Color blindness (sometimes spelled colour-blindness; also called race blindness) is a sociological term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics when selecting which individuals will participate in some activity or receive some service. The rationale for "color-blind" practices is that racism and race privilege no longer exercise the power they once did, and/or that treating people equally leads to a more equal society. As described by Chief Justice Roberts, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race, is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. "

However, according to Christopher Doob in his textbook Social Inequality and Social Stratification in US Society, whites believe they live in a world in which "racial privilege no longer exists, but their behavior supports racialized structures and practices. " Dr. Michael Kimmel made the statement not only in his book Guyland, but in a lecture, that "privilege is invisible to those who have it. " Those who have not been the target of racial bias cannot see or comprehend exactly what this feels like, looks like or the effects that it can have on people's lives. Whites simply believe discrimination and white privilege do not exist, because in their world they do not. Doob also mentions in his book that many times, due to the prominent racism that is still evident in today's society, minorities often do not have a choice but to participate in the racial socialization. This, he states, is due to the fact that it can be a daunting task to maintain a social identity in such a society.

Put into practice, color-blind operations use no racial data or profiling and make no classifications, categorizations, or distinctions based upon race. An example of this would be a college processing admissions without regard to or knowledge of the racial characteristics of applicants.

The goal of the 1960s landmark civil rights legislation was to remove racial discrimination and so establish a race-blind standard. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, that the hope was that people would be judged by "the content of their character" rather than "the color of their skin". Color-blind practices assume we have already reached that goal.