At the 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival Jeff Raikes, Darren Walker, and Michele Norris discussed color-blindness and its implications for our lives and social policies. You can listen to their conversation here.

Most people are raised to think that noticing race is impolite. We’re taught that color-blindness, or not seeing race, is something to aspire to. But color-blindness, however well-intentioned, is an insidious form of racial oppression — one that denies the full existence and experiences of people of color.

At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Raikes Foundation Co-Founder Jeff Raikes sat down with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker and the Aspen Institute’s Michele Norris to discuss the real-world implications race-blind culture and social policy, as well as the affect color-blindness has had on their own lives. Their conversation tackles uncomfortable truths about race and equity, privilege and meritocracy, as well as the role we all have to play in correcting the misconceived notion of colorblindness.

Listen to the conversation here.

Read Jeff’s blog post "Color-Blindness is a Cop-Out" here.