Racial color blindness

Racial color blindness refers to the belief that a person's race or ethnicity should not influence their legal or social treatment in society.

The American Psychological Association describes four beliefs that constitute the racial color-blindness approach, as follows:

Skin color is superficial and irrelevant to the quality of a person's character, ability or worthiness

In a merit-based society, skin color is irrelevant to merit judgments and calculation of fairness

As a corollary, in a merit-based society, merit and fairness are flawed if skin color is taken into the calculation

Ignoring skin color when interacting with people is the best way to avoid racial discrimination.

The term metaphorically references the medical phenomenon of color blindness. Psychologists and sociologists also study racial color blindness. This is further divided into two dimensions, color evasion and power evasion. Color evasion is the belief that people should not be treated differently on the basis of their color. Power evasion posits that systemic advantage based on color should have no influence on what people can accomplish, and accomplishments are instead based solely on one's own work performance.

At various times in American history, this term has been used to signal a desired or allegedly achieved state of freedom from racial prejudice or a desire that policies and laws should not consider race. Proponents of racial color blindness often assert that policies that differentiate by racial classification could tend to create, perpetuate or exacerbate racial divisiveness. Critics often believe it fails to address systemic discrimination.