President Donald Trump championed a commonly-held racial ideology during his inaugural address on Monday. One expert weighs in on the controversial approach on race and race relations that’s been shown to perpetuate racism — not stop it.
During his overtly divisiveand combative inaugural speech, Trump broached the topic of race by saying, “We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
“This week I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” he said beforehand.
Trump’s push for racial “color blindness” refers to the idea that a person’s race should be ignored and completely overlooked, and that racial groups shouldn’t influence how people are treated in society. Furthermore, his mention of supporting a “merit-based” society appeared to be a dog whistle to his supporters and other conservatives who have increasingly embarked on a crusade against affirmative action and DEI practices in recent years. Conservatives have weaponized the term DEI — which refers to practices that value diversity, equity and inclusion — to suggest that people representing marginalized groups don’t actually earn their achievements.
LaGarrett King, professor of social studies education in the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, previously told HuffPost that he believes DEI criticisms are, overall, “dishonest” since “the United States labor history has never practiced pure meritocracy.” He said that the labor system, which has historically left out qualified people of color and other marginalized groups, has largely been “predicated on your personal connections and who you know.”
And the idea of racial color blindness has been widely criticized for years. Critics of the approach argue that it falsely suggests that racism, racial disparities and a history of racial discrimination in the U.S. ― including in areas such as health, housing, economics, education and the labor market ― no longer exist.
Erica Foldy, associate professor of Public and Nonprofit Management at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, said that racial color blindness is “wrong for many reasons.”
“Most importantly, not seeing race makes it impossible to see racism — we can’t see how people from different racial groups are treated differently,” she told HuffPost. “As used by Trump and his allies, color blindness is a cover for white supremacy.”
Foldy, who is the co-author of the book, “The Color Bind: Talking (and Not Talking) About Race at Work,” also took issue with Trump’s call for a “merit-based” society. She said that without DEI programs, “what we have is affirmative action for white people.”
“It is DEI programs that at least bring us closer to a level playing field,” she said, later adding that Trump’s “merit-based” remark during his speech was “definitely a dog whistle in favor of protecting the interests of white people.”
Read on to hear more on why Foldy says a racial color blind approach can be detrimental in our society, and some other examples she shares of ways organizations can begin to pursue racial equity at the workplace.
Having a colorblind approach to race has repercussions.
Foldy said that practicing racial color blindness “keeps the status quo in place.”
“And the status quo is centuries of structural advantages for white people, and explicit and implicit biases against people of color,” she said. “While DEI programs have not brought full equality by any means, dismantling them will take us backwards.”
She added, “It will make the leadership of our workplaces more white and make it even harder for people of color to be treated fairly at work.”
There are other effective ways to pursue racial equity — and it’s impossible and can even be insulting to disregard a person’s race.
“We should not seek to be colorblind,” Foldy said. “First, it is literally impossible to not see color. It’s a meaningless phrase.”
Foldy also pointed out that many people believe their racial identity is “crucial to who they are.”
“They are insulted by the idea that their race should not be seen,” she said.
Jamie Abaied, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Vermont, previously pointed out in an interview with HuffPost: “There’s a subtle distinction between saying ‘race doesn’t matter’ and ‘race shouldn’t matter.’”
Foldy explained that acknowledging race allows us to see the “structural advantages for white people.”
And for companies and organizations aiming to actually achieve racial equity, Foldy recommends that they first distinguish and identify racial equity — and not just racial diversity — as an organizational goal.
She said that tracking representation, hiring practices, promotions and salaries by racial groups are all ways to help identify inequities.
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“Make changes in organizational policies and organizational culture to address these inequities, and help people of all backgrounds feel they are valued and included,” she said.