In fact, every human has a natural bias, but some can control it better than others. Every human is hardwired with the instinct of prejudging, because back in uncivilized days, it assisted with survival. With the ability to prejudge, humans could identify threats more easily, enabling them to live longer lives. While we have become a civilized society and survival comes easy in America, humans nonetheless have this natural instinct to prejudge or "discriminate." This instinct is strong in me. Whenever I meet someone for the first time, I critically judge and place him or her into a stereotype. Of course, if I were to speak out my biased thoughts, I would be in trouble, so over time I have managed to acquire a filter. My first look at anyone, though, causes a bunch of prejudging thoughts to fill my head. Anyone reading this now probably thinks of me as a bad person, but I can't help it! I accept it, and I try to control it as much as possible.
A test that verified my prejudice was Project Implicit's Race IAT. The test pairs blacks with "good" words and whites with "bad" words, and then the pairs switch. It sends out a flurry of words and faces, and you have to choose which pair it belongs with. The results are calculated from any errors you make during matching. My results indicated that I have a strong preference for whites over blacks. The test did verify my strong natural bias, but I believe it is far from perfect. In my opinion, it's a pointless test. Everyone should know that all humans have a natural bias. And why test for something stupid like that anyway? Okay, I have a strong natural bias; now what? Should I waste my time and try to get rid of this instinct that's impossible to eradicate? Thus, we should all stop freaking out about being prejudice because it's a human instinct; it's okay to be as long as you don't openly express it towards others. Just keep the "don't judge a book by it's cover" moral in mind when you meet somebody, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment