I know others have answered this question more eloquently than me, but I'll take a stab at it: it's not "colorblind," but I don't think that means it's biased, or at least not biased in a negative way. Specifically, I don't believe that we live in a colorblind society at this point, and I think that acting as if we do (ie, acting as if I can have an unbiased selection of books by ignoring race) means that I'm going to get a lopsided view of things. By failing to seek out books by people different than me, I reliably wind up reading 80-90% middle-class white people, mostly Americans -- and that means that I'm feeding my brain one range of viewpoints, often to the exclusion of others. Left to my own devices, it's too easy to read only things that reflect and reinforce my own experience. I don't want to do that: I want to see a variety of perspectives, even (especially) those that come from backgrounds other than my own. And that's not happening by chance, so I'm going to see that it happens by choice.
As far as that goes, even with this challenge, I'd be willing to bet that half or more of the books I read this year are still by middle-class white people.
(A more eloquent explanation of why I feel it's worth -- indeed, the one that tipped me over into taking the challenge myself -- is here.)
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I know others have answered this question more eloquently than me, but I'll take a stab at it: it's not "colorblind," but I don't think that means it's biased, or at least not biased in a negative way. Specifically, I don't believe that we live in a colorblind society at this point, and I think that acting as if we do (ie, acting as if I can have an unbiased selection of books by ignoring race) means that I'm going to get a lopsided view of things. By failing to seek out books by people different than me, I reliably wind up reading 80-90% middle-class white people, mostly Americans -- and that means that I'm feeding my brain one range of viewpoints, often to the exclusion of others. Left to my own devices, it's too easy to read only things that reflect and reinforce my own experience. I don't want to do that: I want to see a variety of perspectives, even (especially) those that come from backgrounds other than my own. And that's not happening by chance, so I'm going to see that it happens by choice.
As far as that goes, even with this challenge, I'd be willing to bet that half or more of the books I read this year are still by middle-class white people.
(A more eloquent explanation of why I feel it's worth -- indeed, the one that tipped me over into taking the challenge myself -- is here.)