week 6 post 3

Ashley Rowell

Class and professor,

I am going to go a little differently with this post:

Recently, I was in a conversation with someone; my therapist. We were actually discussing prejudice and racism. I indicated to her that I had joined, as a young white woman, the black lives matter march in my local area. Where I work, there was an older black woman who wanted to participate in it and I did not want her to be alone, so I went. There were some "issues" with the march, but, overall, it was safe. There was a lot of concern from the city going in because there had been small riots in the area and they didnt want any harm done to anyone or any buildings. Now, this is also in the middle of COVID, so it was all over the place. In that moment, in that march, EVERYONE came together. It didnt matter age, race, gender, preference.. we all stood together despite our differences.

Now, in this conversation, I was honest and said how it frustrated me how, sometimes, people assume that the only reason they get into trouble is because the color of their skin (Ive heard it from friends growing up and residents here where I work). At that moment, I said its actually not. The reason why "this person" is getting into trouble is because theyre on parole and keep violating. Race isnt an excuse. She responded with this: She either read somewhere or had a friend that was on a subway car late one night by herself. She said all of a sudden a man came in and she thought "on, at least he's white". He eventually stabbed her. She assumed that just because he was white, she was safe. It was interesting to me.

I think these become self-perpetuating when we continuously make assumptions based on a past experience. But, if that experience is repeated, it could strengthen that prejudice as well... if that makes sense.

Re: Topic 6 DQ 2

Instructor Louis and Class,

From the cognitive perspective, stereotyping is inevitable. It stems from the ubiquity and necessity of categorization. Everybody categorize almost everything. By doing so, it helps the brain simplify and process mass amounts of stimuli in the world around us. Humans need to simplify the complex things around them in order to manage it. So, because the body is simplifying information for us without us really even knowing we are creating stereotypes not out of malintent but just to simply process the information. Studies show that people are more likely to create stereotypes when they are at the lowest point in their circadian rhythm. Meaning, when someone is low on mental energy they revert back to stereotypes. However,relying on

stereotypes can save time and effort, it can also lead to mistaken impressions and unfair judgments about individuals. Because stereotypes save mental energy and free up other cognitive abilities, the mind continues to use them in low energy setting there for we perpetuate them (Gilovich et al., 2016).

-Paige S.