By Aly Colon
When it comes to race, the idea of being colorblind seems appealing. Who wouldn’t want to assume they are free of racial bias?
But claiming colorblindness also appears to be an oxymoron. How can one not see skin color, and/or not be influenced in some way by what one has experienced, or seen depicted, by some form of media?
Covering colorblindness presents a challenge to clarity and complexity. So how are journalists covering the issue? Last Friday, The Seattle Times ran a front page story about it called “‘Colorblind’ Generation Struggles with Race.”
The article points out that this young “colorblind” generation may have missed overt racial reactions more common to previous generations. But it also shows how signs of bias may reveal themselves, even in the most benign of conversations. Seattle Times reporter Haley Edwards spoke to a variety of people from different races to hear their first-hand experiences observing, or dealing with, racial interactions.
But Edwards also added another dimension to the story by tapping a local University of Washington professor who studies racial bias. Edwards quotes Anthony Greenwald, who helped develop the “Implicit Association Test,” which allows people to probe “unconscious biases” when it comes to gender and race. (Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof took a similar test and wrote about it in Sunday’s New York Times.) Greenwald notes that racial biases exist at the same level among the younger generation as they do among the older generation.
The Seattle Times also packaged the story with an Associated Press piece on what Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. might be doing if he were still alive, and offered links to the implicit association test and a place to comment on whether “there will be a post-racial generation.”
Covering the “colorblind” generation is, of course, not new. USA Today did a version of this story a couple of years ago when it reported on how the “new generation doesn’t blink at interracial relationships.” And there will be more stories like it in the future.
The key for journalists is to make sure we’re clear about what people mean when we use the word “colorblind” and that we provide interviews and studies that can offer a more nuanced understanding of how it actually plays out in our everyday interactions with people of different races.
