Racism: justice is more than the absence of brutality"Does race still matter?" The question itself is a strong indication of America's disillusioned attitude toward race. It's barely been forty years since segregation—arbitrary laws that separated white children from others because of supposed white superiority—was abolished, and already Americans, especially white Americans, have begun to complain that we focused too much on race. Why, they plead, can’t we be a colorblind society? How could this happen if we don't first embrace color consciousness: the fact that people are still treated differently based on the color of their skin. Racism today is not always the same as that of yesterday. Horrible incidents of overt racism still occur and hate groups still exist, but today's racism is much more subtle than that of the past. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice.” » The racism that exists today quietly benefits and privileges white people in terms of what they receive from the systems and institutions already in place in America. If you are white, as you read, take a moment to think about what you learned in grade school, about your teachers here at State U., about the shows you watched on television last night. Are the people you interact with on a daily basis similar to you or different? Because I'm white, it didn't occur to me that most magazine covers featured white models, that most ads featured white people, that most of the dolls in the toy store were blonde and blue-eyed, that most of the “heroes” I learned about in school were white, and most of the authors I studied were white. I didn't notice it because I wasn't in the middle of paper...it's an institution and in society I don't support them. People of color need to think about race every day because it’s impossible for them not to. American society has a long way to go before it becomes a colorblind society. How can we be color blind when this country has been around for 400 years and only 40 years have passed since people of different colors were legally granted equal rights? How can we be colorblind when many high schools (and some middle schools) still ignore the contributions of people of color, as well as the history of racism in this country? How can we be colorblind when the faces of the poorest neighborhoods of the poorest cities are the darkest and the faces of those in the highest positions of power are the lightest? If you think race doesn't matter in America, you are wearing a powerful and dangerous blindfold that only education can remove.