Should socioeconomic factors—not race—drive policies in America?
Author Coleman Hughes made that case in dual discussions at the Athenaeum and at CMC’s annual Res Publica lunch in Orange County.
In the evening Ath conversation, moderated by CMC Government Professor Michael Fortner, Coleman advocated against race-based policies and in favor of colorblindness—the principle that people should be treated without regard to their race.
“What I mean by colorblindness is you disregard (race) as a reason to treat anyone differently. And that should also be a basis for public policy … You base policies on class and socioeconomics rather than race. Why? Because socioeconomics, whether it is simple income or wealth … is a much better proxy for disadvantage. Because we’re trying to correct for disadvantage,” said Hughes, author of The End of Race Politics.
In his discussion with Fortner, Hughes also warned of “DEI bureaucracies” and called for a more nuanced approach to addressing racial disparities.
Coleman’s thoughts on race and colorblindness began as a child growing up in the diverse and progressive Montclair, New Jersey, where he said individuals were judged by their character, not their race.
“As a kid, I had friends in every race, and I did not think of them as being of any race. I just thought of them by their first names and by their qualities.”
He wasn’t fully aware that people singled him out for being Black until he enrolled in a private day school. He recounted feeling out of place during a Kwanzaa ceremony and on another occasion being told to “go back home” on a subway ride.
“This was the first time in my life that race was talked about in a totally different way. A little bit (like) in the first Harry Potter movie when he discovers he’s not just a normal boy, he’s actually a wizard. There’s something special about him. … I had never gotten that from anyone in my extended Black and Puerto Rican family. I’d never heard of this. It was shocking. It was new.”
Later, as a student at Columbia University, he recalls feeling uncomfortable during an orientation exercise where students were asked to discuss how systemic racism impacted their lives. He said the exercise made him feel more like “a victim rather than an individual.”
“I became curious not about race itself. … I became interested in the gap between the reality around me, which was little to no racism, and the narrative I was reading from my fellow students, which sounded like they were talking about the Jim Crow South. I wondered: ‘What is accounting for the gap between reality and this narrative?’ And so, I started reading and writing for myself, and then years later, eventually I started writing for an audience.”
In 2019, at 23 years old, Hughes testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on reparations, arguing against race-based compensation. Two years later, his TED talk on colorblindness sparked controversy, cementing his role in the race debate in America. He appeared on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2021.
Over the past several years, Hughes’ writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Quillette, and The Washington Examiner. Hughes was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a fellow and contributing editor at their City Journal. He is also the host of the podcast “Conversations with Coleman.”
Hughes’ Ath talk was co-sponsored by the Valach Speaker Series and The Open Academy.