{"id":391,"date":"2017-07-05T17:30:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T22:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/?p=391"},"modified":"2017-07-05T17:39:13","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T22:39:13","slug":"perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/2017\/07\/perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Something that we all tend to lack. No one is at fault, really. We are all bound to what we experience in life and everyone&#8217;s experience is different. Everyone is unique and has their own story. But that&#8217;s it. We need to realize everyone&#8217;s story is different from the world that we experience.\u00a0 In a world full of information we fight to make sense of it all and usually we can&#8217;t consciously do that. Our brain has to unconsciously &#8220;connect the dots&#8221; else we&#8217;d be just downright overwhelmed but the brain can only make sense of what it is given; any thing further is just assumptions the brain has conjured. Therefore any assumption we make colors our perception of everyone we meet, every situation we are in, every decision we make. Implicit Bias.<\/p>\n<p>Implicit bias is natural. Everyone has it. Although when it&#8217;s applied to social constructs or power systems it becomes dangerously easy to believe these assumptions rather than truth. It&#8217;s the classic &#8216;expectations versus reality&#8217;. What are we really lacking if we fall prey to it? Perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my first attempt at Spoken Word trying to address Implicit Bias as natural and the way to hopefully tone it down with some perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Verses below!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Perspective\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5YK2Kx1KZUI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nLet\u2019s play a game, guess where I\u2019m from<br \/>\ndon\u2019t be shy I won\u2019t get mad if you get it wrong<br \/>\nI\u2019ve done this like a thousand times I\u2019ve heard it all.<br \/>\nJust take a moment and think.<br \/>\nPause.<br \/>\nI want you to take a good look inside<br \/>\nand see<br \/>\nwhere your mind has placed me<\/p>\n<p>You see,<br \/>\nIt\u2019s amazing how fast our brains begin to perceive<br \/>\nBelieve, just by what we see or hear, a whole world built in a blink<br \/>\nJust like the movie Inception<br \/>\nour perception fills in the context<br \/>\nWithin layers of our subconscious<br \/>\nOf the \u201cperson\u201d standing before us<br \/>\nNo need for tops or totems cause you ain\u2019t dreaming<br \/>\nwelcome to our mind, our mental house, our private club<br \/>\nit exists; no reason to fight it or hide it,<br \/>\nbecause the first rule is we don\u2019t talk about<br \/>\nFight Club<br \/>\nYou see,<br \/>\nin your Beautiful Mind,<br \/>\nThis fabrication passing on as your perception<br \/>\nis that glitch in the Matrix you can\u2019t recognize<br \/>\ndon\u2019t be surprised<br \/>\nabout the Butterfly Effect of assumptions that inform your decisions,<br \/>\nThe Sixth sense of your conscience using your Source Code of experience<br \/>\nSinging the Requiem for your Dream- like state<br \/>\nHear me out, this ain\u2019t explicit or rated R,<br \/>\nIt\u2019s E for everyone,<br \/>\nAcceptable for all audiences, it\u2019s implicit.<br \/>\nBias<\/p>\n<p>Implicit bias, the function of the brain to<br \/>\nConnect the dots that we call information<br \/>\nfrom every past experience<br \/>\nreflecting hidden thoughts and attitudes<br \/>\nit\u2019s somewhat mysterious<br \/>\njust how oblivious<br \/>\nit says things are obvious<br \/>\nassumptions, presumptions, unconscious<br \/>\nchoices accepted by our own conscience<br \/>\nImplicit. Bias.<br \/>\nThe truth is nobody\u2019s exempt its how we\u2019re wired<br \/>\nThere\u2019s no gain for our brain to explain<br \/>\nEvery connection that is made<br \/>\nIt\u2019s act and react, fight or flight,<br \/>\nFilling in the gaps to put up with<br \/>\nThe millions of decisions we make every day<br \/>\nSo pray, listen carefully to what I say:<br \/>\nits unintentional, unconscious its our bias.<br \/>\nlet me repeat myself<br \/>\nits unintentional, unconscious, its our bias<br \/>\nInherently neither good nor bad<br \/>\nBut when created out of our own lack of experience<br \/>\nit begins to color any other ideology<br \/>\nThat is painted internally<br \/>\nDyeing the colors of race, power and class hierarchy.<br \/>\nWe got tinted glasses on, no matter how objective we claim to be<br \/>\nThese contacts that put on our context<br \/>\nWe only see the world through the lenses that\u2019s been given to us<br \/>\nWe don\u2019t see 20\/20 what we need is lasik surgery<br \/>\nTo remove each speck<br \/>\nFocused rays per speck<br \/>\nBeam of light known as perspective<\/p>\n<p>You see,<br \/>\nOur implicit bias applied to race<br \/>\nCreate things like<br \/>\nhearts quickening their pace<br \/>\nWhen you see a black man walking by with a hoodie<br \/>\nAsians being casted for martial arts scenes because that makes sense<br \/>\nfor Latinos to be labelled as immigrants good at cleaning, construction and cooking<\/p>\n<p>You see,<br \/>\nLook it&#8217;s not about being a racist,<br \/>\nyet implicit racial bias exists<br \/>\nYet if you don\u2019t want it to persist<br \/>\nStep out of your comfort zone<br \/>\nAnd into the shoes<br \/>\nFor whose experiences<br \/>\nthat you can&#8217;t see<br \/>\nEmpathize to<br \/>\nrealize what our real eyes are lacking<br \/>\nis perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Now,<br \/>\nOpen your eyes.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m sorry the game was over before<br \/>\nyou closed your eyes<br \/>\nso what I want to offer you is some perspective<br \/>\nso sit down, relax and<br \/>\nLet me tell you where I\u2019m really from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perspective. Something that we all tend to lack. No one is at fault, really. We are all bound to what we experience in life and everyone&#8217;s experience is different. Everyone is unique and has their own story. But that&#8217;s it. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/2017\/07\/perspective\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/talkingaboutrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}