Law professor Osagie K. Obasogie interviewed a series of people who had been blind since birth about their understanding of the concept of race. Counter-intuitively, he found that race was as meaningful to them as it was to sighted people and that their descriptions and biases were largely in line with cultural norms. The article includes really striking quotations from the interviewees and what Obasogie describes as an “empirical assessment of the metaphor of colorblindness.” He’s also published a book based on the research: Blinded By Sight.
In this three minute interview, he explains some of his findings:Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.