The dangers of a 'colorblind' workplace   As a central part of
the hiring process for junior faculty members in public
management at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government,
candidates must present the research they’ve conducted. Most of
the candidates we have heard from lately — like the majority of
young organizational researchers these days — conduct their
research in a lab setting or with so-called field experiments in
which they use the experimental method in workplaces or other
real venues.  One recent presentation was by Evan Apfelbaum of
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management on the
impact of talking vs. keeping silent about race in interpersonal
interactions.  Apfelbaum started by noting the common view that
it is best to be colorblind in the sense of not noticing the
presence of racial differences in a group setting. He told the
story of seeing a mother react with embarrassment in a
supermarket checkout line when her small child loudly asked her,
“Why is that man’s skin bro