In the minds of many, being colourblind is seen as a type of kindness, that racism cannot exist if we are all just humans
Over the weekend, Khloé Kardashian posted on Instagram about a T-shirt that seemed, at first glance, forgivably mawkish. It encouraged her followers to “love thy neighbor” and listed neighbours of differing levels of disenfranchisement: “Thy black neighbor. Thy gay neighbor. Thy Jewish neighbor,” and so on. The penultimate line read: “Thy racist neighbor.”
The internet, unsurprisingly, lost it. It can easily be inferred from the T-shirt that “racist” is a neutral, even misunderstood, status: it suggests that, like being gay or black, it is something you are born with that the world unfairly vilifies. In Kardashian’s mind, a racist’s struggle is comparable to that of a homeless person or an addict (who were also offered a serving of love, as opposed to anything substantial). Her endorsement of that message suggests she sees “racist” as an identity – and a marginalised one at that. This is the logical conclusion of a dangerous rhetoric that posits the intolerant as victims of a system that they seek actively to uphold.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2HGmQdG
