Assignment Task: The Impact of Color-Blind Racism
Prior to beginning work on this assignment
- Read Chapter 3: Individual Level Responses to Difference in Diversity, Cultural Humility, and the Helping Professions: Building Bridges Across Difference
- Read the article Why Saying "I Don't See Race At All" Just Makes Racism Worse.
- Watch the video Why 'Color-Blindness' Is Not the Right Approach to Race.
The Impact of Color-Blind Racism assignment is based on the ways that race and ethnicity may be ignored and invalidates the experiences of people of color and subcultures that are different from the dominant group. Color-blind racism has become more prevalent in the United States as a strategy for racial denial and for addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion, which may seem to reduce the need for self-reflection and trainings that address implicit bias in human service professions.
In your paper, address the following:
1. Define color-blind racism, micro invalidation, microaggressions that include current media examples, and the cultures that utilize these concepts.
2. Describe three ways that micro affirmations, empathy, altruism, and compassion were used by someone within the human service professions to reduce cultural bias and color-blind racism.
3. Identify the impact of color-blind racism in the media that can make you and people of color feel uncomfortable.
4. Discuss the ways that color-blind racism can be perceived as racial denial.
5. Identify three subcultures that were impacted by lifelong color-blind racism.
6. Define solutions that can help communities reduce the negative impact of color-blind racism in the human service professions.