She falls for
kindness,
talent,
good humour,
joy.
Is so surprised when
people point out skin,
when he wonders if she can handle
The Problem.
She squints to scrutinize for trouble,
but can’t see past the laughter
in his eyes,
the love in hers.
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I suppose that’s privilege, too, isn’t it? The ‘not noticing colour’ has a positive connotation, but a negative one as well. What are your thoughts?
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Shawn L. Bird 
I think you can think this thing round forever in circles, to be honest. There can not be any harm in being aware of history, yet looking forwards positively and living for what is now. In innocently being unaware in the sense that you’re describingโ being unprejudiced. It’s the goal after all. I guess just respond with love and humour! Would be my reaction :D.
But yeah I see your ‘quandary’! In what to think about others’ reactions.
I see a lot of discussions in society which just go round in circles, and I always get impatient with them xD. All we can do is be kind to everybody else, if we are doing that then we don’t need to feel weird. The complexity of human thought constructs kind of overwhelm me ๐ .
Ironically the physical world is much simpler than the human, as much as people tend to be afraid of maths and science at school ๐. Yet there are lessons in the simplicity of nature!
Looking at the current societal scenario, โnot noticing colourโ is definitely a positive perspective to have.
“Not noticing colour” definitely levels the playing field for all, the equality that everyone deserves.
But think about it, we are who we are because of two main factors: 1. Our personality and 2. Our Origin story.
Our personality shows who we are right now and our colour reflected our origin story.
So, here the negative part of ‘not noticing color’ occurs. You only know a person 50-50 (As Tom Hanks used to say in the movie “The Terminal”)
But the main problem here is that we are not provided that education of the history or origin of that colour and so we make up our own assumptions and associate meaning to that colour, which might be wrong and thus a lot of people suffer due to this.
So if one is educated about the true history of that colour, and then you are still not noticing color, then it’s a negative thing for that one. Which I assume would be a very small percent of population as educating oneself is a tedious and non-stop process which not many can keep up.
Concluding… We all can start with the person, interact with them and if we like them, only then we can start noticing the colour and listen to their origin story as well.
I think of it more in terms of recognizing the reality of that skin. I could laugh with him when he joked about the biases he dealt with daily, but I did not appreciate the underlying, painful reality that he was deflecting with his laughter. Only now, years later, am I seeing the larger context.
As you say, never stop learning!
The impact kind of crept up on me! Loved this, Shawn!
Thanks, Debra!
I appreciate you stopping by and taking time to comment. ๐