A NOT SO COLOUR BLIND HISTORY
Education is key to overcoming ignorance.
This project is based on a brief which speculates on the future. My original idea for the project explored the idea of a colourless future, and if there was no colour in the future, how would this effect race and racism? The common thought was that there would be no racism, if we were all the same.
After considering this, I realised that this was the wrong approach. A colour-blind ideology (choosing not to see colour/race) in the future, is racist. Not seeing the colour in humanity makes us blind to racial history and the struggles this has included. It leaves us never seeing the full picture.
Thinking of this, and how this colour blind approach to race and racism can be stamped out in the future, I explored how this can happen.
I believe that education is the key to overcoming racism. In schools in Britain, history teachings often focus an exclusively white history of Britain, but that is far from the truth. By learning about the struggles people of colour have faced, both past and present, puts us in a better standing to have
un-biased and meaningful conversations about race and racism.
I have design a history book titled 'A not so colourblind history of Britain', which in the future would be introduced to provide accurate education on races and cultures in Britain, in the hope that this would help in the battle to understand the complexity of racism and how we can prevent it.
The idea of the book is to stamp out the colour blind ideology, and demands that readers see race and culture. Without seeing colour of peoples skin, you cannot see the full picture. To demonstrate this idea, I have used acetate and braille to show facts and figures and demonstrate my point. The book covers a long history, from the abolition of slavery, world wars, the colour of power and police brutality - both in the past and in our present.
Educating ourselves allows room for a much deeper and complex understanding of how our societies work, how racism and discrimination has embedded itself into our institutions and systems and how this in turn has contributed to white privilege and racial superiority.
The path to overcoming racism will never be easy, but there are actions we can take to move forward and I believe that the first step is education.