Colorblind Is Not the Same As Justice-blind

I enjoyed this conversation between Colin Hansen and John Piper regarding John’s new book, Bloodlines. I deeply respect and admire John’s faith in the Lord, willingness to risk, and courage to stand on this issue. And in these videos you can see his passion and investment in arguing for a blood-bought reshaping of our thinking about ourselves.

Confronting the Racial Sins of Our Fathers from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Can’t Afford to Be Color Blind from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

I think John nails the colorblind issue in the second video. He captures the tension and dynamic very well, showing both the pros and the cons of the issue.

If I might, I’d want to tack on one footnote to what John has said extremely well. Sometimes the appeal to being colorblind masks a deeper issue of being “justice blind.” That is, some people have called for a colorblind society or positioned themselves as colorblind people as a means for willfully ignoring justice issues that themselves are predicated upon color. Examples abound. Fill in the blank.

So, there arises a suspicion of the notion because of very real justice or injustice issues attached to color. We don’t want a naive movement toward colorblindness (in the positive sense) when it gives room for “justice blindness.” That’s part of the tension and concern. In a society filled with systematic statistical disparities on the basis of skin color on everything from educational achievement, employment rates, internet access, incarceration, banking access, poor health, home ownership, poverty, and so on, we cannot afford a blindness to color that perpetuates a blindness to justice.

I’m grateful for Piper helping to make this plain. The move toward a post-race society must include movement to a color-just society. This is better known to us as judging a man by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin–whether that “judgment” be the charitable interpersonal judgments that help to eliminate prejudice and racism or the charitable judgments of “justice for all.”

P.S.–I’m certain someone will wish to point out that I’ve at least intimated that “justice” looks like “equality of outcome” and not “equality of opportunity.” Fair enough. But before you dismiss the thrust of this post with that critique, how about defining “justice” yourself and attending to the color-based injustices and disparities so plentifully around us before/as you point out your disagreement with my definition. Until then, I need to let you know that I kinda like the definition of “justice” that I use and pursue over the definition of “justice” you don’t.