Matthew West
Africana Philosophy
4/12/19
Colorblindness, or as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor puts it, “the default setting for how
Americans understand how race and racism works”, is an ignorant, out-dated and flawed
perception of how racism is perceived in America. Taylor, in her book, “From #blacklivesmatter
to Black liberation” examines how colorblindness and ‘post–racial’ politics has been prevalent on
a personal and social level dating back as far as the Nixon era in 1968.
As the country transcended out of the civil rights era, Taylor calls attention to the “post–
civil rights “colorblindness”. She states, “This was not the benign, long-sought absence of race
from the legal structures governing the United States.” Accounts of discrimination included
