Throughout the unit, The New York Times Project Implicit videos really stuck with me. The Project Implicit team of experts speak about implicit bias and how biases can be formed. Implicit bias can be simply described as a subconscious bias that you may have against someone or something without even completely realizing it. This video series and concept made me question my biases and if I am a racist. I quickly figured out that everyone has implicit biases and that implicit bias is not the same as racism. As expert Calvin Lai said in the video “the word racist is a highly loaded term here in American society.” In the video the Project Implicit crew went into more depth about how implicit biases can be formed.
Dolly Chugh, an expert on bias from New York University said that biases “can be based off of media, news, conversation, education.” Chugh also compared implicit bias “to a fog” that we are all constantly breathing in; Chugh said “that fog leads to associations that lead to biases.” These biases can be based off of race, gender, religion, sex, or just based off of popular stereotypes portrayed in the media. An example of a stereotype is that Black dads are not present in their children’s lives. As we learn in Ronnie B.’s story from Tell Me Who You Are, black dads are actually the most involved. The idea that Black dads are absent in their children’s lives is a crazy stereotype with no basis that is over-represented in television and media. Ronnie also shared that his father is in prison for just loosely fitting the profile of stealing a cellphone. The witness even said that the thief may have been White. Ronnie’s father was most likely seen as a suspect because of the stereotype that Black men are violent criminals. This stereotype most likely caused an implicit bias among the police officers that caused them to pursue Ronnie’s father as a suspect. After hearing Ronnie’s story with the previous knowledge of implicit bias from the NY Times series, I felt upset with the police and culture in America. The part of Ronnie’s story that saddens me the most is that Ronnie has an excellent father, and he does not get to be with him because his father is in prison for loosely fitting a profile. It is absurd to me that there is a stereotype of Black dads not being present in their children’s lives while the police are actively putting those same fathers in prison for being Black. African Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of White people in the United States. It is completely unfair to put people in prison and then claim they are bad fathers because they cannot be present due to being placed in prisons unjustly. As I learned more about race, I also learned about racism. I learned about racism’s negative effect on society. This made me wonder what the opposite of racism was. I soon learned that the opposite of racism is anti-racism. Being an anti-racist does not just mean not being racist. Being an anti-racist means to not only not be racist, but to also actively combat racism through protest and activism as well as trying to use your resources to help fight for equality. An example of anti-racism is the NAACP(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The NAACP’s mission is to “secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.” Racism cannot be completely destroyed by our actions due to racism being part of a greater system that has been used in the U.S. forever, but we can do everything in our power to work towards complete equality.
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