Colorblindness, not the ophthalmological condition but the notion of aspiring to treat people as individuals, without regard to their race, has taken a beating these past few years. Prominent left-wing thinkers such as Ibram X. Kendi, and “anti-racist” training sessions based on their work, have painted this ideal as nothing more than a way of ignoring or hiding racism. “The only remedy to past discrimination,” Kendi famously insisted, “is present discrimination.”

Coleman Hughes, a young writer and podcast host, has stepped up to defend race neutrality in The End of Race Politics. His point is not that race is irrelevant in modern America but that we should strive to make it so — and that this is best achieved by making race less salient rather than obsessing over it.