- Oct 2016
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techwritingf16.robinwharton.net techwritingf16.robinwharton.net
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We acknowledge, though, that many, inside and outside of our field,believe that race is not a relevant concept in our society or field. Some arguethat we live in a nonracist society, and thus the need to acknowledge colorno longer exists. Gordon (2005) explained that color blindness ‘‘maintainsthat race does not exist as a meaningful category and posits that the benefitsaccrued to White people are earned by (gifted) individuals rather than sys-temically conferred’’ (p. 281). For example, in some technical communica-tion classes, as in most classes, instructors adopt a color-blind perspective,reiterating the sentiment that race has no place in the classroom (Hairston,1992). According to this perspective, to see or speak of race is to give life toa racist social system that has historically marginalized people of color andgiven unfair advantages to white European Americans (WEAs)
The discussion of race in this article reminds of a similar discussion I have had in my race and ethnic relations class, where we talk about race as a social construct, that was created to continue to marginalize minorities. I believe race is important in technical communication because it continues to add on to the cultural and social aspects of tech writing, meaning that it brings about diversity.
The idea of colorblindness, not just in tech communication but in general, in my opinion, makes the false assumption that race does not exist, and it tries to deny the issues that actually arise about race and racism.
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Thus, despite electing its first African-American president and having agrowing Hispanic population, the United States is not a postracial society.Unfortunately, we still live in a society that produces racial constructs andwhere people live out racialized lives as part of their everyday experiences.Even though (or quite possibly because) race as a concept and therebyracism still exist, many people, if not color-blind, avoid topics of race, eth-nicity, and culture in their daily conversations.
This supports my earlier claim about how race is a social construct and if we continue to have a color-blind mentality, we deny that racism exist and avoid topics of race and culture, which in the end could turn out to be insightful for the world of tech communication because there is the diversity factor that we always want to include
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