why “I don’t see color” can perpetuate racism

this won’t be as extensive as I could write on this topic, as it was only a fb comment, but I decided to put this here.

There was a recent post by someone I’ll keep anonymous out of respect. It was 5–8 paragraphs long explaining their good intent behind “I don’t see color” (some paragraphs were single sentences, so I don’t know if I should count those as paragraphs). I think he’s white, but I don’t know 100% for sure if he is. He’s white presenting.

I have over 100 mutual friends with this guy so some of you may have seen it. He seems to have deleted it from his personal page but maybe it was a share of a post from his fan page that I was commenting on, so my comment was removed.

I wrote the following in response in his comments. I make it a practice to keep a copy of the comments I write in case people delete them or I can’t find them anymore. Really hope he can reconsider his stance on this:

___________

If you need to write a whole post explaining what your good intent is you should probably just use other more precise language besides “I don’t see color.”

“I don’t see color” has been consistently used to deny and refute the experiences of people of color so when I hear it it’s a huge red flag that the person saying it is not someone capable of empathy towards any poc, and might be emotionally manipulative and gaslighting.