Why Saying “We Need to Stop Thinking About Skin Color” Is Harmful

In this racially charged period in American history, many people will suggest that “we need to stop thinking about skin color.” I call these folks individualists.

For individualists, skin color is a proxy for ethnic or racial (ethnoracial) identity. It is not that the person is saying that a Chinese American person should stop thinking about their yellow skin. They are saying that person should stop identifying (or at the least de-emphasize) their identification with the group “Chinese-American.”

When that person says “we,” he is talking about the individual and society as a whole. Our institutions and our social policies need to stop imposing an identity onto someone based on their skin color, they say. Just because you have a particular skin color does not mean you must belong to any coherent group called black or Asian and share any connection with others who share that color.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with this view. It speaks to a society where other, more fluid differences matter more than skin color (identity). This line of reasoning is a net positive for sure for people who do not have an articulated ethnoracial identity.

The problem lies in what racial and ethnic minorities lose in this line of argumentation. I suggest that many racial and ethnic minorities’ identities are tied up in specific historical and cultural dynamics. Asking them to de-emphasize or erase their identities is the functional…