Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a world where people are judged by their character
not by the color of their skin.
And how wonderful would a color-blind world be?
But what about people who are literally blind?
Do they still judge people based on their race?
Hey everyone, Julia here for DNews.
Osagie K. Obasogie, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, sought
to understand how a person who is blind would understand the concept of race.
In groundbreaking research published in the book Blinded By Sight, he conducted over
100 interviews with people of various ages and backgrounds, all of whom have been blind
since birth.
Obasogie asked the subjects how they define race, what their first memory of it was, how
their family would respond if they dated or married outside of their race, among other
things.
And he found some surprising results.
“Blind people understand race just like everyone else, they understand it visually.
So if you ask a blind person ‘What is race?’
They’re more likely to refer to various visual cues, such as skin color, facial features,
things of that nature.”
The fact that they use “visual” traits seems like a surprise.
It’s widely known that blind people do have a better sense of touch.
But according to a different study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers
at McMaster University,
it’s not because their brains rewire to compensate for the lack of sight.
Instead, they show that it’s simple practice that enhances their sense of touch.
[1]
Some people do take into account other features, like scent and touch, but only secondarily.
And even though you might assume blind individuals use voice as a proxy for someone’s race,
Obasogie found that wasn’t the case.
Many of them were distrustful of using voice because they’ve been wrong so many times
before.
Another interesting finding was
that blind people experience the same racial prejudice as those with sight.
Many of the respondents pointed to
interactions in their childhood or adolescence that shaped their views on race.
Those around them, like parents and friends reinforced social boundaries.
Some had parents that refused to let them play with people of a different race.
Obasogie also learned that some blind individuals specifically seek out information about a
person’s race.
And this information makes a profound difference to them.
Some respondents said it made interaction easier, that way they wouldn’t say something
stupid in front of someone of a difference race.
Others used this information as a distinguisher for dating purposes.
If they were attracted to someone but then found out they were a different race, they
would change their behavior towards them.
his research suggests that race has less to do with what we see, and more to do with what
we’re taught.
Society teaches us to mark the physical differences as significant, and to make certain associations
from those differences.
So yes, even the blind are socialized to see race, just like we all are.
But by talking to blind people, Obasogie believes we can get a true understanding of how strong
that socialization practice is.
A big thanks to the University of California’s Fig. 1 for helping us put this video together.
You can learn a whole lot more from Fig. 1 too - like, whether the secret to a happy
marriage is in your DNA.