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Ok, so week after week, I learn more and more, and I think more and more; and you what I learned this week? Color does not matter. You're right, racially color does not matter, but that is not what I am talking about.  I'm talking about green, red, blue, you know, the colors of the rainbow; they do not even matter! Why?

  We use language to communicate with each other, and colors, as part of our language and perception, aids us in our communication; but, how useful is this system if we all see, perceive, and interpret colors differently? If I see a red apple, my Uncle Lawrence sees a bright pink apple (and he knows that pink apples do not exist, so this is a bit difficult for him). When I look at a blue sweater, he sees a purple one. Strange hunh? How can we ever go shopping together? (Don't worry, we don't thank goodness).

All I'm saying is that if color is perceived so differently by many people, who's to say that so many other aspects of communidation are not perceived differently from person to another? Colorblindness should not be seen as a handicap; it is a variation. It makes one person different from another, much like a voice accent.  Do we label people from Australia handicapped English speakers?! Never, that is absolutely absurd. Colorblindness is the same thing! Well a voice accent is actually not quite the same as something like colorblindness, but you get my point!

Jayme E. Hopkins, '08