Keywords
critique
affirmative action
equality
strict scrutiny
race
history from below
colorblindness
visibility
emancipation
How to Cite
Abstract
The racial element in our society has been generally invisible to many of us. While slavery has been abolished, the process of making black people invisible has been effective. Two recent judgements of the Colombian Constitutional Court have made us think of the race problem as something meaningful in our society. Many difficulties arise in these judgements, and this article presents a critique to some of the legal arguments and consequences of them. It also sustains that the Court has still a long way to go in order to make the racial problem a visible one in our present state of affairs. Some results of a short questionnaire to some mid-high class law students show us how the racial problem is largely invisible to most of us, although in an extremely paradoxical way. A way to make visible this situation is to take advantage of some tools that a history from below can give us. With this methodology we can affirm that the imaginary of a colorblind society was a political project presented by elite in order to erase the race from our imagination. If the Court is ethically committed to achieve a desegregated society, a new narrative about black people must be built.
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