Color Blind

Political blogging is not really my strong suit. I know people who write great political blogs. I work with at least one such person. I remember when Arianna Huffington was on the Daily Show she said that people should blog about their public and secret passions. Politics is neither a public nor a secret passion of mine. That being said, I have a gripe with political commentators.

Many, many news show hosts have been asking their guests if now that Barack Obama is president, are we, as a country, past race. One, if you have to ask... Second, if we were past race then we would surely know it because the headline of every paper would proclaim that our society was past race. Many of the pundits talk about a color blind society and talk about the populous like we cannot entertain a more complex concept of race. I think, if anything, Barack Obama's election and the McCain-Obama race let us know that we can handle a more complex concep of race.

I do not want a color blind society.

I want a society that appreciates my color, my sex, and/or my sexuality. I have shirts that are black, white, pink, orange, yellow, green, and blue. I may prefer a black shirt one day and a green shirt another day but I never believe that just because of the color of the shirt that it will not perform the necessary functions of a shirt. I just want the same to be true for judgements about people. If you are a woman that alone says nothing about your ability to lead. If you are a man, you can be nurturing. If you are Black, you can reason calmly. If you are White, you can dance. We have centuries of examples of people of every religion, sex, sexuality, race, and ethnicity performing acts of great bravery, strategy, and love. We have examples of people of all those demographic categories perpetrating acts of great evil and stupidity.

Varied experiences make for better teams. Some people are more disruptive than others but that is a characteristic of the individual not the group. I have met knuckleheads of all kinds. The common trait is the knuckleheadedness, nothing less and nothing more. Not being color or any other kind of demographic blindness, allows one to challenge and correct his or hers incorrect thoughts or assumptions.

I love photography and love to appreciate the aesthetics of the combinations, nature (God), has created. I definitely do not want to miss a moment of beauty, particularly just for the sake of some misdirected social idea.

For the record: When talking about male or female, that is sex. Gender refers to masculine or feminine characteristics or traits.