Living Without Colorblindness: Comparing the US and Singapore's Approach to Racial Equality

Eunice Chua, Harvard Law School

Abstract

The doctrine of color blindness provides, in a nutshell, that any governmental use of racial classifications will be subject to strict scrutiny by the courts, regardless of whether the purpose of such classification was to enforce or to ameliorate racial inequality. Ardent supporters of color blindness believe that it is firmly rooted in the US Constitution and is not only central to the notion racial equality, but essential to upholding human dignity. This paper seeks to examine this claim by placing the spotlight on Singapore, a country where the use of racial categorizations is an accepted legal norm. I argue that the color-conscious policies adopted by the Singapore Government in the areas of housing and the electoral process, although open to criticism, were key to integrating a historically segregated population as well as ensuring political representation of minority racial groups. On the contrary, color blindness as enforced by the US courts, has inhibited progress in these same areas and become a tool for reinforcing white supremacy and structural racial inequalities.