Was thinking this morning about how we can internalize hatred, even against ourselves, as children without ever realizing it. This happened to me. My parents were very progressive when it came to civil rights, so if you were to ask me as a child what words came to mind on the 1/
subject of black men I would have said things like: brave, oppressed, strong, honorable, and hardworking.
In truth I never saw or met any black people growing up, but I'm so grateful that when I did I had only positive assumptions.
On the other hand had you asked me the same 2/
In truth I never saw or met any black people growing up, but I'm so grateful that when I did I had only positive assumptions.
On the other hand had you asked me the same 2/
about women the words that would have come to mind were bad, petty, evil, weak, sinful, dumb, unskilled, untrustworthy, temptress... even though I was a girl AND NONE of the women around me displayed these characteristics. I've wasted an entire life in an inner battle against 3/
concepts that were never even represented in my life, about MYSELF. That's how powerful the ideas we are introduced to as children are, even once we logically know better. We may not even realize the biases and untruths that hide in our subconscious until we ask ourselves to 4/
do something like word associate and then do the work to consciously counter/replace each automatic, unbidden belief.
Becoming biased is easy and automatic, breaking it down takes soul searching and work, but it's work we need to ask of each other to create a better world. /end
Becoming biased is easy and automatic, breaking it down takes soul searching and work, but it's work we need to ask of each other to create a better world. /end
