Glenn Loury has opined on Affirmative Action in an editorial series in the NYT. The Supreme Court hears the Michigan case next Tuesday. He makes a very common sense point which should be obvious; colorblindness is not. Rather, colorblindness is a kind of self-congratulatory denial.
Despite its superficial appeal, colorblindness is a false ideal. No understanding of the American social order that ignores racial categories is possible, because these socially constructed categories are embedded in the consciousness of all of us. Because we use race to articulate our self-understandings, we must sometimes be mindful of race as we conduct our public affairs.
If indeed one suggests that it is morally superior to be colorblind, it begs the question, why be colorblind? The inevitable answer is that seeing race is, in itself, considered a poisoned skill. But is it? If one recognizes a difference, is that recognition automatically prejudicial? I have often asked the question of whitefolks who considered themselves to be colorblind, whether or not they also consider themselves white. Almost all of them did. How does one reconcile the two facts? How can you be a color and know that has meaning to yourself and yet deny that others might attach meaning as well? One question I neglected to ask, but points towards the same dilemma is whether or not whitefolks consider their colorblindness to be exactly the same of that of others.
Loury is wise to put such existential questions at the heart of the debate on Affirmative Action.
Taking race into account, in university admissions or in other aspects of life, does not require abandoning a commitment to individualism. One can hold that race is irrelevant to a person's moral worth — that people, not groups, are the bearers of rights — and still affirm that to deal effectively with individuals, we must consider the categories of thought in which they understand themselves.