In Like Colour to the Blind, Donna Williams enters the most exposing and fragile realm of human interaction: her relationship and eventual marriage with someone with whom she can 'simply be', a relationship she terms a 'specialship'. But loving involves exposure, and to love she must expose the very things which protected her all her life - the masks she has hidden behind, the patchwork creations which stood in place of self. In Donna's relationship with Ian, a man with difficulties related to her own, we watch the two of them break through their rock-solid emotional barriers and dare to defy all the rules imposed by the autistic condition of 'exposure anxiety'. Their struggle is told with Donna's characteristic humour, insight and sense of fragility. Like Colour to the Blind is also the story of Alex, who was misdiagnosed as 'retarded' as well as autistic, and so gripped by 'exposure anxiety' that he has been virtually non-communicative all his life. Alex's fear of being left behind by Donna and Ian inspires him to push fiercely beyond the boundaries of his limitations and, in his own words, `to fly'.

In a story where the text appears in white letters on a black background, as well as in braille, and the illustrations are also raised on a black surface, Thomas describes how he recognizes different colors using various senses.

"Catanese's beautifully written and cogently argued book addresses one of the most persistent sociopolitical questions in contemporary culture. She suggests that it is performance and the difference it makes that complicates the terms by which we can even understand 'multicultural' and 'colorblind' concepts. A tremendously illuminating study that promises to break new ground in the fields of theatre and performance studies, African American studies, feminist theory, cultural studies, and film and television studies." ---Daphne Brooks, Princeton University "Adds immeasurably to the ways in which we can understand the contradictory aspects of racial discourse and performance as they have emerged during the last two decades. An ambitious, smart, and fascinating book." ---Jennifer DeVere Brody, Duke University Are we a multicultural nation, or a colorblind one? The Problem of the Color[blind] examines this vexed question in American culture by focusing on black performance in theater, film, and television. The practice of colorblind casting---choosing actors without regard to race---assumes a performing body that is somehow race neutral. But where, exactly, is race neutrality located---in the eyes of the spectator, in the body of the performer, in the medium of the performance? In analyzing and theorizing such questions, Brandi Wilkins Catanese explores a range of engaging and provocative subjects, including the infamous debate between playwright August Wilson and drama critic Robert Brustein, the film career of Denzel Washington, Suzan-Lori Parks's play Venus, the phenomenon of postblackness (as represented in the Studio Museum in Harlem's "Freestyle" exhibition), the performer Ice Cube's transformation from icon of gangsta rap to family movie star, and the controversial reality television series Black. White. Concluding that ideologies of transcendence are ahistorical and therefore unenforceable, Catanese advances the concept of racial transgression---a process of acknowledging rather than ignoring the racialized histories of performance---as her chapters move between readings of dramatic texts, films, popular culture, and debates in critical race theory and the culture wars.

Exuberant redhead Erik always tries his best, but he just can’t understand why he’s missing homework questions at school and messing up at soccer practice. Then one day in art class everyone notices that Erik’s painted a picture of himself with green hair! It turns out he’s not just creative, he’s color blind, too. Color blindness, also known as Color Vision Deficiency (CVD), affects a significant percentage of the population. The tendency to color-code learning materials in classrooms can make it especially hard for kids with CVD. But once Erik is diagnosed, he and his parents, teachers, coach, and classmates figure out solutions that work with his unique way of seeing, and soon he’s back on track.

Kate McKinnon is back -- and this time it's personal. When two hideously eviscerated bodies are discovered and the only link between them is a bizarre painting left at each crime scene, the NYPD turns to former cop Kate McKinnon, the woman who brought the serial killer the Death Artist to justice. Having settled back into her satisfying life as art historian, published author, host of a weekly PBS television series, and wife of one of New York's top lawyers, Kate wants no part of it. But Kate's sense of tranquility is shattered when this new sequence of murders strikes too close to home. With grief and fury to fuel her, she rejoins her former partner, detective Floyd Brown, and his elite homicide squad on the hunt for a vicious psychopath known as the Color-Blind Killer. In her rage and desperation, Kate allows herself to be drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse. She abandons her glamorous life for the gritty streets of Manhattan, immersing herself in a world where brutality and madness appear to be the norm, where those closest to her may have betrayed her -- and where, in the end, nothing is what it seems.

In these five eloquent and passionate pieces (which she gave as the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC) Patricia J. Williams asks how we might achieve a world where "color doesn't matter"--where whiteness is not equated with normalcy and blackness with exoticism and danger. Drawing on her own experience, Williams delineates the great divide between "the poles of other people's imagination and the nice calm center of oneself where dignity resides," and discusses how it might be bridged as a first step toward resolving racism. Williams offers us a new starting point--"a sensible and sustained consideration"--from which we might begin to deal honestly with the legacy and current realities of our prejudices.

Can love overcome prejudice? Even in the worst days of the recession, the McQueen family remain upbeat. This is what keeps them strong — when all else fails, you can always laugh. Like many of the residents of Fifteen Streets, they are as blunt as they are big-hearted. So imagine their shock when Bridget McQueen brings home her African husband. Colour Blind is an absorbing story of prejudice, racial tension and family feuding in the 1920s.