Obama’s 2009 address to NAACP: “Colorblindness”
Title: Colorblindness

Methodology: I will conduct my research starting with a simple google search of the speech. I will read the transcript and analyze the linguistic text made. I will pair the use of language in the text with non-verbal modes of communication. By examining the time and place of this address will also provide me with significant cultural context around this issue Obama discusses.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the speech President Obama gave while addressing the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) National Conference on Colorblindness in 2009, and how he determines effective strategies. I would like to explore the idea of colorblindness and the way our society has operated in history which now as an effect on our world today. Dating back to the civil rights era, colorblindness defined the unwritten class system here in the United States.
I think it would be beneficial to look at the speech because it gives context to the issue at hand. The president of the United States giving a speech on a relatively controversial issue, during that particular time to that audience that consists of majority of minorities speaks volume.
I plan to also use Toni Morrison’s, “Playing in the dark” as a primary literary work that discusses the impact and influence of colorblindness and how it has constructed race and identity.
The impact of colorblindness on modern day America has affected it in a magnitude of ways starting with anti-race movements. The most recent one in Charlottesville called on the allies of the opposite race to take a stand against racism. Also, movements like Black Lives Matter which steamed from the 2012 killing of 17 year old Treyvon Martin. This movement sparked other movements such as All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter which called on the solution that “we shouldn’t see color”. My argument will be that, that’s exactly the problem with colorblindness. We all need to see and recognized color and the differences in which we are conformed or oppressed by it. However, it’s how we respond to and treat those that are of different ethnicities than us.
Colorblindness isn’t limited to 2009, nor is it limited to just blacks or white Americans. By confronting this issue will help improve the conversations on race relations.