Hi everyone,
Here is a CNN article of today about how blind people who can't see the colour of the skin, can also be racist.
http://us.cnn.com/2015/08/30/health/blind-people-race/index.html**********************************************************************
A person may not have to "see color" to be racist. Some blind people, just like sighted people, make judgments about others based on their race, according to a new study.
The findings come from interviews conducted in person and over the phone with 25 people who were either born blind or severely visually impaired, or who lost their sight as children or adults. A researcher asked the participants, most of whom lived in the northeast United States, about whether they thought about race and also how it affected their feelings about a person.
The study found that blind people can still have racial stereotypes, but "in all cases it takes them longer to categorize people by race and there is more ambiguity," said Asia M. Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at University of Delaware, who conducted the study.
"Blind people understand race the same way as sighted people," said Osagie K. Obasogie, a professor of law at University of California Hastings College of Law who has researched how blind people think about race, but was not involved in Friedman's study.
Just like sighted people, blind people can conflate the concept of human variation -- differences in skin color and facial features -- with the qualities of a person, Obasogie said.
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Any views?
Sriram
