Racial colour blindness is not a sin

I always stop and think long and hard before posting any entry about race in this blog. It is the single easiest way to get yourself into hot water in the a Wild West that is the Internet today. Passions run high on the subject, and often articles are not read with an open mind or without preconceptions. That said, no-one really reads this blog; it is mainly for my own purposes, a kind of thinking aloud of my own thoughts. So, maybe it's safe to venture out.
At any rate, an article by Bee Quammie on colour blindness gave me pause the other day, and I can't resist making a couple of comments on it. Colour blindness is the idea that we should ignore any ethnic, racial and cultural differences between us in order to encourage a more accepting and less divisive society. I've always thought it to be an eminently sensible and positive policy, and it is usually mentioned in the context of the performing arts, for example, in a positive context. Young children are praised for being colour-blind, prior to being tainted with the cynicism of adulthood.
Ms. Quammie, however, paints colour blindness in a very different way, essentially as well-intentioned (always a label used to damn with faint praise) but fatally flawed, and at heart somehow a racist practice. In her own words: "Often touted as a virtue synonymous with tolerance, being colour-blind is lazy and has troubling consequences." Furthermore: "It detracts from our ability to have age-appropriate conversations with kids about real-life issues like racism and privilege." In particular, she lambastes a recent Toronto Star article on cultural appropriation and Halloween by Ottawa writer Kate Jaimet, one that I must confess I found quite sensible, but that this commentator calls "tragically obtuse".
Well, I don't know how far I would take it, but it seems to me cynical and sad to deny a child's right to dress up as a "native princess" if she wants to. Use it as a teachable moment by all means - explain that the idea of a native princess is a Disney invention that is not reflected in actual First Nations culture - but don't just outright ban it.
Ms. Quammie says that: "Teaching our children to be colour-blind is a mistake, one that tells young people to see differences as negative things to ignore or erase." But that is not what is happening here. Children are not being taught anything, but their natural colour-blindness is being allowed to flourish. If these children are allowed to grow up into colour-blind police officers, judges and employers, then, in a generation's time, maybe there will be little or no need to lecture our kids about the iniquities of racism and cultural appropriation and white privilege. Call me naive, but that's not a bad ambition to have, is it?