Colorblindness: Prejudice And Racism In The United States

According to our textbook racism is the set of institutional, cultural, and interpersonal patterns and practices that create advantages for people legally defined and socially constructed as “white”, and the corollary disadvantages for people defined as belonging to racial groups that were not considered Whites by the dominant power structure in the United States.
The first big idea about racism that I thought was powerful was when the first European settlers came to what is now American and used race to dominate and enslave the Native Americans. As Carmelita (Rosie) Castaneda and Ximena Zuniga state in their writings on Racism on page 58 of our textbooks, “Like other constructed social identities addressed throughout this book, race emerged historically in the United States to justify the dominance of peoples defined as “white” and enslaved Africans and, later, Mexicans, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, South Asians, and other marginalized racial groups”.
The article by Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs called Colorblindness: the New Racism discusses the reasons we need to stop overlooking racial and ethnic differences and start actively noticing one another by celebrating and learning about each person’s heritage including their past, present and if possible their projected future. Each and every person is so important. The bottom line is to learn to notice, observe, study, hold up as important, and esteem all people of every race and ethnicity. People are different and we should celebrate those differences not overlook them for fear of appearing prejudice. When we do not notice someone and their differences how do we truly accept and receive them whole-heartedly? This is my question to myself. This has been a real eye-opener for me since I was guilty of colorblindness but thankfully not