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Abstract
Many people in the U.S. reject the idea that systemic racial inequalities exist (Neville et al., 2013), and this has been perpetuated through racial colorblindness, the idea that a person’s racial or ethnic identity does not impact their experiences and that everyone should be treated equally (Bonilla-Silva, 2015). I hypothesized that racial colorblindness could be conceptualized in two distinct forms: descriptive colorblindness (e.g., race does not matter) and prescriptive colorblindness (e.g., race should not matter). I hypothesized that exposure to descriptive colorblindness could lead to more implicit colorism, more explicit colorism, and lower perception of racism. In contrast, I hypothesized that exposure to prescriptive colorblindness could lead to less implicit colorism, less explicit colorism, and higher perception of racism. These hypotheses were not supported, however exploratory analyses were consistent with theorizing and suggests distinguishing between descriptive colorblindness and prescriptive colorblindness. Possible implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.