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colorblindness

'I'm glad to have seen it. I just wish I had seen this all my life.'

There's a powerful new ad showing how Tennessee is helping make the Smoky Mountains a bit more beautiful this fall for those who have colorblindness.

The Tennessee Department of Tourism Development released something special — the rare instance of a state-sponsored video, featuring the experiences of five people, that genuinely tugs at the heartstrings.❤️

Every October and November, the Great Smoky Mountains are draped in gorgeous shades of reds, yellows, and oranges — sights that draw people near and far to the east side of the state. However, for about 13 million Americans with colorblindness (most of whom are men), the Volunteer State's radiant rolling hills appear as duller, brownish versions of their true selves.

"Everybody at work was saying how pretty the colors are," one man, who has colorblindness, says in the video — a joint effort between the state's department of tourist development and marketing agency VML. "You don't know that you're missing it because you never saw it to begin with."

To make the colorful mountains pop for people who couldn't see them, Tennessee has installed "colorblind-less" viewfinders at three locations in the area.

GIF via TNVacation/YouTube.

The viewfinders — installed at Ober Gatlinburg, the westbound I-26 overlook near Erwin, and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area — are equipped with glass that enables those with red-green colorblindness to see a fuller spectrum of hues, according to Knox News.

For the guys featured in the video — none of whom had ever seen the Smokies in all their red and yellow glory — the special viewfinders brought the brightness of the Tennessee mountains to life.

Here's a before and after view of what they saw in the viewfinder. GIF via TNVacation/YouTube.

Their reactions speak for themselves.

"Wow," one man muttered to himself softly, sniffling, the experience somewhat bittersweet.

GIF via TNVacation/YouTube.

"I'm glad to have seen it," he says. "I just wish I had seen this all my life."

"Unbelievable," another says.

GIF via TNVacation/YouTube.

"I feel like now I know why people come from miles and states around just to see this."

"[It's] kind of like how I would imagine the difference between here and heaven."

GIF via TNVacation/YouTube.

Tennessee didn't have to move mountains, so to speak, to make the Smokies more beautiful to millions of people. There are small things we can all do in our own communities to make our schools, parks, cities, and homes more inclusive for every guest to enjoy. And that's the truly beautiful thing.

Way to go, Tennessee.

Heroes

These glasses help colorblind people see colors. Watch this guy put them on.

Paul Collins is a designer. He's also colorblind.

Colorblindness affects about 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women with northern European ancestry, and there are a lot of different types and causes for it. Not everyone who's colorblind is too put out by it, although there are some real ways colorblind people have been overlooked.

But for Collins, as an artist, colorblindness presented some particularly tough challenges.

"As an artist, I want to be able to fully express that which is inside of me," says Collins. "I feel like I can only give some of myself."

Collins dealt with this struggle at work for a long time. Then, his wife told him about some weird glasses she'd seen.

They were from a company called EnChroma, and they reportedly helped colorblind people see colors. At first, Collins says he wasn't interested. "She was like, 'You should check this out,' and I'm like, 'No, that's OK. Thank you, but no thank you. I love you, but no thank you.'"

But after a while, he decided to give them a shot.

The glasses work by tweaking how our eyes see the color spectrum.

Color is a smooth rainbow from violet to red. So what the glasses basically do is use filtered lenses to hide certain in-between colors. For example, by filtering out the "almost-red/almost-green" colored light, the glasses trick the eyes and brain into seeing red and green as two distinct categories.

It's kind of like taking a picture and turning up the contrast. Except the picture is the entire world.

That said, the glasses don't work for all kinds of colorblindness or every person. There have been a lot of people who've had kind of a "meh" reaction.

But for Collins, the change was pretty spectacular.

"I put them on, and I was like, "Oh my God, these work," says Collins. "It's almost like an amusement park ride just walking. The undersides of leaves, the color of the red track, people's clothing."

Of course, these glasses won't cure colorblindness, and they won't work for everyone. But they're still a really amazing step toward helping folks see the colors of our world. "Technology is so cool," said Collins.

Watch Collin's story below:

"Not seeing color just means defaulting to the regular standard, which is white."

Sometimes people say they're "colorblind" — that they don't see race, and race doesn't matter to them.

While this might be well-intentioned, the idea of colorblindness is problematic. It often becomes a mechanism for ignoring systemic problems with racism, rather than addressing them. And instead of eliminating racism, colorblindness can "erase" the identities of people of color and minority groups.

Kerry Washington summed it up well in a discussion on colorblind racism:

"I'm not interested in, sort of, living in a world where my race is not a part of who I am. I am interested in living in a world where our races, no matter what they are, don't define our trajectory in life."

In this comic from Empathize This, the artist describes how it feels to be a minority and to be subjected to "colorblindness," or whitewashing:

Next time you hear someone say they're colorblind, share this comic with them.

When we acknowledge the beauty of racial diversity and address the problems surrounding race in our system, we create a world that is more inclusive for all people — and that's pretty important.

An African-American dad had a conversation about race with his mixed daughter in terms that a preschooler could understand.

Asking how a preschooler's day went can bring about some interesting conversations. This one took the cake.

My daughter is like most 5-year-olds, especially when her stream of consciousness starts flowing.

"The sun and moon are friends, right?"

"It's not fair that I can't eat bacon every day."

"Can we live at Disneyland?"

Sure, kiddo ... whatever you say. GIF from "Community."

But on a recent drive home from school, she stopped me in my tracks when she told me what one of her classmates said.

"Daddy, Marcy [not her real name] said your dark skin is weird. Are you weird?"

Oh boy.

For some background, my wife is half-white, half-Japanese. And I'm black. My daughter's preschool is predominately made up of white and Asian children.

To be clear, this isn't an indictment of Marcy, her parents, or the school. As we all know, kids say some pretty wild and unfiltered stuff. And in the interest of full disclosure, my kid says some pretty wild stuff too, so I'm not sure if her encounter with Marcy went down exactly the way she described it. Regardless, it certainly gave me an opportunity to have my first in-depth conversation about this with my young daughter.

I did this once before with her regarding the happy holidays "controversy" and it worked well, so I figured I'd try to explain race in a way that a preschooler could understand.

1. There are a lot of mixed children out there.

My daughter recently turned 5. If I pulled out a bunch of crayons and tried to engage her in a "yellow and blue makes green" conversation to explain the appearances of mixed children, her reaction would be like...

Try again, Dad.

But without going into too much detail on the "how" part, I explained how two people with different skin colors can create babies who are a mixture of both parents' complexion. More importantly, there are a lot of those little ones out there — from everyday children like mine to celebrity kids like Walker, the son of Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel.

Walker, pictured with his dad, Taye Diggs, is one of millions of mixed children in America. Photo by David Buchan/Getty Images Entertainment.

In fact, according to studies, the percentage of mixed-race babies in America increased to 10% in 2013. Back in 1970, that number was only 1%. About 7% of the adult population in America claims to be of mixed race.

That's when I asked her: "Isn't it cool that we live in a world where kids can look just like their parents or a little different?"

She nodded in agreement.

That was relatively easy, so I decided to dig a little deeper.

2. If you like (or don't like) someone, skin color should never be the reason why.

My daughter owns many of the royal dolls from the Disney universe. To prove another point, I asked her to choose her favorite and least favorite from the bunch.

Disney royalty (from left to right) in the form of Queen Elsa, Princess Ariel, Princess Jasmine, and Princess Belle.

Her least favorite was Queen Elsa from "Frozen."

Why?

"Because I don't like the cold."

Word. That's why we live in California. (I guess the cold really does bother her, anyway. #FrozenJokes)

Her favorite was Princess Jasmine from "Aladdin" because she loves her rendition of "A Whole New World" and wants to ride on a magic carpet someday. Makes sense to me.

Don't you dare close your eyes! GIF from "Aladdin."

Here's what I asked her next: "Did their skin color have anything to do with your choices?"

She shook her head slowly as if she wondered why that would be an actual reason to make such decisions. When I asked her why not, she said, "Because that isn't nice."

As a society, we have a long way to go in terms of achieving racial and ethnic tolerance. Heck, because of Islamophobia, some people believe we should bomb Princess Jasmine's fictional kingdom of Agrabah. You know ... just because.

My goal is to teach my daughters to be tolerant of different races, religions, sexual preferences, and anything else that makes people unique. In other words, if they choose to like someone (or not), it should be due to what's inside of that person's heart and nothing else.

3. Being "colorblind" isn't the answer. It's about noticing racial differences and embracing them.

There are well-meaning people who say: "I don't see color. I only see people." However, arguments have been made about how ignoring race can be a problem because it closes off people to the experiences of those who are different from them. I mean, it's pretty hard to empathize with someone if we think everyone experiences the same stuff, right?

That's when I asked my daughter the final set of questions. "Blue is the color of the sky during the day and black is the color at night. If colors could talk, do you think they would tell the same story about what they see when it's their turn to be the color of the sky?"

Predictably, her answer was no. But why?

"Because kids play outside when the sky is blue and they sleep when it's black." Parents know that isn't always true, but I think she knew what I was getting at.

To that point, I try to teach my daughter to be a good listener (she's 5, so that isn't all that easy). Everyone and everything — including colors — has a different story to tell. By listening to the feelings and experiences of others, we can learn more about ourselves and the world around us.

As corny as it may sound, every color has its own story. We should listen to all of them. Photo from iStock.

To answer my daughter's question — yes, I'm weird. But my skin color has nothing to do with it.

I'm a grown man who is obsessed with superheroes more than a grown man should be, I'm deathly afraid of frogs, and I don't like the taste of potatoes. In my mind, that makes me a little "out there."

We all have things that make us unique. My hope is we can create a world for our children where those things can be celebrated.

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colorblindness

What Tennessee's fall trees looked like to people with colorblindness — until now.

'I'm glad to have seen it. I just wish I had seen this all my life.'

To make the colorful mountains pop for people who couldn't see them, Tennessee has installed "colorblind-less" viewfinders at three locations in the area.

"Wow," one man muttered to himself softly, sniffling, the experience somewhat bittersweet.

"Unbelievable," another says.

"[It's] kind of like how I would imagine the difference between here and heaven."

These glasses help colorblind people see colors. Watch this guy put them on.

Paul Collins is a designer. He's also colorblind.

Collins dealt with this struggle at work for a long time. Then, his wife told him about some weird glasses she'd seen.

The glasses work by tweaking how our eyes see the color spectrum.

But for Collins, the change was pretty spectacular.

Watch Collin's story below:

This comic breaks down the problem with whitewashing race.

"Not seeing color just means defaulting to the regular standard, which is white."

Sometimes people say they're "colorblind" — that they don't see race, and race doesn't matter to them.

In this comic from Empathize This, the artist describes how it feels to be a minority and to be subjected to "colorblindness," or whitewashing:

Next time you hear someone say they're colorblind, share this comic with them.

My mixed daughter was told it's 'weird' that I have dark skin. This is what I told her.

An African-American dad had a conversation about race with his mixed daughter in terms that a preschooler could understand.

Asking how a preschooler's day went can bring about some interesting conversations. This one took the cake.

1. There are a lot of mixed children out there.

2. If you like (or don't like) someone, skin color should never be the reason why.

3. Being "colorblind" isn't the answer. It's about noticing racial differences and embracing them.

To answer my daughter's question — yes, I'm weird. But my skin color has nothing to do with it.

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