IAT Tests:

Today I took an IAT test that determined if I had a racial preference. No, not if I'm racist or not, just if I have a preference for white or black people. I ended up having a slight preference for white people (on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being heavily preferenced towards white people, my score was a 2)  which, having grown up in a white community and being white myself I found unsurprising. I've never had any reason to hate black people at all but I know a bunch of white people and am not close friends with any African Americans. My brother though is good friends with a this one kid and he gets nicer every time i see him, so I could see that I have a slight bias. I do think though that a major part of this kind of bias is from a person's upbringing. I don't think it's in anyone's nature to treat others as lesser than themselves. This was shown a little bit in a film that I recently saw, called "I Sit Where I Want." There's this one guy who has to be one of the most close minded people I've ever met. During one part of the documentary some students visit each other's homes to get a better sense of how other people live. Anyways, this guy awkwardly stood by the door for a good 5 minutes watching the rest of the family go about their business, not talking and just staring at the family. Later in the film when he had an interview with the camera he explained how all of his close family are what he considers to be a bit racist and it was just painful watching him. So yes, I would say that upbringing plays a large part of being biased or not.

Thoughts on Sexual Harassment

Having recently participated in a mock trial on the topic of sexual harassment I would like to simply share my thoughts on the matter. I may have some very different opinions on the matter but I would attribute this to the role I played. I acted as a sexual harassment expert who insisted that cases in trials should be seen from the "reasonable victim's point of view" I may or may not be biased because of this but to me it makes sense. This theory states that as long as the victim is not crazy or overly paranoid then the severity of the sexual harassment should be viewed from their perspective. In this way, what might have been normal for a guy touching the shoulder of his co-worker and making crude jokes, just like he does with his friends could actually be very taxing on perhaps a fellow woman co-worker in the same office. That was exactly the case that I tried to make in the trial as it was a feud between co-workers but sadly the plaintiff wasn't exactly normal. having grown up without much interaction with other males other than her abusive older brothers, it was a difficult case but I will definitely view sexual harassment from a different perspective now.