February Blog 2

"In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower." (Palczewski, Ice, & Fritch, 2012, p. 112). Posed from the voice of a black woman feminist but I dare to change the possibility of looking at the world with not identifying as black or female but we are people and we all deserve the same rights as human beings even though I am a Mexican Cuban African American woman, I would prefer to be treated equally. The task of educating those who don’t identify the same as I do, should fall not only on the oppressed but also on those in power along with those that don't have it currently. We deal with the real conditions of racism, homophobia, anti-feminist, anti-male, and generally a society that is culpable of not having empathy for people but let us define and empower each person no matter what category we place them in to empower us all. (Palczewski, Ice, & Fritch,. 2012)

Dr. Keith Payne, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Caroline Chapel Hill explains implicit bias as racism. Can we take part as a body of people or community to avoid implicit biases or racism and prejudices? We can see that over the years we have questioned ourselves and began challenging ourselves in everyday life by not making split-second decisions but instead take the time to think about whether we are being biased. According to Payne this is a neuroscientific process. (Payne, 2012)

The attempt to challenge society to take the time to exercise a deep reflection of whether or not we are biased and whether or not it causes us to be prejudice or racist is extreme because we tend to make decisions very quickly and not question them every day. Dr. Keith Payne challenges us by changing our neuro-pathways to function in a way that we balance ourselves and ordinary cognition. Instead of accepting our biases we can go beyond good intentions and for example if we hire an African American woman over an Anglo American man because we have good intentions. Instead let us decide what factors are important to the job and interview blindly to and not whether the person is male or female, black or non-black, handicapped or non-handicapped, etc. We can hope that possibility of the intentions of the authors Palszewski, Ice, & Fitch was meant for us to use rhetoric with symbolic action in a way to construct social reality without bias. (Palczewski, Ice, & Fritch,. 2012)

References

Palczewski, C., Ice, R., & Fritch, J. (2012). Rhetoric in Civic Life. State College, PA: STRATA.

Payne, K. (2012, March 14). Implicit Bias: The Psychology of Ordinary Prejudice in Everyday Life. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.psychologyconcepts.com/implicit-bias-the-psychology-of-ordinary-prejudice-in-everyday-lives-keith-payne/