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So where’s the contradiction? It’s this: Someone who really is colorblind in the strict sense that Stephen claims for himself shouldn’t be able to even recognize someone to be of a different race in the first place,182 let alone want them as a friend because of their race. Stephen risks contradicting himself by saying, on the one hand, that he does not see race but then, on the other hand, being savvy to things about which he should be naive: namely, the politics of race in America. In short, Stephen’s colorblindness seems inconsistent with his search for a black friend.

Now, as I said, it shouldn’t be all that surprising to find Stephen contradicting himself. But there’s an interesting question here: If there’s contradiction in these attitudes (his being colorblind in a particularly extreme way and his using race as a way to pick his friends) what does it mean? Is there a flaw in the character Colbert has created, a kind of discontinuity in an otherwise carefully crafted character? Did Colbert (the comedian and former philosophy major) break the first rule of character: to make’s one character a self-consistent whole? Or does Stephen’s inconsistency point to something deeper, some interesting fact about his worldview, or maybe even some truth about race in America today?

As it happens, I think there is something particularly deep going on in Stephen’s seemingly contradictory attitudes toward race. I’ll try to say what that may be, as well as what it means for race relations in Stephen Colbert’s America.

People Tell Me I’m White

Let’s start by looking more closely at the two attitudes that I think are contradictory in Stephen’s character, as saying precisely how they are contradictory will bring out some interesting features of his thinking. Let’s ask two questions: (1) Why does Stephen claim to be colorblind? If it’s impossible to be colorblind in Stephen’s sense, then he isn’t fooling anyone but himself. But if that’s the case, then why does he cling so tightly to it? (2) Why does he want a black friend? Why should race matter in who he makes friends with? We’ll take the question of colorblindness first.

The idea of a “colorblind” society is often credited to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who in his famous “I Have A Dream” speech of 1963 said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” In this most minimal formulation, to be racially colorblind means not to consider racial markers like skin color when judging another. For example, when considering a candidate for a job, one should only consider those qualities of the candidate that pertain to that his or her ability to perform the job. A colorblind employer is one who ignores race in making hiring decisions.

Now, most of us are not employers in the strict sense. We don’t have employees or make hiring decisions. So in that sense we don’t have the opportunity to be “colorblind employers” like a shop owner does. But we do have opportunities to be colorblind in other ways. We can be “colorblind jurors,” “colorblind colleagues,” “colorblind shoppers,” “colorblind sports fans,” “colorblind friends,” “colorblind lovers,” and much more. The colorblind society that King envisioned can be defined, roughly, as a society where everyone performs their societal roles—such as juror, shopper, friend, lover—in a colorblind way.

If the way that a colorblind society is understood today is any indication, however, the basic concept isn’t as straightforward as it first appears. Consider that, coming up on half a century after King’s call for a colorblind society, proponents on both sides of issues in contemporary American racial politics (such as Affirmative Action) try to claim “true colorblindness.” Some supporters of Affirmative Action programs claim that the only way a true colorblind society can be achieved is by first “picking up” the African-American population. In his book I Am America (And So Can You!),