race, both in our public policy and in our private lives” [5]. In framing colourblindness this way, Hughes is calling for a robust acknowledgement that more harm has been done by overextending the racism card. It is reminiscent of one of Yasha Mounk’s recommendations in The Identity Trap is “claim the high ground, stay clear of social pressures that rely on slogans and lip service” [6].
I long to stay clear of virtue signally, but to push for an equality that I receive from my faith. I currently maintain my fundamental view that the great equalizer among everyone in the human race is the Imago Dei. I never meet someone who is not made in the Image of God (Genesis 1:26). Therefore, there is no room for bigotry or hatred against anyone. Hughes’ railing against Neoracism is in line with this: “Neoracism is the latest form of bigotry that American society has failed to stigmatize sufficiently. It’s the latest form of socially approved bigotry” [7].
The statement which most resonated with me is
Any act of injustice adds to the sum total of injustice in the world. Anti-black discrimination in the past added to the sum total of injustice in the world, and anti-white discrimination in the present adds yet more injustice to the world—without canceling the effects of past discrimination against blacks [8].
I close with this reflection. When Brett Fuller came and shared with us in Washington Advance in September, 2024, he wisely spoke of the difficulty and resolve in walking the road of an inter-racial church. He shared as if nobody was perfectly happy with him. I believe God was well pleased though. I still remember the gift he offered to me as a White man in response to racial discrimination and pain in his book, Dreaming In Black and White. I could offer three phrases that help:
I feel your pain.
I’m sorry.
How can I help? [9]
That’s what I will do.
___________
[1] Coleman Hughes, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, (Penguin Publishing Group, 2024. Kindle edition), xvii.
[2] “1967 Detroit Riots ‑ Causes, Facts & Police.” 2021. March 23, 2021. https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1967-detroit-riots.
[3] The End of Race, 3.
[4] Along with this, he offers, “One in five black Americans is either a first-or second-generation immigrant, which means they have no ancestral connection to American slavery”. To Hughes, it’s always more complicated that simply implicating racism. The End of Race, 11.
[5] The End of Race, 19.
[6] Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, (Penguin Publishing Group, 2023. Kindle edition), 5.
[7] The End of Race, 44.
[8] The End of Race, 122.
[9] Brett Fuller, Dreaming In Black And White, (S.L.: Bookbaby, 2021), 139, 144.
About the Author
Joel Zantingh
Joel Zantingh is a catalyst for peacemaking and intercultural teams, speaker, theologian and consultant. He is the Canadian Coordinator of the World Evangelical Alliance's Peace and Reconciliation Network, and the Director of Engagement with Lausanne Movement Canada. He has served in local and national roles within the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada, and led their global mission arm. He has experience teaching in formal and informal settings with Bible college students and leaders from various cultures and generations. Joel and Christie are parents to adult children, as well as grandparents. They reside in Guelph, Ont., situated on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and home to many past, present and future First Nations peoples, including the Anishinnabe and Hodinöhsö:ni'.18 responses to “Anti-Racism is not unifying. Will Colourblindness Help?”
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Joel, I, too, quote Fuller’s three phrases. I have found them to be very helpful in the ever-present racial divides in Mauritania. What have been peoples’ responses to you as you have asked, “How can I help?”
Kari, Thanks for your question. When I ask this, it is mostly met with gratitude, especially by people who know me. They know it comes from a deep spiritual conviction, rather than any kind of virtue signalling.
What I can say is that it doesn’t lead to a lot of quick suggestions, but more towards a shared lament.
Betty Pries, a Conflict Transformation specialist in Canada, relayed in a phone call (Nov 11, 2024), that “When leaders speak hatred, it exposes what underlies prejudice, and even creates it, and supports “the comfort that comes from othering”. But our response, from God’s heart, she relayed, is “a duty to lament”.
Hi Joel, thanks for your post. I agree that we need to acknowledge the pain that has been caused by racism. If this can be done, do you think that Hughes’ remarks about the harm neoracism has done is also legitimate or do you see it differently? I’m just wondering if we can hold both side-by-side and acknowledge the harm that has been done, but also take warning that Hughes gives us on neoracism.
Yeah, Christy. You’re on to something really important. It is the counterpoint Hughes is making against Neoracism, not anti-racism. But I can hear 2 critiques from those who take a strong anti-racist stance.
1. We cannot simply go back to M.L.King and get to a better future place. I watched an interview with Hughes on The View, where one of them quoted M.L.King’s latter work in which he advocated for more than colourblindness.
2. In calling out the racism that Neoracists are perpetuating, critics like Hughes may give license to some who would dismiss anything from Critical Race Theory. There is a great deal of dismissiveness I still see in the Canadian church, because CRT is now associated with a Hard-Left agenda.
Hi Joel, Your post is thoughtful. I liked that you pulled in Mounk’s comment about being careful about social pressures that rely on lip service and slogans. In your work are you able to do that and if so, do you stay clear or engage in a way that opens a door for understanding?
Shared response to Diane, Jennifer, Graham, Julie, Chad and Daren below.
Hi Joel,
I had to look up the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. Detroit took a hit when globalism was introduced to the U.S., but it was actually the birthplace of food banks in the early 1980s.
In your blog, you discuss Coleman Hughes’ call for colorblindness as a principle to address racial issues.
In your ministry, how do you reconcile this ideal with the real, lived experiences of racial minorities who may still face systemic inequality and discrimination in everyday life?
Shared response to Diane, Jennifer, Graham, Julie, Chad and Daren below
Thanks for your thoughtful blog, Joel. I like your theological thinking about the image of God being the great equalizer in humanity. It resonates with some of what I have been contemplating as well.
Our shared Canadian history is obviously different from that of those who live in the US. What do you perceive are the unique Canadian racial tensions? How can the Canadian church address these?
Shared response to Diane, Jennifer, Graham, Julie, Chad and Daren below.
Hi Joel,
What responses have you encountered when using the three phrases from Fuller? The subject of “race” and prejudice and all of it is so much bigger than black and white in America. Is this a helpful construct for a global conversation?
Shared response to Diane, Jennifer, Graham, Julie, Chad and Daren below.
Joel, you reference your historic aversion to the use of the term “colorblind” but find Hughes’ definition and approach helpful. Given the historical and ongoing realities of racial disparities, how do you respond to those who fear that embracing colorblindness might overlook or minimize the real injustices that still persist?
I wrote a bit about this in response to Christy’s post. I would direct you there.
Joel, this is a thoughtful and insightful post. As you reflect on colorblindness, how has this intersected with the work in your context? Does this principle exist, and how do you approach peace and reconciliation from a racial perspective?
Shared response to Diane, Jennifer, Graham, Julie, Chad and Daren below.
Diane, Jennifer, Graham, Julie, Chad and Daren,
One of them concepts related to my NPO expands this racial-reconciliation to a broader picture, beyond USA-specific racial tension or history.
I’m going to recommend Nick Haslam’s article, which has been instrumental in framing the difference between approaches to racial and/or cultural differences, including Assimilation, Multiculturalism, Colour-blindness, and the theory I am leaning on for my NPO, polyculturalism.
Polyculturalism is the view that cultures influence one another over time, and that cultural contact and borrowing are the norm.
Haslam writes,
The concept was put forward by historians Robin Kelley and Vijay Prashad, who charted the often hidden cross-cultural interactions that have forged contemporary cultural traditions. Kelley and Prashad argued that cultures have been forever fusing, exchanging ideas and practices (2017).
For me, the acknowledgement of many cultures, including indigenous cultures that were suppressed, crushed, and made illegal in North America, still enforces what Hughes is asking for – to see people as equally valuable beyond their culture or race, but without asking for a removal of racial recognition entirely. Instead, what if we looked to assess what good can come from each others’ cultures, not to dismiss them, but to see them as a gift to enhance our world, in pursuit of “unity in diversity”, and in hope of God forming “one people from every tribe, language nation and tongue” (Rev 7:9).
I wonder to what degree “racism” feeds off the fruit of past slavery and the narrative of “Assimiliation” against systemic racism which did not allow Black Americans to be welcomed as equals. Could polyculturalism help us? Is this why Black Americans are reconnecting with country or origin roots, to claim cultural values and distinctives?
https://theconversation.com/cultures-fuse-and-connect-so-we-should-embrace-polyculturalism-78876
Hi Joel,
I have heard the term “interculturalism” which I believe is similar and it makes the most sense to me. Thanks for sharing.