> Here I am old school just thinking the color of a mans skin should have no more significance than the color of his eyes...
I almost certain neither group on either side agrees with that. The people on the left will argue that color is important and is deeply connected to culture and through subconscious/ institutional racism. To pretend to be blind to race or think of it like any other physical characteristic would be to just put your head in the sand and pretend the world is all lollipops and gumballs.
The right will argue that race plays a factor in physical and mental characteristics through culture and possibly genetics. And that too ignore race entirely would be to go against the stats on things like average SAT, ACT, IQ, Crime Rate, etc.
I personally think that there is truth in a lot of what they both say, and ignoring race will not solve tension or conflict in the US. Its very naive to assume that race is skin deep and can be solved by simply pretending it doesn't exist. If it was that easy we would have solved it by now.