There are five black families that live on my street. I know because I counted them.
A couple of days ago, I was talking with one of my neighbors and she mentioned that she didn’t really get what people mean when they talk about being color blind to race.
I pointed down the street at our neighbor, who was washing his car and happens to be black. I asked her what she saw. She said, “I see Eric washing his car.” Exactly. She saw a man washing his car. That’s an example of being “color blind”.
Now, if you would have asked me right then how many black families lived on my street, I would have said there were two. And I would have absolutely believed it to be true. There’s Eric and his family, that’s one. And, in the corner house lives Eric’s sister-in-law and her husband who I often see out walking their pit bull. That’s two.
But then I started looking around and remembered that the people renting that house three doors down from mine are black. I’ve waved and said hello to them at least a dozen times. And there’s Amanda and her family (Amanda is always working in her garden) and the guy I gave my Sports Illustrated to for nearly a year is also black. That’s five.
What does color blind mean? It means that when I see my neighbors, I don’t see black people. I see people who own a dog, a guy that likes sports, a young couple who have recently moved into their new home, someone who has a green thumb.
As mundane as those facts are, they’re still more remarkable to me than the color of someone’s skin. It didn’t even occur to me that those three families are black until I forced myself to pay attention.
If I were going to describe Eric, I would call him a tall, black guy with a shaved head. Why? Because it’s an accurate description of him. Does that make me any less color blind? No, it does not. Because it’s true.
Being color blind doesn’t mean that I don’t notice black people. It’s not that I didn’t know my neighbors are black. It’s that the color of their skin is so inconsequential that I forgot it.
I don’t often tell you what to do but I’m going to today. Stop making everything about race. It’s not helping. In fact, it’s making things worse. Pay attention to who someone is instead of what they look like. You do that and things are going to quickly get better.
Because the way to heal this nation isn’t by pointing out our differences. The way to heal this nation is by reminding people that we’re all the same.
