“Race is the concept of who you are, not who you actually believe you are. I think that’s nationality or ethnicity. Race is a way of boxing in people: she’s brown-skinned, she’s black, she’s yellow, she’s Asian — things like that. It’s not who you are, it’s other people’s perception of who you are.”

This was one of 10 taped answers presented Thursday night to the question of how we perceive race at a talk entitled “The Colorblind Question” at the Multi-Cultural Student Center.

The talk consisted of listening to taped responses to the questions of how we perceive race and what it means to be colorblind, full group discussions and small group sections.

“I think this is really a complex issue,” said Luke Wilson, an attendee. “We don’t want to be saying these are the right answers.”

Stephanie King, who led the discussion, said race is, “The room you are put in because of your skin. Race is more of a cultural thing with a cultural background.”

King specifically cited a response where the answerer responded to what “colorblind” means by saying, “It means absolutely nothing, because when someone is colorblind they are still able to see black and white.”

Besides MCSC, the groups Promoting Racial Ethnicity and Awareness and the Institute for the Healing of Racism were also represented.

“Let’s not talk about the fact that we’re all different,” said student Kirsten Kansteiner. “I’m really critical of that concept. It’s kind of harsh.”

“I really don’t understand it,” added student Mae Melvin. “I don’t really see that he’s different than me. We have to understand race as a social conscience. Race goes with racism.

A written response to the questions asked stated, “I think race plays a very large role in our lives still. Not only between races but within one racial group. I don’t think that anyone can say that they don’t form and think about racial stereotypes when they see someone who appears to be of a certain race. Being colorblind doesn’t exist. We all make racial judgments all the time, it’s just also up to us to start looking past that.”

Small-group sections focused on experiences of people first realizing that someone was racially different from them. One girl, when speaking about a black family moving into their community, said, “It was like the aliens were coming to town.”

Kansteiner, when asked about a time when her views were challenged on race mentioned a time when she “had a huge crush on this Asian kid.” Kansteiner went on to say that she didn’t really see the differences between them. Another student spoke of extraordinary lengths she went to in order to avoid describing one of her teammates as black.

Another respondent to the survey believes that “colorblindness as related to race can never and will never exist in this society.”