Institutional Colorblindness: How Institutions Maintain Racial Inequality through False Narratives of Equality

• In Event: 2352 - Racialization and Colorblindness: Intersection of Institutions and Identities

Abstract

My paper explore the contradiction between polling data which finds that most white Americans believe the socio-economic playing field is now level and every quality of life indicator that tells us that race continues to shape life chances. The paper explores the idea of colorblindness itself has become institutionalized. Each institution in the United States, the courts, our criminal justice system, the news media, k-12 education and corporations all embrace and espouse, to varying degrees, some version of colorblindness that undergirds their organizational mission. Each institution has its own internal logic and discursive practices that creates, puts in place, supports and justifies the belief that racist acts are aberrations or anomalies and colorblindness is the norm. Institutional systems have rules, beliefs and scripts that members internalize. Colorblindness is used by various social institutions for different ideological and economic considerations each creating self-reinforcing and self-referencing narratives of colorblindness that maintain and reproduce racial inequality.

Author

• Charles A. Gallagher, La Salle University