Description

"So why must we always concentrate on color?" asks Paul Weiss, a white philosopher. He poses this rhetorical question to the black author and social critic James Baldwin on a 1968 episode of The Dick Cavett Show. In the context of the discussion, it is clear that Weiss is denying the relevance of race to an analysis of the social issues of the time. Following in Weiss' vein, in the 2010s white folks often similarly assert that people of color who mention or discuss race and racism are "playing the race card"1 - that is, disingenuously affirming the existence of racism, not in order to make factual claims, but to leverage their (ostensibly) misperceived victimhood for personal gain. Indeed, 21st century America has been characterized within prevailing assessments as the era of "colorblindness", a time in US history where race no longer matters and "racism is dead" (Feagin, 2010, p. 91). White folks thus often claim that, not whites, nor society and its institutions, but "blacks are racist",2 and other nonwhites are racist, because people of color insist, disingenuously and cynically (so the story goes), on concentrating on race and racism.