Shades of Lipstick & Other Colors

“Colorblindness denies that race makes a difference in people’s lives.  This is colorblindness in its vanity.  Convincing itself that its final goal has been achieved, colorblindness says we are all the same under our skin.  We all have the same chances and opportunities in life, so there is no need to dwell on race.  When people of color do not achieve, it’s not because of race, but rather is the individual failure of the people involved.” (Hitchcock 2002)

This type of analysis, or lack there of, is unacceptable because it allows for the institutional racism to go on unseen as well.

            Institutional racism has also found its way into RuPaul’s Drag Race.  Near the end of the season the remaining queens are asked to give the judges reasons to keep them, Yara Sofia opens up and tells the judges her situation and how becoming a famous drag queen in New York is really her only shot to make it out of poverty and support her family in Puerto Rico.  At this, the judges dismiss her making up their minds that her speech was simply not superstar material like some other vapid responses given.  The colorblind viewer looks at Yara Sofia and sees a failed individual, but:

“In between being completely unique as individuals and completely identical as human beings, we are all members of social groupings, be it men, women, white, black, red, yellow, brown, mixed, gay, straight, middle class, upper class, lower class.  Our social group status does not define us exclusively.  Nor does our common humanity.  Nor does our individualism.  Each of these contributes to our experience and our nature.  To single out one and hold it above all of the others is arbitrary and misguided.” (Hitchcock 2002)

Weighing each aspect of the self respectively gives social groupings, and by extension institutional racism, the attention that it deserves. Recognizing patterns in individual racism is among the first steps to becoming an antiracist. 

The most difficult aspect of colorblindness is that it has integrated itself into the American culture so much that it is comparable with “mom, apple pie, and the American flag” (Hitchcock 2002).  And since it is so imbedded within our society it exists within our media and within the common discourse among American citizens.  In the ideal, where color is really only a visual illusion made by the mind and people are not chained to it in any way, colorblindness is a great idea.  Unfortunately that is not the stage we are at here, in the United Sates of America.

While Yara Sofia’s makeup had been without smudges, her outfits without snags, and her performances without flaws, she still lost Season 3 of RuPaul’s Drag Race.  Her speech may not have been superstar material and maybe that is why she lost after all “it’s for entertainment” (Stevenson 2011).  However, the financial grief that plagued her and her family, the internalized racism that welled from her, and the incessant issue of a language barrier expressed throughout the show, are problems that can be remedied, slowly, by an active resilience to colorblindness.

The reality of colorblindness is that it hampers any progress that can be made toward antiracism by avoiding discussion, refuting race, denying evident consequences, discounting categorization, and disregarding color.  “Color is beautiful, and colorblindness can’t see it (Hitchcock 2002); not the colors of Skittles, the colors of people.  By fighting against a colorblind outlook, the smog clears just a little (Hill 2008).            

Works Cited

Graves, Joseph L, Jr. 2004. Why We Pretend Race Exists in America, in The Race Myth. NY Dutton. ix-xvi.

Hill, Jane H. 2008. The Persistence of White Racism. in The Everyday Language of White Racism. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell. 1-13.

Hitchcock, Jeff. 2002. Colorblindness, Personified, in Lifting The White Veil: An Exploration of White American Culture in a Multiracial Context. Roselle, NJ: Crandall, Dostie & Douglass Books. 53-72.

Stevenson, Ian, dir. “Season 3.” RuPaul’s Drag Race. Prod. RuPaul A. Charles. 2011. Television.

Tan, Amy. 1990. Mother Tongue.

Tatum, Beverly Daniel. 1997. Defining Racism: “Can We Talk?,” in “Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about Race. New York: Basic Books. 3-17.