Learning to See Again: Understanding How Color Blindness Leaves Us in the Dark

• Author: Wes Grooms
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12371
• Published date: 01 May 2015
• Date: 01 May 2015

Book Reviews 497

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 3, pp. 497–500. © 2015 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12371.

Wes Grooms is a Ph.D. student

and graduate research assistant in the

Department of Urban and Public Affairs at

the University of Louisville, where his work

and research interests include social equity,

cultural oppression, compassion advocacy,

and equitable sustainability practices.

Additional research interests include gov-

ernmental and economic systems structure,

the effects of environmental aesthetics and

condition on human well-being, and the

human–canine relationship.

E-mail : wes.grooms@louisville.edu

Learning to See Again: Understanding How Color Blindness

Leaves Us in the Dark

Erica Gabrielle Foldy and Tamara R. Buckley ,  e

Color Bind: Talking (and Not Talking) About Race

at Work (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2014).

200 pp. $37.50 (paper), ISBN: 978-0-87154-472-8.

A t its core, this book conveys the results of “an

intensive, qualitative, longitudinal investiga-

tion of seven (work) teams” which “explores

and documents the complexity” of how these teams

did or did not use awareness of racial, ethnic, and

cultural differences in their work (8). This “on the

ground” perspective is an important contribution to

the academy as it fills in gaps in knowledge by embed-

ding the results of their study in debates in sociology,

psychology, and other fields (7). This “real-world”

perspective is also useful to employers and employees

that wish, or need, to engage issues of diversity in

their client-base or the workplace. It is these micro-

level dynamics, the individual-to-individual inter-

actions—often overlooked by the macro fields of

sociology and political science—to which the authors

contend their work contributes (10). Though their

study was conducted in a state child services agency,

the authors periodically remind us that the situa-

tions they witnessed, the challenges encountered by

the evaluated teams, and the results of their analysis,

are applicable to nongovernmental and non-social-

services work environments as well as society at large.

Because this book is the result of a racial and cultural

practices study—a topic of primary interest to the

public administration community—its appeal and

applicability is clear. However, the wide net-casting

broadens the book ’ s audience, which is a primary

strength of this work.

For instance, instead of just conveying the results

of their study, Foldy and Buckley provide founda-

tional understanding of the inherent insidiousness

and invisibility of racial biases. The authors describe

research that found kids as young as five will identify,

from identical drawings of children—save variations

in skin color—the darker skinned children as hav-

ing “negative social characteristics” and the lighter

skinned children as having “positive social characteris-

tics.” Other studies cited by the authors indicate that

nearly half of all parents, “across racial groups,” either

had not, or rarely, discussed race with their children,

and that less than one percent of white parents that

had agreed to discuss race with their children actu-

ally did so (13). These results show how easily, early,

and unknowingly implicit biases can be formed.

They also serve to demonstrate that many people are

reluctant or uncomfortable about discussing race. In

her new book, Race and Social Equity: A Nervous Area

of Government , Susan Gooden offers a laser focus on

public administration organizations working toward

more equitable outcomes, and labels this reluctance

and discomfort as “nervous” (Gooden 2014 , 3).

As should be expected, the authors provide a dis-

cussion of terms and definitions used in the book.

Primary among these, of course, are their working

definitions for race, color, ethnicity, and culture. Skin

color, according to Foldy and Buckley, “often defines

how a person is categorized,” and has been shown to

be “the basis of more bias than other physiological

characteristics.” For these reasons, and because skin

color best captures “race, ethnicity, and culture,” the

authors use “color” in defining the types of beliefs and

behaviors (16), or “practice,” exhibited by the study ’ s

participants; the two primary types of practice being

color blindness and color cognizance.

The authors’ discussion of color blindness is a par-

ticularly compelling aspect of this book. Rather than

just explaining the definition used for their study,

they present some of the historical and societal forces

that have led to the practice of color blindness and

telling examples of how color blindness is expressed

by individuals in this study and other studies outside

the workplace, along with examples of the stifling

effects that can result from operating from a color

blind perspective. Gooden also identifies this disabling

effect of color blindness, captured in her quoting of

Guinier and Torres: “We concluded that the color-

blind paradigm has led to paralysis rather than action”

Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Wes Grooms

University of Louisville