My point is that society is being trained to notice skin color and trained to see, notice, and treat black people differently than other people. That is where I think diversity training is harmful.

(I think it is interesting/odd that you referred to the person doing the training as an “officer”. )

The diversity training officer merely pointed out something that is already noticed by society. I don’t think you’re racist, but I do think you are very ignorant. You cannot compare people of color to people with blond hair or those with blue/green eyes because the latter groups aren’t catching hell like people of color.

While you yourself may not judge people based on color, society for the most part does.

Yes the speaker was implying that a good barometer of how racist you are is the number of black friends you have. If you get a bunch of brown eyed people in a room and tell them that they are probably unconsciously prejudice against blue-eyed people you are going to start creating problems that don’t already exist. However, that is basically what we do with skin color. Other studies of children have shown that when you start giving them ways to categorize themselves, they start seeing their own category as superior to others. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever talk about race, but making it a major way to categorize ourselves and others isn’t helping. If we’d treat skin color the same as hair color or eye color, I think we’d be much better off as a society.

Now cultural issues are an entirely different issue. There are a number of cultures I do not care to extensively associate with and many of them predominately populated by people who share my skin color. Cultural differences are not something I was talking about in this article.

Yes I’ve previously read that link. They talk about how depressing it is that only 8% of white kids have a best friend that is from another race.

I’m not saying that we should never teach kids anything about race. Any decent education will give kids a good understanding of how various races have been mistreated over the years and an appreciation of what some historical figures had to overcome, but this can be done without recreating an emphasis on different skin color in the present.

No one should be considered racist just because they don’t have friends of a certain skin color. Although racism causes the separation in the USA, the problem of people of different ethnic backgrounds not intermingling as much as the mythical melting pot suggests, also has a lot to do with insecurities and discomfort about how the cultures are to approach each other. This is a far bigger issue than could ever even be discussed in this post, but I would suggest to you that you seek out some quality university classes on the subject. Unfortunately, Universities are the only place in America where the topic is thoroughly discussed and examined.

I still am not all that convinced that the potential consequences of tackling someone who may not really be committing a crime did not play a bigger roll than the consequences of a single “training” session. For that matter, just the fact that you are probably not someone who is regularly poised and ready to tackle common criminals out in public. Depending on the laws where this incident happened, it may have even been quite a bad situation if you tackle someone; because it is still assault when you just tackle, restrain, or physically stop someone. If you were going to simply, lets say, block the path; I also don’t think it would have been all that productive to potentially land in the hospital as a man, in full sprint checks you and busts open your skull on the pavement.

To get back to the point you seem to have been wanting to make, that it is better to just be “color blind”, I would like to offer the following article regarding research, generally, on this topic http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/02/how-to-raise-racist-kids/

Cultural differences are a separate issue.

We don’t need diversity training. We are already diverse. Such training should focus on anti-racism work and working on institutional racism.

Signed,
Someone who gets it.

You are trying to tell us that a single training session you received at a different job, in a different city, a fairly long time ago (that I suspect, the effectiveness of which, you were already not all to persuaded of and thus remember it so well) made you not stop someone that could have been doing all kinds of things besides running away from the scene of a crime? Did something like the policeman yell something like “Stop, thief” or “Stop that man” indicate that this was a crime in progress and you still didn’t stop him because of the diversity training? If no, I have a feeling that the consequences of an error in judgment played the real role in your decision to let him pass.

For all you know, as you suggested, he could have been, e.g., running to meet his grandmother at the subway after having run home to get her forgotten purse, looking behind him to see if he upset the person he may have bumped into. I could come up with several other plausible alternate situations that could be seen as a possible purse-snatcher eluding the law.

If you are honest with yourself, the fact that it was a black man running down the street/sidewalk did, most likely, influence your first impression. Just close your eyes and imagine if it had been a white guy? Denying the influence is counter human nature that dictates that humans heavily use visual queues to infer and assess threats and situations in general.

I think your story could have possibly been a better post about first impressions.

I have been surprised at the people here (presumably minorities of some type) who are saying that a color blind society isn’t what they want.

To me this seems quite a bit better. But I’m getting told I’m an idiot and only think that way because of “white privilege”. So I have a question for you. Would you rather have your white friends think of you as their “black/mexican/etc friend” or not immediately realize they have any black/mexican/etc friends because that isn’t how they define you?

Regarding color blindness: Here are two scenarios. Which do you think is the most healthy:

1. I get asked how many black friends I have and I say “zero”–overlooking the fact that 2 of my closest 10 friends are black. Not because I forgot they were my friends, but because I don’t notice their skin color.

2. I get asked how many black friends I have and I say, “I have eight white friends and two black friends with no hesitation.”

I believe that people who fall under option 2 are more likely to act in a racist manner simply because they have categorized their friends in two boxes: white and black. If you disagree, I’d love to hear why. Simply saying that it is “white privilege” is rather insulting. I’m speaking from my personal experience here. I’m open to what other people have to say, but give me some logic as to why you think option 2 is a better state for the world to be in.