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Why Some People Prefer To Be Racially 'Colour-Blind'

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My boyfriend told me this interesting, and somewhat sad anecdote about one of his colleagues who was trying to draw his attention to a woman who was sitting with another group. The guy kept trying to find all kinds of descriptions to let my boyfriend know which woman he was trying to identify, taking ages to do so, while skirting round the obvious fact that the woman was not only Black, but she stood out because everyone else around her was White! It seems that the guy did not want to mention her colour, as he thought it might be offensive, and he too felt self-conscious at ‘making her different’ from the others. Being White himself, my boyfriend added that he, too, would have done the same before he met me! Yet such a seemingly ‘inclusive’ approach begged more questions than it answered. Many people, predominantly White, often pretend that outward appearances do not matter. In fact, some take great pride in professing to be 'colour blind' to others. Colour is supposed to...