Coleman Hughes On His Definition Of 'Color Blindness' When It Comes to Race | The View

The first question I should ask you is to explain to people what you mean by these Arguments for a Colorblind America. What does he mean

when

he says that? Many people equate

color

blindness

with I don't see

race

or with pretending not to see

race

. I think that is a big mistake. We all see race correctly and we are all capable of having racial prejudices so we should all be aware of that possibility. My argument is not for that. my argument is that we should try we do the best we can to treat people without regard to race, both in our personal lives and in our public policies and the reason I wrote this book, thank you, the reason I wrote this book is because in the last 10 years it has become very popular in the name of anti-racism they teach a kind of philosophy to our children and in general it says that your race is fine and I think that is the wrong way to fight racism and it is That's why I wrote this book at this time.

Can? I'm sorry baby. Can I just point out that there is a reason for that? You know,

when

I went to school to get information about someone's race, they didn't teach me history, there was no black history, they didn't teach any of those things and here in America a hundred years ago, when I was a woman young, that's how people saw you, that's how they judged you, so I think ex, I don't want to say it's your youth, but I think you're right, but I think you also have to take into consideration what people have. live to understand why very specific racial things have been pointed out, like women couldn't go to colleges if you were a black person, a lot of colleges wouldn't accept you trying to level the playing field.

I think that's what a lot of people have been trying to do. Sorry, I'm going to cut you off. I think that's your experience and that's valid. You know, as a counterpoint, when I was in fifth grade, we all watched Roots together. in public school, yes, so these are different experiences. I think it's also different Generations, it's different parts of the country, right, we have very different cultures, all living together in one country, so I'm not going to deny that, but I think I see this notion of a

color

blind society similar to the idea of a peaceful society, that is, it is an ideal, it is a north star and the point is not that we will ever get there, we are not going to touch it, but we have to know when we are going forward and when we are going backwards and we are going backwards when we're doing awake kindergarten in San Francisco, you know, you didn't hear about this story, no, you know, but wait, I want to get to part of the book you actually believe that public policies that address socioeconomic differences would be better for benefit disadvantaged groups and that race-based policies often harm the very people they are trying to help.

What are some examples of policies that would be better at reducing racial disparities, so my general argument is that class socioeconomics is a better indicator of disadvantage. We all want to help disadvantage and the question is how do we identify it correctly, by default at the moment in many policy areas. is using black and Hispanic identity as an indicator of disadvantage and my argument is that you actually get a better idea of ​​who needs help by looking at socioeconomic status and income which selects people more accurately, not my question , but when you say that socioeconomics selects people better than race, when you look at socioeconomics you see the enormous disparity between white households and black households, you see the enormous disparity between white households and Hispanic households, so your argument and I have read your book twice because I wanted to give it a chance.

Your argument that race has no place in that equation is really fundamentally flawed in my opinion. Well there are two separate questions, one is whether each racial group is socioeconomically equal which I agree with. you're not, yeah, you're not and you ask, but yeah, of course, I totally agree with that. The question is how to address that in the way that really targets poverty, the best and what Martin Luther King wrote in his book Why We Can't Wait is he called it we need a Bill of Rights for the disadvantaged and he said yes, we should address racial inequality, yes, we should address the legacy of slavery, but the way to do that is on a class basis and that will disproportionately target blacks and Hispanics because they are disproportionately poor, but it will do it in a way that also help poor white people in a way that addresses poverty as something that needs to be addressed.

That part is true, but since you're a student. of Dr. King Not only am I a student of Dr. King I know his daughter Bernice well, so I'm going to answer my question, go ahead, go ahead, um, I think the premise is fundamentally flawed, you claim that color

blindness

was the goal of the Civil Rights Movement based on Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech, you know, the content of character versus skin color. Bernice Dr. King's daughter points out that four years after giving that speech, Dr. King actually said this too. a society that has done something special against black people for hundreds of years must now do something special for black people.

She also said in 1968 that it was less than a week before he was murdered. This country never fails to realize what they owe a people kept in slavery for 244 years, so instead of class, he wrote about it right before his death, he made the argument for racial equality and reparations racial, so your argument for color blindness I think is something that the right has co-opted and many in the black community, if I'm honest with you because I want you to believe that the right is using you as a pawn and that you are some kind of charlatan, he is not a republican, how did you vote? he said you're conservative, no you actually said that, the podcast you did two weeks ago, I said I was conservative, yes you did, but my question to you is how do you respond to those criticisms.

The first thing I think is very important is the quote you just pointed out about doing something special for black people, which is from the book why we can't wait. That I just mentioned that yes, a couple of paragraphs later, he explains exactly what that special something was. and it was the Bill of Rights because of the disadvantage of a broad class base. He also says it should include race, no he didn't, he says yes, it's going well, everyone can go, everyone should go read the book, why can't we wait. Don't get sidetracked by that, yeah, um, I don't think anyone co-opted me.

I have only voted twice for both Democrats, even though I am an independent I would vote for a Republican, probably not Trump. republican if they were convincing um I don't think there's any evidence that anyone co-opted me and I think that's an ad homonymous tactic that people use to not really address the important conversations that we're having here and I think it's better and it would be better for if we all stuck to the topics instead of making it about me. I want to give you the opportunity to respond to the approval re

view

. The criticism. Thank you.

There is no evidence that it was co-. chosen by anyone I have an independent podcast I work for CNN as an analyst I write for Free Press I am independent in all these endeavors and no one pays me to say what I say I say it CU I Feel it Alysa, you have the question, uh Coleman, thanks for being here, So in the last decade it seems that racial tensions have worsened. Do you see it that way and what do you attribute it to? I mean, if you look at all. the data finds that race relations were improving until about 2013, that year the majority of black Hispanics and white Americans said race relations were good and then you see it plummet and in 2013 you know people like to blame Republicans like to blame.

Obama was not his fault. Democrats like to blame Trump, it was really just technology - we all have social media and smartphones and we had videos promoted on the algorithm that were not representative and it created the impression that racism was increasing when in reality it had been declining for decades and allowed foreign actors to get involved in technology uh yeah Russia is absolutely trying to get a medal but I think I don't think we can blame foreign actors this is an internal problem okay I have a question because you write that in the anti-racism movement there are a couple of people I don't even know who know who they are, maybe DeAngelo Robin D'Angelo or Ibram Kendi, for example, okay, well, you say that's just a form of another form of racism and you even say it has a lot in common with white supremacy, how can you compare those two things?

Anti-racism. You're comparing it to white supremacy because they both see your race as an extremely important part of who you are. they are so white supremacists they obviously say we all know what they say okay uh neoracists like Rob D'Angelo they say to be white is to be ignorant for example well this is a racial stereotype and I want to call out SP for their name and say This is not the anti-racism style we have to teach our children, we should teach them that your race is not an important characteristic of you, who you are, who you are, it is your character, your value and your skin color does not. they say. anything about that is actually misrepresenting what Robin D'Angelo's position is in his book so here we go here we go thank you Coleman Hughes for coming because this is a showcase of many different opinions and we are multigenerational and we all have an opinion to the end of racial politics The arguments for a colorblind America are now available and we are giving them to everyone so they can read it and judge for themselves how they feel about what he has said.