Is it better not to study or talk about race at all?

This is from an American perspective, but I am interested in opinions from around the world.

For a while now I have been thinking maybe it is better to ignore race all together. That all the people who are not racist, that includes people of every color and nationality and religion, so including “reverse racism,” just go along treating everyone equally and over time race issues will disappear.

My dad is a sociologist, so I grew up with him knowing stats on all sorts of cultural trends. When I was young he never mentioned race, he always talked in terms of socioeconomic levels. I grew up thinking my parents were completely free of any sort of negative stereotype regarding race, religion, or nationality. Now that I am an adult he also discusses how race is intertwined with the statistics. He would argue, as a sociologist, that we can’t ignore the norms in subgroups in society, black, Hispanic, Irish, Italian, Jews, etc. if we want to improve society. We need to understand why a group does well or not so well to help all of society be better, whatever you define better as.

I think if we are going to be void of race discussions it would have to include getting rid of affirmative action and the government asking our race, maybe even stop asking our nationality. Also, get rid of the United Negro fund and I have also seen Hispanic associations and organizations to help that community. Possibly even get rid of hate crime legislation. Or, maybe that is going too far in your opinion?

What I am getting at is, some people feel we still need to have race relations discussions to finally solve race problems in America. Maybe it is just the opposite. Maybe we just need to lead by example, and eventually the racism will be a thing of the past.

Discuss.