## Notes from 07 March 2026 [[2026-03-06|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2026-03-08|Next note →]] Read [[Joseph Heath]]’s **"[What colorblindness hath wrought](https://josephheath.substack.com/p/what-colourblindness-hath-wrought)"**. The central argument is a defense of _colorblindness_ as institutional design: in the overwhelming majority of cases, the most effective way to prevent discrimination is to deny decision-makers access to information that could serve as the basis for it. The critique of colorblindness that became mainstream through certain streams of DEI thinking—arguing that procedural neutrality is itself a form of racism—captured the edge cases but lost sight of the baseline. Heath’s examples are well-chosen. Ride-hailing apps effectively solved what was once a major racial grievance in America (Black passengers being unable to hail taxis in New York) by imposing colorblind matching on drivers. Similarly, Canadian universities, which historically lacked racial data on applicants, produced integration outcomes through meritocratic admissions that race-conscious American institutions have struggled to match. Indeed, UofT’s own Equity Census revealed that virtually every minority group is _overrepresented_ relative to national demographics. These aren't arguments that colorblindness is perfect; they are arguments that it works as a robust default, and that the burden of proof should fall on those proposing to deviate from it. The key analytical move is a distinction between _nationalist_ and _integrationist_ minority politics, which Heath explained in a [beautifully written 2021 piece for _American Affairs_](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/why-are-racial-problems-in-the-united-states-so-intractable). The critique of colorblindness originated in African American politics—a context where African Americans are not an immigrant group but a minority involuntarily incorporated into the polity, structurally closer to French Canadians or Indigenous peoples than to an immigration-produced diaspora. Nationalist minorities often do not seek integration into majority institutions; they seek parallel ones. Identity politics is nationalism’s natural posture, whereas colorblindness is integrationism’s natural posture—it protects newcomers by preventing incumbents from using identity as a gatekeeping tool. The error was generalizing a critique born from a specific nationalist condition into a universal principle, then exporting it to countries where immigration-driven diversity is the dominant pattern. This piece sits within a broader project Heath has been building. In that _American Affairs_ essay, he compared Singapore’s outcome-focused racial management with Canada’s procedural neutrality, arguing that the US seeks the former’s results while building institutions designed for the latter—a means-ends mismatch more explanatory than "structural racism" alone. In another 2024 text on **[harm-reduction approaches to racism](https://josephheath.substack.com/p/racism-the-harm-reduction-approach)**, he proposes treating prejudice the way public health treats addiction: as a persistent tendency to be managed through institutional design, rather than merely a moral failing to be denounced. The through-line: good institutions achieve more than good intentions. The relevance for places like Brazil and South Africa, where I have followed race-relations debates more closely, is direct. Progressive movements in both countries have been importing American social justice frameworks with minimal adaptation, despite radically different histories of racial formation. Heath’s framework reframes the question: the issue is not whether colorblindness is universally right, but whether a proposed institutional remedy addresses the _actual_ mechanism producing inequality in _that_ specific context—or one borrowed from a country whose racial politics are, for specific historical reasons, unique.