The Emperor's New Clothes By Patricia Williams
Color-blindness, the belief that a person’s race and/or skin tone does not matter. This is a philosophy of ignorance, found in the supposed ‘post-racial’ society of America. Touched upon in her essay, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, Patricia Williams utilizes personal anecdotes, allusions, the double standard of race, and the personification of social issues to expose society’s attempts to brush racial problems under the proverbial rug.
Throughout her social commentary, Williams targets the people who state “‘I don’t think about color, therefore your problems don’t exist’” (Williams 4). People with this outlook justify that they aren’t racist because by not seeing race, other people cannot be affected by racial problems. Williams wants to educate
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She begins with her son’s teachers teaching him to be color-blind, and she comments that “the very notion of” color-blindness isn’t a reasonable practice because it promotes “ideological confusion at best and denial” of real and present day issues “at its very worst” (Williams 4). Williams argues that the principle of color-blindness is faulty, because these teachers are trying to promote unity in their classes by leading an example of ignorance between student rather than acceptances of people’s differences. In addition, Williams rhetoric use of pathos encourages the readers emotional attachment to Williams viewpoint, and therefore increases the support of her argument. Another example Williams provides is when she was blatantly confronted with racism on a train and she laments about “how precisely does the issue of color remain so powerfully determinative,...in a world that is, by and large, officially color-blind’?” (Williams 15). Williams questions the followers of color-blindness, asking how can they believe so blindly in a philosophy that denies the existence of racism when underneath the pleasant exterior of polite social expectations lies the bottled-up, pushed down prejudice. Furthermore, Williams’ argument displays the hypocrisy and flaws of the counter argument. By providing her own personal experience of the argument, Williams gives the audience something to relate too and pour their own support
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When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka
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When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka
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When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka
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Summary: A Genealogy Of Modern Racism
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Examples Of Critical Race Theory
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Reflection Of A Class Divided
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