Unraveling Unconscious Bias
\nPragya Agarwal<\/p>\n
After reading for some time, I turned the book over and noticed that there was a sticker on it that said
\nDC public library. I thought how in the heck did I get a library book? I admit I am a bit cheap when it
\ncomes to books that I did not particularly select, but I am sure I did not order this from the DC library. I
\nstarted to wonder whether there was some bias against this book. I went to the library site to see if
\nmaybe it had been booted from the shelves. To my surprise, it was still there, but it was noted that there
\nwere only two copies. I guess I somehow lucked up and got the third.I have my own preferences when it comes to books, I like to have hardcover if they don\u2019t cost too much.<\/p>\n
It is just a preference though; I would not say that it is a bias as the author wrote about. I don\u2019t think
\nthat a paperback has any less value than any other book, it\u2019s just one of those things. Unlike the biases
\nthat many of us have learned throughout our lives. Many biases are unconscious while others are
\nconscious and passed down unconsciously.<\/p>\n
The unconscious biases are what the author sets out to unravel. In the review of the novel, the author
\nspeaks about many ways that we learn biases. We can learn them from family, close connections, and
\neven through our environments. We learn to think that something is better or greater about another
\nrace, sex, party, etc. The author gives us many theories of how this could happen. As an example, she
\nshared her own personal story of how as a girl she was not supposed to be good at math. My favorite
\npart about her example is that she proved his theory to be wrong when she surpassed his genius.<\/p>\n
Like the author, many times I can remember trying to prove biases wrong. Whether it was race or
\ndisability there has always been a fight. My most vivid memory was having an African American older
\nlady tell me that my skin color was not acceptable for a certain college. Where would she have gotten
\nsuch a bias? After reading the book \u201cPassing\u201d it was clear that her ancestors had placed a belief inside of
\nher that the shade of skin made one person better than the other. Let\u2019s just say little brown skin has
\nthree degrees on her wall hoping to work on four.<\/p>\n
In one of my most disappointing fights, a family member sat at the side of my hospital bed and told me
\nto quit school. She said you are sick you can\u2019t go to school like the others. Sidebar (I am that person
\nwhen you say that I can\u2019t, I am going to try my hardest to prove that I can). Who were the others? The
\npeople who had not fought through middle school and high school with illnesses. The people who did
\nnot know that God could do anything but fail. Her bias said that well people could be successful but sick
\npeople needed to stay home and be sick. If you are wondering did I prove that unconscious bias wrong
\nthat was my undergrad year 1999 and this is a doctorate program 21 years after my Master\u2019s. God is so good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unraveling Unconscious Bias Pragya Agarwal After reading for some time, I turned the book over and noticed that there was a sticker on it that said DC public library. I thought how in the heck did I get a library book? I admit I am a bit cheap when it comes to books that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2677],"class_list":["post-31631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agarwaldlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31632,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31631\/revisions\/31632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}