2011

 In “Do Blind People See Race? Social, Legal and Theoretical Considerations,”  44 L. & SOC. REV. 585 (2010)

Professor Osagie Obasogie examines how race is socialized and communicated in our society by studying the significance and meaning of race outside of vision. Using the results of an original empirical study, in which blind and sighted subjects are interviewed about their visual understanding of race, he challenges the popularly held notions that race is “primarily a matter of visually physical features” and that people without vision "have a diminished understanding of race.” Blind individuals, in fact, “see” race not through obvious physical difference, but through “the social processes outside of vision that constitute racial categories’ perceptibility and salience.” Not only was the thesis of the article thought-provoking, the supporting analysis is rich, well-conceived, relies upon original empirical data, and has interesting implications for how we see and theorize racial identity in legal and other contexts