There's a context implied, but not explicitly stated here.
Being "blind to race" means that the context in which the other person exists is being ignored. Seeing things like race and gender mean that you are keeping context in mind when interacting with people.
Systemic racism isn't necessarily about your personal intent, but it is about the results of your actions. Being blind to race effectively results in supporting the racist status quo. Being blind to sexism effectively results in supporting the sexist status quo.
The current default for American society is white. PoC have a different lived experience, and white people don't often know what it is like to have that lived experience. Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.
> Being "blind to race" means that the context in which the other person exists is being ignored.
No, it does not. It means that the colour of their skin is ignored. If a white family has the same socio-economic status as a family of colour, should we treat them differently simply based on colour?
I think you mean we should assume the family of colour is actively discriminated against so they can't be in the same socio-economic group, but at the same time you claim that "systemic racism isn't necessarily about personal intent"...?
> Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.
This is probs what you actually want to control for, but it's easier to go for the low-hanging fruit that's also culturally fashionable right now, I get it.
My view is certainly coloured by being a white Eastern European living in Western Europe. Not all white people have the same background, certainly not in Europe. I'm sure there are shades of white in America as well. Point being: colour is only an easy proxy for the real issues that need solving.
Here's my "race-blind" take: give help to the people who need it, in the way that they need it. The implementation can then have a race-driven approach, but the policy is race-free. Or is that not good enough?
Being "blind to race" means that the context in which the other person exists is being ignored. Seeing things like race and gender mean that you are keeping context in mind when interacting with people.
Systemic racism isn't necessarily about your personal intent, but it is about the results of your actions. Being blind to race effectively results in supporting the racist status quo. Being blind to sexism effectively results in supporting the sexist status quo.
The current default for American society is white. PoC have a different lived experience, and white people don't often know what it is like to have that lived experience. Similarly, richer people lack an understanding of what poverty implies about the lack of choices.
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/18/rich-people-actually-do-hav...
There are a number of axes where discrimination exists, and being blind to those axes means that you support the discriminatory position in practice.