Mediaboss Marketing

CEDAR FALLS Some say they are colorblind when it comes to issues of race.

But in the era of Black Lives Matter, Rasheed Ali Cromwell questions if anyone can truly claim they dont notice or arent influenced by the color of another persons skin. The fact that we have to say black lives matter in and of itself means that its an issue, he told the audience at the African-American Children & Families Conference Friday.

Cromwell was the keynote speaker during the day-long conference at the University of Northern Iowa. The founder and president of the The Harbor Institute, an educational consulting firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, earned a law degree from Texas Southern University. In the past, he was an attorney with the Washington law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett and Dunner and a law clerk with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas in Houston.

Black Lives Matter is a movement that emerged during recent years in response to the deaths of a number of African-American men across the U.S., often at the hand of police officers. The increased racial tensions seen since that time strain the idea of a colorblind society, in Cromwells view.

They dont see color. Thats an interesting concept, he said. By saying I dont see color, youre saying I dont see a part of you and where youre coming from.

He believes the colorblind concept is a misunderstanding of the Martin Luther King Jr. quote expressing hope that black people like the civil rights leaders then-young children would someday not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Its about what you relate to what you see, said Cromwell, rather than not noticing skin color. Everyone has their own prejudices. Whats most important is how people deal with them, he added.

After slavery ended in the U.S., racism was institutionalized through segregationist policies that were reinforced by the courts, in some cases until the 1950s and 60s. Cromwell showed some examples of how that bias has been reflected in media and advertising during the past century. Those included a montage of clips from D.W. Griffiths racist 1915 silent movie The Birth of a Nation and various offensive depictions of black people in product advertising through the decades.

For Cromwell, that all points back to the need for the movement around Black Lives Matter. Its an issue because for so long American society said they dont, he contended.

Continue reading here:
Speaker: 'Colorblind' ideal inadequate in Black Lives Matter era - Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier