Colorblind along the color line: Racialized fractals, recursive oppositions, and control of meaning in developmental spaces

Abstract

This paper explores how the dominant ideology of colorblindness is enacted across discourse events among youth in a community center in Vermont. Through critical discourse analysis of interactions among students and staff, we draw on the notion of fractal recursivity, uncovering a multiplicity of racialized oppositions that ideologically separate White and Color, all while relegating on-record racetalk to the verboten. The control of racialized meaning through insistence upon colorblindness reproduces the current racial order, elevating Whiteness and subordinating non-White groups. Ultimately, colorblindness benefits only Whiteness, in attempts to obscure the symbolic and material primacy it is afforded in US society.