Gray area: As racial discrimination becomes subtler, is color-blindness even possible?

The Philadelphia Inquirer
By LINI S. KADABA- The Philadelphia Inquirer
Tuesday, Sep. 01, 2009

When African-American and Latino campers were shunned at a Huntingdon Valley, Pa., swim club, the head of the Philadelphia NAACP called the incident a "teachable moment." http://www.philly.com/

A few days earlier, President Obama used the same catchphrase in the heated aftermath of black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s verbal tangle with a white police officer.
Experts say more of these teachable moments will arise as blatant discrimination continues to give way to subtler slights or the perception of bias.
Which raises the question: What exactly are the lessons to be learned?
Is our society's goal to be color-blind? Or a race-conscious one? Are we already a post-racial nation? Or is a society in which race doesn't matter millennia away? Or even desirable?
The answers - explored in a thought-provoking exhibition called "Race: Are We So Different?", at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute through Sept. 7 - are complex and nuanced.
Skin color continues to rule everyday exchanges for many Americans, especially minorities. At the same time, polls show that most whites perceive race to be less of a hurdle to achievement than ever before.
That dichotomy in experiences can influence how people view the possibility of a color-blind society - where race is completely disregarded not only under the law but also in society - said Yolanda Moses, an anthropology professor at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the curators of "Race."
In other words, "it depends who you're talking to," said Moses, who is African American.
Visitors Vincent and Candice Craig, both African American, pored over panels on segregation in the show at the Franklin, which has seen a surge in attendance since the exhibition opened May 30. "I don't think there is ever going to be a post-racial society," she said, using a term that acknowledges race but doesn't consider it an impediment to success. (Obama's election victory is often cited as evidence of a move toward a post-racial society.)
"It's an ideal goal," her husband agreed, "but I don't think it's realistic."
Nearby, Beth Surmont, who is white, took a quiz on racial and ethnic assumptions based on the way an individual speaks English.
The Ohio native said that when she was growing up in her mostly white community, she was keenly aware of race when she interacted with nonwhites. Now, the New Brunswick, N.J., resident works with diverse colleagues and seldom notices racial or ethnic differences, she said.
"Now, I'm just talking to people," Surmont said. Her own evolution makes her optimistic about a color-blind America. "We could get there some day. It's exposure, seeing people as people and not as categories."
Sociologist Charles Gallagher, chairman of the sociology department at La Salle University, also has witnessed a hopeful outlook on race relations among his students, particularly white ones.
Besides the decisive election of Obama, he said, the smooth confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court and the success of minorities in varied fields have cemented the notion of a post-racial society in the eyes of many whites.
But surveys illuminate how differently disparate groups view race relations. In a 2008 Gallup poll, only slightly more than one-third of African Americans said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the way society treated blacks, while about two-thirds of whites felt the same way. Likewise, in a New York Times/CBS News poll from the fall, only 43 percent of blacks, but 68 percent of whites, thought each race had an equal chance of getting ahead today.

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