We acknowledge, though, that many, inside and outside of our field,believe that race is not a relevant concept in our society or field. Some arguethat we live in a nonracist society, and thus the need to acknowledge colorno longer exists. Gordon (2005) explained that color blindness ‘‘maintainsthat race does not exist as a meaningful category and posits that the benefitsaccrued to White people are earned by (gifted) individuals rather than sys-temically conferred’’ (p. 281). For example, in some technical communica-tion classes, as in most classes, instructors adopt a color-blind perspective,reiterating the sentiment that race has no place in the classroom (Hairston,1992). According to this perspective, to see or speak of race is to give life toa racist social system that has historically marginalized people of color andgiven unfair advantages to white European Americans (WEAs)
The discussion of race in this article reminds of a similar discussion I have had in my race and ethnic relations class, where we talk about race as a social construct, that was created to continue to marginalize minorities. I believe race is important in technical communication because it continues to add on to the cultural and social aspects of tech writing, meaning that it brings about diversity.
The idea of colorblindness, not just in tech communication but in general, in my opinion, makes the false assumption that race does not exist, and it tries to deny the issues that actually arise about race and racism.