We're talking about grants here, and an important way to judge if someone is capable of doing something worthwhile with free money is to see what they have done in the past. That means publications usually, and it's hard to cite those without exposing the author's names. You can't depend on the research plan alone, since they are so short. Unfortunately reviewer's racist biases are showing through.
Journals, however, should be blinded to the authors, even though that would be hard to do. Having done peer review myself, I find it easier to recommend publication if a field expert is one of the authors (it's hard not to). Usually authors build upon previous work, and with those citations it's pretty obvious who the authors are, even if they aren't explicitly listed.
I hope this gets more publicity, so reviewers can be shamed into being less biased, if that is at all possible.
