Blinded by Sight

"Blinded By Sight is a lucidly and crisply written exploration of how blind and sighted individuals understand race as a visual phenomenon, and how those understandings are reflected within society. This masterful work is sure to make an enormous contribution, and to provoke debate." - Carroll Seron, Department Chair and Professor, University of California, Irvine "Blinded by Sight is a completely fresh, eye-opening perspective on the social construction of race. By showing that blind people understand race visually, Obasogie illuminates how everyone learns to 'see' race, powerfully debunking two dominant racial dogmas - that race is visually obvious and our laws should be colorblind. His fascinating study and path breaking analysis make an innovative contribution." - Dorothy Roberts, author of Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century "This brilliant book reveals race as a central way that we understand our society and ourselves. Obasogie's sightless subjects 'see' race as our deep and continuing social need to classify and rank. Blinded by Sight teaches us that we can reimagine race not as a disability or an advantage but as a flexible form of human variation. A wonderfully lucid book, highly recommended!" - Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara "'I don't see race' is the all-too-cavalier refrain of our supposedly post-racial world. In this thought-provoking book, Obasogie reveals how deeply we all - blind people included - see race. Color's true significance is here revealed as an elaborate system of cognitive markers guiding the production of racial knowledge, filtering our priorities, preferences, and ultimately our politics." - Patricia J. Williams, Columbia University School of Law