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aros001 · 3 years ago

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First time read through light novel vol. 3. Random thoughts.

The Six Witches had made the world scream, but this witch wiped them out in one fell swoop, ushering in a calamity that destroyed half the world.

A hero had sealed her flesh within a crystal, where she continued to sleep, even then, in some corner of the world.

I'd say Satella is like this world's Voldemort with how much people hesitate to even talk about her, but honestly she seems like she'd slap the back of his bald head and call him a bitch. Honestly, she's the character I'm looking forward to getting to know more about than the rest of the cast, even Emilia, whom I've heard gets a lot of her development after where the anime left off. Given how plenty of "witch" stories go in fiction and even Ram telling Subaru that the country naturally has a bias against the witch because of its connection to the dragon that helped seal her, I could totally see this being a situation where Satella was just trying to stop evil (the Six Witches) and ended up being persecuted and called a monster by history. ...But I wouldn't be opposed to her just being f**king evil. I love me a good villain.

I already liked Rem and Beatrice from the anime, but while I never disliked Emilia and Ram, I am finding myself a lot more into those two through these books than I was before. I can't quite put my finger on what's different. I suppose knowing where things go helps a bit but the narration and going at my own pace gives me better focus on their interactions and relationships with Subaru. I don't think I got as good a feel for Emilia's character in the anime and while I still don't know a lot about her, I do think she has a bit more reaction here. She can get angry, pout, and does seem to genuinely enjoy Subaru's company, where maybe she felt a little too one-note sometimes in the anime? I don't know. And Ram is just the best. I live for her attitude and she does give off a bit of a big sister vibe when she's with Subaru. Like Roswaal noted in the first loop in his and her private chat, Ram does seem actually fond of Subaru. Not in a romantic way. She just seems to have fun with him, especially with all her little jabs and slight bullying.

“My specialty is ice, but it’s actually fire mana. Fire relates mainly to temperature, so cooling that which is hot is classified as part of fire, apparently.”

I'm apparently a f**king nerd because I love getting rules for a world's made-up systems like magic and this is a pretty unique style compared to what I'm used to. The elements are not constrained just to what something literally is but rather how it relates to something. Ice is water but what forms ice is temperature. Water is more related to healing.

The right hand went for his heart; the other caressed Subaru’s cheek like it was fond of him.

Again, I'm really looking forward to knowing what the deal is with Subaru and Satella (assuming the hands are hers), especially since he comments that the hand on his cheek brought a sense of warmth and relief (while the other was squeezing his heart). Consciously or not, he's feeling some kind of connection to her.

I'm a big fan of superhero stories, and while there's nothing better than seeing the hero win after a hard fought battle, there is one trope I really like, where what defines a hero isn't just the battles they win but what they do when faced with a battle they can't. Credit to Subaru, he knew he had little to no chance of beating the shaman and its hordes. He was terrified, drained, badly injured, and even crying for his parents...and he still fought anyway. I think the narration implies that's part of what impressed Rem too when they were working to save the kids; Subaru doing everything he can to help in spite of his uselessness.

For some reason, when her fingers gently grazed his mind, Subaru wanted to weep. The wave of strange emotion washing over him suggested that he had always been waiting for her to do so.

He had an instinctive desire for the wriggling shadow to embrace him, to swallow him whole—and then it stopped. Something had stopped it.

Subaru’s mind realized that there was another shadow, its white fingers embracing him from behind.

Two shadows? I'm under the impression one of them is Satella but I'm curious who the other is? Given Rem was holding Subaru's hand when he woke up I'd think it was her but the narration talks about the shadow coming from behind him, nothing to do with his hands.

She had short blue hair. Her face was more the “lovely” than “pretty” type. At first, he thought she showed little emotion on her face, but she was coming around on that bit by bit. He wasn’t afraid of her. He wasn’t afraid of her at all.

There was a Rem who had made Subaru loop more than once, but here was a Rem happy from the bottom of her heart that he had come back alive. It was all by chance.

There was the Rem who ran amok for her sister’s sake, the Rem who acted rashly to protect Subaru, the Rem who ran off before switching to Berserker Mode so that she wouldn’t cause friendly fire—

One suggestion I've seen before about why Subaru might not ever be able to return Rem's feelings in full, beyond his own love for Emilia, is because he'll always have those past memories of Rem torturing him. That no matter how much he grows to like her their relationship will always be held back because he subconsciously still associates that horrible experience with her. I'll have to see how if the books ever bring that up, because while I can buy that being a thing, Subaru seems to view the Rem that tortured him and the Rem he knows as two different people, acknowledging how mixed up she is. His feelings for Emilia are definitely stronger, given that she's been his rock and oasis throughout all his lives and horrible experiences; the one consistently good thing he could always count on. But I'm not sure how much he holds it against other people. Only the three thugs and Elsa have been consistently awful to him.

Also, I'm don't know what's funnier: that they tied Emilia to a chair to keep her from going after Subaru, or that it was Beatrice's idea and Puck helped her with it?

Roswaal and Ram is going to be interesting going forward, especially because I'm not sure yet whether to trust him. Roswaal is a very fun character and has helped Subaru a few times...but he's definitely shady. And that comment that the hornless beasts obey whoever cut off their horns...so does that apply to demons like the twins as well? I'm not saying Roswaal had anything to do with Ram losing her horn, it easily could be just a situation he took advantage of.

I always found the source of Rem's guilt complex really interesting because it's such an extreme reaction but it also feels oddly realistic. She felt happy, just for a moment, about something terrible and spent the next several years of her life feeling so guilty over it that she gave up practically everything about herself to try and make up for it. There's no doubt in my mind that the sisters love each other and that's probably why it hit her so hard. If Ram was just some pompous bitch who didn't deserve any of her strength and skill it'd be one thing, but Ram did take care of Rem and Rem did admire and love her, thus why she feels like such scum being momentarily happy about one of the worst things possible happening to her beloved sister, just so she'd never have to live in her shadow again. You spend enough time obsessing and beating yourself up over something like that, of course you develop a complex. I don't blame Ram for not trying to straighten Rem out sooner either. She was also just a kid when it happened and while she told Subaru the loss of her horn doesn't bother her anymore (or at least doesn't bother her as much as it did), then that implies it was a major blow to her back then. I don't think she ever took it out on Rem, more likely that she was just depressed or felt empty/incomplete and Rem picking up the slack and always helping out probably made that time a little easier to deal with. By the time Ram is old enough to realize the complex her sister's developed Rem's too far down the spiral for her to simply be talked out of it. The only adult figure left in their lives who could have stopped all of this was Roswaal and he's made pretty clear he has no problem using Ram as a way to keep Rem loyal. I don't know his character well enough yet to say where his morality lies, but he doesn't strike me as the type of guy to sit a young Rem down and try to talk her through her guilt; not when it can be used in purpose of his great goal, something to do with when a dragon (assumedly the one from the Witch of Envy story) dies.

I've only seen the anime once so I can totally believe I probably missed all the parallels this arc draws between Subaru and Rem and I love them.

And seeing him struggle so hard to produce results in spite of inferior ability reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Both of them working themselves frantically, bottling up their feelings as their thoughts are running so fast that they're about ready to crack from all the pressure and guilt they're placing on themselves. When Subaru is attacked by the dogs upon pushing Rem out of the way she flashes back to when Ram got her horn cut off saving her, practically doubling her guilt complex. My favorite comes at the end after Subaru and Rem's talk. While she's not in his lap, her crying and letting her emotions flow while he gently strokes her hair is a great callback to when he was crying in Emilia's lap. While it's not exactly a dignified way you'd want to look in front of the person you love, making you seem a lot like a child, for Subaru and Rem's own mental health it was definitely what they needed. At the very least, in Rem's case, while he didn't hear the full story because he didn't want her to tell him, he'd heard enough to piece together her breakdown was over feelings of guilt and inferiority towards her sister. With poor Subaru, he can't tell Emilia the real reason for his breakdown. As far as her perspective goes, Subaru was so frantic and pushing himself way too hard simply because he was afraid of having to leave them, which technically is true, but she'll never know how real it is to him the possibility that he might just lose everything or how many times he's already gone through that.

“So I mean, you said you were a substitute, but Ram has no substitute for you, does she? I mean, if you weren’t there for her, can you imagine the state she’d be in?”

I love that line. It's a great callback, as while Rem will never know it, Subaru himself has seen how deeply Ram loves her and the state she'd be in if Rem died. But if I'm remembering correctly how the later arcs go, it's another nice parallel between Subaru and Rem. In this case, him being so lost in his devotion to Emilia that he doesn't consider her side of things, but I'll talk more about that if and when it does come up in the story.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/comments/gmek8z/novels_first_time_read_through_light_novel_vol_3/

#re:zero #random thoughts #reddit repost

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loudlytransparenttrash · 7 years ago

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This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 11

While Evergreen State College students were protesting a professor who wasn’t cool with every white person being told to leave the campus for the day, the school's provost asked professors to go easy on students who "have diverted time and energy from their academic work," and to consider “the physical and emotional commitment” of student protesters when deciding their final grades. “The student protesters have diverted time and energy from their academic work to promote institutional change and social justice.” This comes after college president George Bridges had agreed to comply with student demands that protesters be excused from homework assignments while they demonstrated their disgust with the professor.

A University of Utah professor has created a "Racial Battle Fatigue Research Group" to examine the ways in which "microaggressions" cause "battle fatigue" for non-white people. “The focus of the Racial Battle Fatigue Research Group will be to examine offensive racial mechanisms i.e. racial microaggressions and racial battle fatigue in education,” according to the group’s website. While there is no formal research project affiliated with the group, it plays host to monthly meetings during which students discuss racial battle fatigue and methods of combatting it.��The group’s leader explained that to stop “battle fatigue,” white people need to stop committing microaggressions and other instances of racism. “People should be aware of how things they may say or do subconsciously can be perceived or received as racial microaggressions. While the vast majority of whites are people who don't intend to do those things, these microaggressions can still hurt people of color, regardless of intent.”

To the mounting list of ways to possibly offend other students on college campuses these days, you can now add talking about your homework. “Sure, you had no ill-intent, and absolutely nothing racist in mind at all, but by merely uttering that you found your homework easy out loud, you risk a microaggression,” Stanford Prof, Ruth Starkman writes. Trying to explain why an assignment wasn’t too hard for you is also a microaggression. “Not everyone went to your high school, had your fortunate circumstances, or such a dazzling delivery room arrival.” Fundamentally, Starkman says, some students struggle while others breeze through because of an injustice - namely “unevenly distributed knowledge.” In Starkman’s mind, any student who comes to a university with a decent educational foundation is excelling because of their wealth and privilege. “Congrats if you did. Try not to be a jerk about it.”

A “privilege checklist” provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asks students to acknowledge that being unaware of their privilege is itself a form of privilege. The “Diversity Learning Tree” offers a series of “privilege checklists” designed to help students determine whether they have White privilege, Able-bodied privilege, Heterosexual privilege, Male privilege or Social class privilege. The checklists are based on the Peggy McIntosh article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” which argues that white people benefit from an “invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks” not enjoyed by people of other races. Notably, the final item on the male privilege list paradoxically states, “I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.”

A professor at Georgia State University has published an academic journal article lamenting the “insidiousness of silence and whiteness” on college campuses. She plans to show how white professors contribute to oppression by failing to speak out against microaggressions. Her main issue describes the reaction to the U.S. News & World Report ranking falling due to low GRE scores for admitted PhD students, where suggestions saying no applicants with scores below the 50th percentile should be admitted is simply unacceptable. She points out that “78 percent of African American examinees had combined scores that fell below 300, as did 66 percent of Puerto Rican examinees,” and that therefore the proposed high standards would adversely affect those subgroups. Towards the end of her paper, she explains how the silence of white academics on racial issues in academia contributes to oppression. “Remaining silent may itself be the luxury of white privilege and may reinforce oppression. This is particularly true when working as a white faculty member, operating with high levels of white fragility, within a system of higher education cloaked in whiteness.”

Public museums and memorials serve our nation’s “foundational commitments to white heterosexual male supremacy,” according to two Texas A&M University professors. It’s unsurprising that Tasha Dubriwny and Kristan Poirot both teach Women’s Studies at TAMU. “In short, the embodiment of the American identity in commemorative sites is, more often than not, a white heterosexual cisgendered male, reaffirming the ‘great man’ perspective that dominated American historiography for too long.” Dubriwny also worries that war memorials in particular could perpetuate a problematic ethos of masculinity within the broader culture, saying they highlight “an aggressive, heroic, combat-centric masculinity and take part in a larger heteronormative cultural script.”

University of Maryland campus police launched an investigation into a discarded piece of plastic wrap after receiving a report about a “possible hate-bias” incident. “Out of an abundance of concern, we are looking into this matter and conducting a review of our cameras in the area,” the department informed students via email. A UMD student tweeted a picture of the plastic wrap suggesting he was convinced that the detritus was intended to resemble a noose. In response, another student remarked that "I'm sick and tired of all these fucking nooses." The campus police said in their statement that this noose was rather “a type of material used to contain loose items during transport.” Colleges are so unsafe these days, you guys!

Aztecs. Redskins. Crusaders. Those are a few of the mascots that have been deemed offensive over the years. There’s a new one to add to the list: Millionaires. That’s the moniker for Lenox Memorial Middle and High School in Massachusetts, but now students polled at the school want a new nickname. A ninth-grader at the school said, “It divides us within our community. It has become associated with the top 1 percent of our country, which excludes and burdens a very large majority of the population and currently plays a large role in the division of the United States.” The mascot has historical origins, dating back to decades ago when millionaires who owned cottages in the town donated money to build the school and kept the town afloat as local residents served in the military overseas. But fuck those rich white assholes.

The new director of the Claremont Colleges’ LGBTQ center has drawn concern over his tweets saying he’s “wary of and keeps his distance from white gays and well meaning white women” and that police exist to “service and protect white supremacy.” Jonathan Higgins was recently appointed as the new director of the Queer Resource Center of the Claremont Colleges, a cluster of five elite private campuses in Los Angeles County.

Two feminist Geography professors, Rutgers University professor Carrie Mott and University of Waterloo professor Daniel Cockayne wrote an article for an academic journal arguing that citations in scholarly articles contribute to "white heteromasculinity" by ignoring research by women and people of color. They say that “white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds,” but dismiss the idea that this is due to the relative preponderance of white male geographers. “To cite white men does a disservice to researchers and writers who are othered by white heteromasculinism,” they argue, defining “white heteromasculinism” as “an intersectional system of oppression describing on-going processes that bolster the status of those who are white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.” They just so happen to leave out the fact that men account for 63 percent of geography professors, and publish 73 percent of research articles related to geography. As always though, if a woman or minority is misrepresented, it has to be because they are being oppressed.

Reed College in Oregon is offering an all-inclusive, all-expenses paid trip for high school students from “historically underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds.” The program is only available to “African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander" students. Minority students are eligible to apply for the all-expenses paid trip regardless of their socioeconomic status or their need for travel assistance. Similarly, the “Women of Distinction” program at Smith College provides an all-expenses-paid campus visit for selected “African American, Asian American, Latina, and Native American students.”

Colleges should “screen” speakers to ensure that they are not giving a platform to “intolerant perspectives,” a University of Maryland student argues. Moshe Klein argues that "there are important reasons to censor speech on the campus," saying some viewpoints make certain students feel "unsafe." “There is nothing inherently wrong with screening speakers, teachers and even students on the campus. Intolerant points of view prevent certain groups of people from participating in campus life safely. There are important reasons to censor speech on the campus,” Klein asserts. He says students would be justified in tearing down “fascist white power posters” and contends that it was reasonable for Harvard to revoke the acceptances of incoming freshmen who participated in meme-sharing, because such action demonstrated “that there is no space for intolerant behavior.”

The Chicago Theological Seminary offers a video on its website designed to help white people understand their privilege by donning a metaphorical pair of "white privilege glasses." The group explain that “the racial divide will only change when white people understand the concepts of privilege and begin to identify and correct the systems that advantage one group over the other.” One of the first scenes the white person encounters is a street sign indicating “Jefferson St.” and “Washington St.” both of which transform to read “slave owner” through the lens of the white privilege glasses. In another instance, the man walks up to a police officer and gets a friendly response, only to have the officer storm away once he puts on the white privilege glasses. The video concludes with the person wearing the white privilege glasses failing to hail a taxi. In addition, the guide also asks participants to “Perform A White Privilege Audit” by taking a few minutes to “consider how White Privilege manifests itself in your life.” “Look at the pictures hanging on the walls of your home. Who is represented in your personal photographs? In paintings? Who are the artists? Do they reflect various races?” one of the prompts asks.“Look at names of the streets in your town. Or the names of local colleges. Or, even the faces on the money in your pocket. How many are white?”

Freshmen at San Jose State University now have to pay for their own mandatory diversity training, which is incorporated into a Frosh Orientation that comes with a $250 price tag. The addition of microaggressions training to the orientation was made public by Chief Diversity Officer Kathleen Wong. According to Wong, the training consists of a video of microaggression skits, filmed with the cooperation of a film class in SJSU’s on-campus studio. “Attending is required,” their FAQ page reiterates, warning, “If you do not attend or leave during any portion, you will be blocked from class registration.” Financial costs for start with a $250 registration fee and an $80 fee for each family member accompanying, and students must pay either $54 or $71 per person per night for bedrooms during their orientation.

American University sophomore Leanna Faulk has penned a letter to complain about how white people make it about themselves after a terrorist attack. The “One Love Manchester” concert benefiting victims of that city’s terrorist attack was one of her main issues with white people and their “savior complex.” She writes, “Only two of the 16 performers at the One Love Manchester concert were black: Pharrell Williams and the Black Eyed Peas. While the majority of the individuals affected by this attack were not black, it is still very important to recognize the lack of non-white entertainers asked to perform. Organizers of other benefit concerts like One Love Manchester play a role in promoting the white savior complex by allowing white individuals to speak in times of crisis.”

UC Berkeley’s SHIP, the Student Health Insurance Plan, will add two new benefits for transgender students beginning next month: fertility preservation and laser hair removal. The former is necessary as hormones used to treat gender dysmorphia can completely scramble their fertility and the latter is “critically important for transfeminine people.” Last year SHIP expanded its transgender benefits to include “male-to-female top surgery.”

A New York University librarian recently felt compelled to pen a post bemoaning the “racial fatigue” she experiences “in the presence of white people” following an academic conference. She says said that she “hit her limit” after spending five days “being splained to” by "white men librarians" and "nice white ladies." “Race fatigue is a real physical, mental, and emotional condition that people of color experience after spending a considerable amount of time dealing with the micro- and macro-aggressions that inevitably occur when in the presence of white people,” she wrote. “The more white people, the longer the time period, the more intense the race fatigue.”

A top UK university is to replace portraits of its founding fathers with a “wall of diversity” of scholars from different backgrounds following pressure from students. Kings College London is planning to remove the portraits of former university staff from the main entrance wall and replace them with BME (Black and minority ethnic) people. The proposal to exclude white scholars from the entrance wall follows criticism from students who claimed that the presence of such portraits is too “intimidating” for minorities. Professor Patrick Leman, who unveiled the plans, said that the university will swap “busts of 1920s bearded men” with more diverse scholars to ensure the institution feels less “alienating.”

#college

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tipsycad147 · 5 years ago

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How To Connect To Your Intuition With Tarot

Julie Hopkins

The tarot deck is a collection of seventy-eight cards that can be used as a form of divination by witches and non-witches alike. The earliest forms of the modern tarot deck have been traced back to the 15th century.

The Rider-Waite tarot deck is currently the most widely used deck, but there are SO many beautiful tarot decks that depict the traditional seventy-eight cards in different ways. It doesn’t matter which deck you use. My only advice here is to pick the one you feel drawn to. That “pull” to a certain deck is your intuition talking to you.

I started with the Rider-Waite deck simply because I happened to stumble across it at the mall. I distinctly remember feeling a thrill of excitement and a hint of curiosity when I picked up the box and turned it over in my hands. Looking back, I believe those feelings came from my intuition.

Since then, that deck and I have been through a lot. We’ve weathered breakups and tough decisions, new jobs, and celebrations. During my tarot readings, I’ve pulled cards that have made me laugh and some that have made me tear up. Many times I’ll pick a card that is so spot on I’ll have to pause to catch my breath.

I’ve used my deck so often that whenever I hold the cards in my hands, it just feels… comfortable—like a broken-in pair of boots or a conversation with my best friend.

But Aren’t Tarot Cards Just Ink On Paper?

Yes, they are. That deck of tarot cards you ordered on Amazon is nothing but pretty designs printed on seventy-eight pieces of springy cardstock.

The magic happens with you begin to interact with your deck. The tarot cards provide us with a tangible way to connect to our power, the power around us, and our intuition.

There are a lot of different ways to use tarot cards, and I am a HUGE advocate of experimenting with any and all methods that get you excited. For this article, I’ll be focusing on just one way you can interact with your tarot cards: How to connect with your intuition with tarot.

What Is Intuition?

Intuition has been called a bunch of different things—instinct, a hunch, following your heart, a gut feeling, or a sixth sense. It’s that feeling you get when you meet your best friend for the first time and think, “This person is pretty awesome.” Essentially, it’s a sense of “knowing” something without any kind of concrete evidence. You just… know.

Intuition is something we all have—we’re born with it, and it’s powerful.

Learning to connect to it can enrich your witchcraft practice in wonderful ways. Tarot is my favourite way to connect with my intuition because it’s simple and can easily be woven into my daily routine. Whether you’re an experienced card reader or a total newbie, you can use this method to connect with your intuition right NOW.

How To Connect To Your Intuition With Tarot

Step One: Introduce Your Intuition to Your Tarot Deck

Sit in a quiet place where you feel calm and grounded. Light some candles, turn on some music or sip a cup of tea while you do this. Create a peaceful environment. Have a journal and pen nearby.

Hold your cards between your palms and close your eyes. Invite your intuition to express itself through your cards. You can do this by speaking aloud to your intuition or by thinking it silently your head. Something like, “Hi Intuition. Thanks for always being there. I am opening up a new channel for us to talk with these tarot cards. Please guide my hands, and my thoughts as I interact with this deck.”

Now reach out with all your senses and take notice of everything. No observation is too small for this exercise.

Start with your thoughts. Did anything pop into your mind when you talked to your intuition? Did you think of a specific word, phrase or image?

Next, pay attention to your feelings. What are you feeling? Can you name the emotions? Are there conflicting feelings? Did any of these thoughts bring up joy or laughter? What about anxiousness or excitement? Don’t pass any judgement on your feelings. Each one is valid and each is a message from your intuition as it interacts with your cards for the first time.

Finally, search your body for physical sensations. Notice the weight and texture of the cards in your hands. Then shift your attention to how the cards make your hands feel. Do you feel anything unusual? A tingling? A temperature change? A bit of pressure? How about in your arms? Can you feel any new sensations? Go through all your other body parts—your stomach, chest, throat, forehead, shoulders, and legs. Pinpoint where each sensation is happening.

Take a few minutes to journal about everything you’ve just experienced. Get super detailed, and don’t censor yourself. There’s no wrong answer here. If you have trouble with this exercise, give it a try later and see what happens. Your intuition will always be there when you call on it, so try this exercise as many times as you want!

Step Two: Shuffling and Drawing Cards With Your Intuition

You can’t go wrong with a simple overhand shuffle, but if you want to try a riffle shuffle, go right ahead. Sometimes I’ll spread my cards out on the floor and slide them around like a kid playing with finger paint until I feel like they’re mixed up just right. Then I’ll gather them up in a pile and cut them anywhere from one to three times. Again, this is another opportunity to let your intuition guide you. Do whatever feels right.

When you draw cards, you can either pull from the top of the deck after shuffling or you can fan the whole deck out on a flat surface like a rainbow and pick cards one at a time from different places in your deck.

Before I select cards, I hold my left hand out, palm up, and ask my intuition to guide my hand. Traditionally, the left hand is used for “receiving”, and I’ve had success with that. I wait until I feel some kind of sensation in my hands. Then I hover my hand over the cards until I feel some kind of sensation again. For me, it feels like a tingling or a soft poke on my fingertips. It’s different for everyone, so be open to whatever happens.

Step Three: How To Ask Questions to Your Intuition with Your Tarot Deck

You can ask your intuition anything you want. I talk to my intuition like she’s a wise friend who knows me better than I know myself. I’ll ask things like, “What message do you want to tell me right now?” or “What energy do I need to get the most out of today?”.

Other types of questions I ask include:

What do I need to solve this issue?

What is holding me back from my goal?

What will I experience if I chose this outcome?

How do I REALLY feel about this person/situation/outcome?

What am I not seeing clearly in this situation?

After I ask my question to my intuition, I pull one to three cards to reveal the answer.

Sometimes I get clear answers. Sometimes I learn that the answer to my questions can’t be fully communicated through the scope of the seventy-eight cards.

In time if you keep asking questions, you’ll discover which ones work best with your tarot cards. It helps to word your questions in an open-ended way. For example: Instead of asking a “yes” or “no” question, try asking for guidance on an issue.

Step Four: Interpreting Your Tarot Cards with Intuition

You can always use good ol’ Google to look up keywords and in-depth meanings of the tarot cards, but consider going “off-book” for this exercise. This process is similar to step one.

When you pull a card, take a moment to look at the image, number, and suit of the card. Then observe everything—your thoughts, your feelings, and your physical sensations. Did this card make your heart pound? Did it bring up a joyful memory of your ex-lover?

Write down your first reactions to the cards you pull based on what you receive from your intuition and don’t worry if it’s totally different from the traditional meaning of the card. This is an unconventional method of interpretation, but it can open up a direct channel to your intuition. It might take some practice, but it’s worth exploring. Don’t dismiss any thoughts or impressions as wrong, or insignificant. Journal about all of it and see where that train of thought takes you. I’ve discovered a lot of my subconscious beliefs through this method of interpreting the tarot cards.

For example, I asked my intuition what energy I had in my body one morning, and I pulled the five of wands. The Rider-Waite deck depicts the card’s symbolism with a group of men trying to hit each other with sticks. When I saw the image, I immediately thought about the heated argument I’d had with a co-worker the day before about politics. I realised I was still holding onto that anger and I needed to forgive myself for losing my cool. This card traditionally isn’t about forgiveness, but that was the message I received from my intuition in that moment.

How Do I Know I’m Talking To My Intuition?

Well, you don’t... Not for sure anyway. This is something I struggle with as a witch from time to time. I’ll find myself noticing an interesting sensation in my hands, and I wonder, “Is this all in my head?” or “Can I trust this?”

Every witch will have to answer those questions for himself or herself. I’ve made peace with this by realising it doesn’t matter to me. Whether I’m making it all up, or I’m channelling my inner power, the most important thing for me is how this process makes me feel. When I explore my questions and concerns through the lens of tarot cards, I feel powerful and connected to something larger than myself.

Tarot Tips For Connecting With Your Intuition

If possible, let go of any personal bias or preconceived ideas before you draw a card. Trust that your intuition will answer you with love and wisdom.

Acknowledge and release your inner critic. You might hear that nagging little voice in your head telling you that you’re not powerful enough or experienced enough to use tarot to talk to your intuition. Let those thoughts float out of your mind. I believe everyone has the power to connect with their intuition.

Don’t be afraid to ask any question that comes to mind, and don’t worry if you’re really confused by the cards you pull. This has happened to me many times. It’s all part of the process. Just sit with the cards for a moment and stay open to whatever your intuition brings you.

Do you know how to get the best readings from your Tarot yet?

If the answer is no, then you’re missing out on one of the most useful tools in the craft!

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thatsjustsupergirl · 8 years ago

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ur post about fic & racism in the supergirl fandom really got me thinking (especially about my own biases so thank you) but also like, how there’s this incredibly pervasive but subtle new form of racism I haven’t seen b4 in other fandoms? Like on one hand u have this loud condemnation of how racist monel is & how he was a slave owner blabh blah but no corresponding attention given to the existing Black characters. 1/4

I get wlw not wanting to write m/f fic but a lot of the fandom doesn’t reblog (or make) any of the gifsets, they don’t meta for him they don’t call for more screen time for Mehcad. Same for M’gann. SO many posts talking about how awful monel is compare him to Lena and strangely don’t mention the Black female character who also came from an oppressive society to become a hero? And there are like, idk, 4 people? Who write or post wlw fic with M’gann in it? 2/4

Same with Maggie. A huge segment of fandom decided Floriana is white (even tho hollywood clearly won’t cast her in roles for white women) so they use that as an excuse to exclusively stan the very light skinned white wlw. And the way it carries over to the characters, like, okay Flo is white? but Maggie is absolutely treated like a woc in how parts of fandom aggressively ignore her & find ways to demonize her character while overtly supporting lighter skinned characters ¾

And that same part of the fandom doesn’t ever seem to create content for Lucy or Vasquez either. IDK this isn’t something u can probably explore with stats but ur post really got me thinking and it just feels really gross now bc I see all these posts condemning racism but there’s still this extreme perpetuation of privileging white characters at the same time? & I haven’t seen this particular trend in fandom b4 4/4

Oh, anon, this made my day. I have a bunch of notes waiting in a doc to address the whole Mon-El thing with regard to the racist undertones and the rhetoric used by the show to frame his storyline, and I will do my best to write it before the season comes back again, because I genuinely think they tried to aim high and just … missed completely. (But I make no promises because my thesis defense is on Tuesday.)

To your first point re: fandom attitudes – I was surprised in the early half of S2 when so many people came out of the woodwork making posts in the main tag like “wait, why did they get rid of Kara/James??” because, oh right, nobody acted like they cared for almost twelve straight months. If y’all were so okay with this ship, where were you to acknowledge its social significance when it was canon? Where are you now? Why hasn’t there been an outpouring of tweets week after week at the execs and the writers for sidelining an interracial couple in favor of what we’re getting, especially since the storyline literally handwaved away human trafficking and slavery as minor plot points?

Not only that, when there’s unrealized potential for a non-canon ship there is typically an outpouring of fic in response, and while there’s been a statistically significant amount of new Karolsen fic in S2 because it’s pretty easy to top zero percent, the writing there is not keeping pace with any of the other dude-involved pairings.

And you’re right, anon: it is not possible to prove anything with stats. HOWEVER, thanks to the addition of these new characters for S2, I *am* at the point now where it’s possible to see correlation between character race and fan engagement with different pairing choices. And the bias is there, whether it’s in the het pairings, the femslash, or even the m/m pairings. The whole reason I started tracking fic outputs in the first place was that any attempt to have this conversation last year devolved into yelling and finger-pointing because “you have no proof!” that racial bias is a thing. Except, yanno, all the POC who live with it daily saying that it’s a thing. Well, congratulations y’all: your choices leave digital footprints behind that are pretty easy to follow and chart for everyone to see.

This isn’t actually a new problem, by the way – racism and preferencing of white pairing happens a lot, in almost every fandom. The only difference maybe is that I’ve experimented with quantifying it, which is not something that people usually do when they study fandoms or fan behavior.

It pains me to no end that M’gann has been so overlooked, because her story has just as many dark character beats to it as Lena’s, if not more, plus the added bonus of her sharing a sense of “otherness” with Kara in a way that few other people can. And there is no way the disinterest in that pairing isn’t about race, because there are a whole bunch of ships from S1 between white women who’d never even met each other in canon that have more romantic fics than M’gann/anyone.

And the nonsense about Floriana, which I’ll remind everyone again was started by a white girl, had a demonstrable chilling effect on interest in Sanvers as a pairing. Like. I can actually show that on paper. And you’re absolutely right with what you said above, which bears repeating: Maggie is absolutely treated like a woc in how parts of fandom aggressively ignore her & find ways to demonize her character.

There’s also a treatment of Floriana herself that reminds me uncomfortably of how people went out of their way to demonize Naya Rivera’s personal life whenever she reminded the world she was black instead of just “very tan.” And a lot of the rhetoric people are using to talk about Floriana’s racial heritage is almost verbatim the same as what you’ll find on white supremacist discussion boards about Italian people. I’d love to think this is an accident, but I’ve made some people pretty angry for pointing this out in the past, so I suspect it’s at least partially deliberate.

Lucy was another case that drove me insane, for two reasons:

The vast majority of femslash fans flat-out ignored her as a romantic choice even though there were a whole lot of good reasons to ship her with either Kara or Alex, and a whole lot less negative reasons not to. (And it’s not like Supercat was already dominating the scene before Lucy’s character was introduced. That ship only became popular after the movie Carol came out during the winter hiatus of S1.)

People had the same fight last year about whether or not Lucy counted as a WOC and ultimately insisted that the answer was no. But then people kept on ignoring her anyway like somehow dubiously legal boss/employee relationships, potential treason, and incest were more logical bases for attraction.

Also, to the people who have been like “oh yay we could’ve had Dichen as Maggie, a real WOC” like somehow this would have made the fandom love her more – you’re full of shit. If you mean that, why has there been so little fic about Dichen as Roulette? Like, last year there were a whole bunch of shipfics featuring Livewire. There was Kara/Siobhan. And yet … no dark scenarios of Supergirl/Roulette? No Alex ones? There were even a bucketload of those for each Danvers sister + Max Lord, and this fandom isn’t even that into dudes. You’re telling me no one is interested in this kind of hero/villain dynamic with the Asian chick and somehow that’s not also about race?

tl;dr I suspect that a decent chunk of this problem is the result of subconscious bias, but some of it’s not. And what’s really sad about it is that, for all the talk on Tumblr about representation being important, we’re really doing no better as media producers than Hollywood when it comes to race. If anything, we might actually be doing worse.

#supergirl #my meta #fandom stats #fandom racism #Anonymous #asks #long post

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icedpeachteasparkles · 8 years ago

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Beauty Is Not In The Face, Beauty Is A Light In The Heart - Kahlil Gibran

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. – Confucious Beauty is defined as the quality of attractiveness of a person or thing that stimulates pleasure to the mind. Beauty comes in various different forms, whether it is a visually appetizing plate full of yummy food, a panoramic view of sunset over the ocean or simply a blooming flower, maybe even classic pottery – if you’re into antiques. But physical attractiveness focuses solely on the degree of attractiveness possessed by an individual that is aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. For many years, people have questioned the significance of physical attractiveness, about the physical attractiveness stereotype. Is it true physically attractive people are more favoured in the society? The answer to that question is, unfortunately, yes. People in general have the tendency to assume physically attractive people exhibit desirable traits. This is called physical attractiveness stereotype and is caused by a cognitive bias that allows us to believe attractive people naturally possess positive characteristics such as intelligence, charms, honesty, confidence and other traits. Thus, it is often easier for attractive people to leave a memorable impression on others. However, this advantage only applies to first impressions, when acquainting oneself with others for the first time. It is the human’s natural psychology to subconsciously judge others constantly and these judgments often differ and reforms as the nature of the relationship changes. How far are humans willing to go to achieve that beauty? With the advancement of cosmetic surgery in the medical field, achieving that Jennifer Lopez / Chris Evans gorgeous looks is no longer like wishing for the stars to fall on our laps. Breast enhancement, facial rejuvenation, body and facial contouring, skin rejuvenation, you name it. It’s pricey, of course (nobody said beauty is inexpensive) but the majority would agree it’s worth spending a couple thousand dollars to have someone say “Wow, you look amazing.” But, is this superficial beauty, a result of physical alteration really the solution for happiness? It might great to feel beautiful and admired, but physical beauty is transient, like mortality. It changes and fades, it may even be destroyed under certain circumstances. Sometimes, it isn’t the external factors that affects the perception of our beauty. As we start to “correct” certain parts of our bodies, we begin to discover more physical imperfections we missed out before that stands out to us like glaring flaws. The desire to achieve perfection drives a person to modify themselves until there is nothing left of the original physical identity of the person. Satisfaction becomes impossible. Physical attractiveness may contribute to boosting one’s confidence, but ultimately, the key to one’s happiness and success is the beauty that lies within. A radiant smile attracts people, confidence, intelligence and diligence makes a one a better employee, kindness, trustworthiness and understanding makes a great friend, loyalty and maturity makes a good partner. And the greatest beauty of all is – self love. Nothing compares to the bliss of feeling loved by yourself. When you learn to acknowledge your strengths, accept your flaws as a part of yourself, do what you want and do it for your sake (not because someone wants you to do it), follow your dreams, surround yourself with people who accepts you the way you are and live without placing unnecessary expectations on yourself to satisfy others, a radiance shines from within and that is where true beauty can be found. Is physical beauty important? Yes, it is. But drastic measures aren’t required to make a person physically attractive. Beauty is something that originates from oneself and only that inner beauty will last throughout your life. Last but not least, here's a gentle reminder : BE YOUR OWN KIND OF BEAUTIFUL💟

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psychodon525 · 4 years ago

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Repeat after me: THERE 👏 ARE 👏 MULTIPLE 👏 KINDS 👏 OF 👏 RACISM 👏

Systemic Racism is a racial discrimination by governments and groups with a huge amount of influence in the world. These are the things which keep BIPOC poor, and other similar things. This is what most people on this website cite as being the criteria for whether it's possible to be racist towards white people.

Cultural Racism is where society at large has beliefs about a certain ethnic group, and it's very often basically just xenophobia.

Racial Othering is a kind of racism where different groups are separated from the "norm" for various reasons, positive or negative. "Asians are great at math," "Black people are stupid," etc.

Aversive Racism is where someone just avoids a certain racial group as much as possible, whether they even realize they're doing it or not.

Racial Supremacism is the belief that some certain race is superior to any other, based off their genetics. Most often we see this as White Supremacism, but there's also definitely people out there with Arab Supremacist beliefs, or East Asian Supremacist beliefs. (You know, like how some fans of anime talk about Japanese people like they're the perfect people, and are simply better than everyone else on the planet because they're from Japan.)

Implicit Racial Bias is a subconscious form of racism that we're all victim to, due to the way we were raised, and the society we are in. It's impossible to completely avoid. All we can do is acknowledge that part of ourselves, and work to be better about it, and not act on our biases.

And finally Racial Discrimination, also known to 99% of people as "Racism," is discrimination, prejudice, or antagonism towards other people because of their race or ethnicity. This is what most people in the world at large think of, when they say "hey that thing you just said or did was racist."

So to recap, there's lots of different kinds of racism, and here on Tumbl Land, we like to act like the only kind of racism is Systemic, and if someone's prejudice isn't backed by a racist government and a history of oppression, then it's not real racism. But the thing is, MOST people define racism as "discrimination based on race." When someone has some racially charged hatred or discrimination towards a white person, guess what, it's still racism.

Just because your hatred of white people isn't backed up by a system of government which oppresses white people, doesn't mean that it's not still a hatred of white people based solely on race, and thus, still racism. I know that it's fun to see the world very simply as black and white, good or evil, etc, but when you start deciding that an entire group of people are evil, based on something they can't control about themselves, that's when you start sounding like the real evil person out here.

Men are not implicitly sexist, cishets are not implicitly homophobic and transphobic, white people are not implicitly racist, christians aren't implicitly anti-lgbt, boomers aren't implicitly... All of the above.

Just because it tends to be the case that the people who ARE those things fall into those groups, doesn't mean that anyone who is a part of that group is those things, and acting like they are is discriminatory. It's sexist to hate all men because "well it tends that men rape, and rape is bad, so men are bad." Like you realize that women and poc got the right to vote because a majority of white men agreed that they should, when asked to vote on it. (Yes it's horrible that they didn't have that right in the first place, but listen we don't have the time to tackle THAT right now.)

Rhetoric like that is the kind of stuff that white supremacists and terfs and religious extremists say. As soon as you pass judgement on someone without knowing anything about them besides one of the oppressive groups they belong to, you're not "just as bad," but you're definitely not great, and you're definitely falling into the trappings which make horrible people be the way they are. Men, the group as a whole, are terrible and sexist, but you can't assign that label to any given individual within that group until you actually know that they are. Same thing with white people. On the whole, as a group, yes white people are the worst. But if you can understand that it's extremely not okay to say something racist about BIPOC, then you should also be able to understand why it's not okay to say similar things about white people. Sure, there isn't a system upholding those things, and oppressing them, but that doesn't suddenly make it not racism. It's still super not okay.

Racial Othering, as stated above as a form of racism, is a way of describing that belief. Aversive Racism, also a form of racism, is what you are doing when you talk about avoiding white people as much as possible. Racial Supremacism is what you're doing when you say that white people are just worse than other races in any given way. And finally when you discriminate against someone in any way based on their race, that's racial discrimination, aka racism. There are many different kinds of racism, and yes, it's impossible for society to be systemically racist towards white people, and for America to be culturally racist towards them. At the same time though, there's plenty of other ways that individuals can be racist towards white people.

If you call someone out for their racism, I think we can all agree that the shittiest possible response is, "actually no I wasn't, because X Y or Z." Like... If someone calls you out for saying something racist, how about instead of saying "actually it's impossible to be racist towards white people," you take a look at what you said, and truly ask yourself if maybe you did say something shitty, and should just apologise about it.

TL:DR, reverse racism isn't real, but racism towards white people totally is, because it's possible to be discriminatory towards somebody based on race (ie, racist) without there needing to be a system of oppression upholding that discrimination in society (ie, Systemic Racism). Racism towards white people isn't a problem in Society, but it's still a problem in general when anyone is racist towards anyone else.

#racism #long post #discourse?#i guess #look man #i dont want people clowning on this post #i feel like i made my points well enough but this IS Tumblr #so theres a 100% chance someone's going to try and argue that white people suck etc etc etc basically just proving my point i guess.

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edivupage · 4 years ago

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How Educators Can Support Multiracial Children and Families

Imagine it’s your first day of school. You are asked to fill out a questionnaire with information on your name, age, birthday, and race. Under race, there are boxes for White/Caucasian, African-American, Latinx, Biracial/Multiracial, and Other. If you are a child with a mother of African-American and Asian heritage and a Portuguese father, how do you know which box to check? And how does it feel to be classified as “other” according to your race, which may or may not fit into one of these arbitrary boxes?

In a world where race and ethnicity are becoming harder to fit into a neat little box, educators must support multiracial students. Here are a few ways that educators can actively support multiracial students and their families.

Don’t incorporate lesson plans or activities focused on physical characteristics

When playing games or dividing into groups, don’t tell students to separate or identify themselves based on physical characteristics, no matter how innocuous they may seem. For example, if playing a game of Simon Says, don’t say, “Simon Says all the students with curly hair rub their bellies!” This may seem harmless, but curly hair is an identifier of race for many people, and this can feel like something that makes students feel like they stand out negatively.

This doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t be discouraged from acknowledging differences in race and ethnicity or shy away from having conversations on these topics, but rather they should never feel any negative connotation or made to feel “different” for their physical characteristics.

Don’t label students

Don’t assume a student’s racial or ethnic background. For example, if a student appears white but checks multiracial/biracial on a questionnaire, don’t question them on it, publicly or privately. Or if a student of color has a white parent, don’t assume that the student is adopted.

Be aware of your own bias, and fight it

We all have prejudices and biases, whether we are aware of them or not. We form these prejudices based on personal experiences, stereotypes, what we see in the media, and more. Educators have a responsibility to their students to fight their prejudices, and the first step is to be aware of them, even if they are subconscious.

Some subconscious biases can seem harmless but still have detrimental effects. For example, a long-held stereotype is that all Asians are good at math. Now, imagine a high school math teacher with an Asian student in their class. If this student struggles with math, a biased teacher who subconsciously believes the stereotype all Asians are good at math may not give this student the attention they deserve and need, and this student’s learning may suffer.

Strive for equal representation in your classroom

Be aware of the messages you are sending your students through your classroom. If you hang posters, provide books, or play videos depicting only white children, this can alienate students of color and impede their ability to engage and learn. Make sure your classroom reflects the cultures and ethnicities of all your students.

As children seek to determine their racial identities, educators must support them by promoting positive self-image and creating a safe and inclusive environment. Multiracial students are particularly neglected since they are so underrepresented. By following the guidelines above, educators can make strides towards supporting multiracial students in the classroom.

The post How Educators Can Support Multiracial Children and Families appeared first on The Edvocate.

How Educators Can Support Multiracial Children and Families published first on https://sapsnkra.tumblr.com

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fimawari · 4 years ago

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I've been thinking about this for awhile - this is a rather different kind of personal story I wanted to share to highlight some of the underlying problems that any form of abuse can have on a person. Warning ahead of time this talks about some pretty upsetting stuff, abuse and the harmful effects of such - as well as cognitive bias.

Many years ago - more than a decade probably, before I even had access to social media, I was introduced to the concept of Transpeople and Trans-rights back in late elementary school. We didn't call it "Trans" (because we were small children) but it certainly existed, as it has for however long humans have been self-aware and probably before that.

Also with humans, there is the plight of something called a cognitive bias - let me provide an example.

While I was never "transphobic" in the conscious sense - I had a strange gut reaction, a slight amount of panic, even around trans people who were my friends. Of course I quickly dismiss this and act as I normally do - but back then it was always an instinctual reaction. But I always felt goddamn awful as shit that I was even feeling that way in the slightest - why couldn't I just get used to it and stop being weird? I thought maybe, deep down, I truly was a phobic piece of shit - and I bet many people would agree, to this day. Because there are cruel people everywhere in this world. This is something I talked with a therapist about several times - a constant worry that I was a horrible person because I couldn't stop the weird feelings that happened every single damn time.

Well, number one - I was horribly socially awkward, so no matter who I ran into my constant thinking was "Oh my god don't offend them."

But the second lesson was something new I learned that day. The reason I had this cognitive bias, this weird panic, was because of a negative incident I experienced with a person who happened to be trans.

Without going into any harsh detail - it was rape, not an assault, not a miscommunication - straight up rape. And then when I tried to get help for it from my counselors- they took my rapists side. Because they believed I was bullying him for being "weird". Without regard for the cameras, the roofies, the DNA evidence collected in the rape kit when my father had to drive me out of state because the one I was in didn't even have rape kits at this time. So like I said - I was never voluntarily transphobic, but I still had that subconscious instinct to start producing adrenaline and cortisol whenever the word was even mentioned. Because your conscious may forget, but the subconscious never does.

Childhood years are the most important for the development of the subconscious. From a young age I was surrounded by harmful people who reinforced a stereotype that everyone and anyone is automatically evil just for being born how they are. For instance - in 3rd grade we began learning about the Nazis and the Holocaust - it was also at this time we did a world heritage project. Well, I'm 50% German.

And when you have a teacher who stereotypes and a bunch of young impressionable third graders - who just learned that say that "Germans were Nazis" and "Nazis were Evil People" things don't go over well. I won't go into long ass detail, but it resulted in a school move.

I don't blame those other children though, I blame the adult woman who knew what was going on and just let things happen because she believed it was "Justice" and "Retaliation" for what the Nazis did long before my grandparents were even conceived.

And I've run into many who think like that. It's been nearly a hundred years and I still get the occasional "nuke the Japs" joke towards my half-korean, half-american husband - and it makes my blood boil.

But when people insult me … I am complacent. Because deep down, I'd think that rightfully, I did deserve this unwarranted anger. That it was my fault for existing - and that I shouldn't even try and speak up about i.t because that lead to more arguments.

This right here is abuse. This is what abuse does to a person over the long-term. You may be able to stand up for your friends but when it comes to yourself - you let it happen because you've been told over and over and over and over that you deserve it.

Whether or not you read my ramblings, this is basically the moral of the story -It is ok to have intrusive thoughts, negative evil thoughts that you hate - as long as you are aware of them. Many people are not. Many of the extreme racists and homophobes and xenophobes end up that way because of a singular, or a few isolated incidents, of bad experiences - with which they associated characteristics subconsciously. And they fail to see that. Because we meet about 20,000 people on average in our lifespan - a bare fraction of the world's people, and we try to print those personalities on the nearly 8 billion people across the world. It's too overwhelming to think that every single damn person is different, so we stereotype to make it more comprehensible. It's a fact repeated so often but it is true, never judge a book by it's cover. That goes for all, and yes, I mean all people.

To wrap up, you will have subconscious biases. Traumatic events. Everyone does - and if they say they don't they're lying or they are an Android. This doesn't make you a bad person. Acting on them, or refusing to acknowledge them however, does.

#personal story #fima #abuse warning #rape mentioning #cognitive biases

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misterparadigm · 5 years ago

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Synthetic Narrative Theory

(A quick first draft of an essay I’m fiddling around with to explain a philosophical theory).

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What is an apple? You probably think about it in terms of its properties. You probably think about a red apple, but maybe it’s green. You think about its shape—somewhat round, with a little stem on top and maybe a leaf jutting from it. You might think about the taste of it, or even the smell—or maybe you think about the soft crunch as you bite it, break the skin, and sink into the apple’s juicy meat. All of these sensory ideas about the apple are its phenomenal properties. These are the ways an apple is observed by humans through the filters of our senses. But our senses only exist to keep us alive. They aren’t designed to perceive the apple for what it is apart from its relationship to us.

Then there is the apple as an idea. All of its properties are still used for this, but humans also formulate meanings and espouse them to the objects and ideas we experience. Symbolism plays a big role in our lives, so the apple may symbolize things like temptation, knowledge, fruit in general, good health, teachers, doctors, and many other things. These are abstract conceptual relationships from the apple to the thing which it may represent depending on the context. So we go from the basic sensory data of the apple to applying abstract meaning to the apple based on those sensory experiences. Then those abstract meanings can themselves become symbols and be formed into metaphors, which are complex conceptual relationships between the apple and its iterative meanings. See how quickly it gets complicated? Humans are remarkably adept at organizing information, interpreting it at multiple levels of analysis and resolution, and manipulating that information with other known information to create something new and meaningful.

These faculties are what make us uniquely human. Our ability to create new and sophisticated context from disparate stimuli is, so far as we can tell, distinct to humanity. But what really happens as we do this? How are we conceptualizing this information? What manner of process do we use? The answer is narrative. More specifically, it’s the necessity for more narrative as the abstract process of applying meaning gains in complexity. So the more sophisticated our symbols and metaphors become from a set of stimuli, the more we must conceptualize it as a narrative. Consider the apple as it symbolizes the abstract notion of temptation. By what means have you come to understand this connection? This is from the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This story is sometimes taken literally or sometimes as an allegory, but in either case it is a narrative told or constructed as a method for consolidating very complex ideas and themes into a simplified structure that is consumable with as little cognitive stress as possible, and it works fabulously.

This is how we process information as it gains in density. We create narratives. Narrative is so ingrained in our function as intelligent creatures that it often arranges itself subconsciously, and that’s the thing we take for granted. It’s also the thing to which we really ought to be paying more attention, because how we process the world and our grand conceptualization of it is our only perception of reality.

So we absorb information about the world around us, and the more we absorb the more complex the world seems. The more complex it seems, the more we consciously and subconsciously build a narrative framework over which we construct our perception of reality. This is not reality per se, remember, because our relationship to reality is filtered through senses that are meant to keep us alive, even if it means lying to us about what we’re experiencing—and especially if it means ignoring information that doesn’t pertain to our survival. That means we don’t get a “true” portrait of reality, but a fabricated doppelganger of it made from parts that our senses can pick up on. That sounds bad enough, right? At our most fundamental subconscious processes, we don’t experience reality as it exists in and of itself. It’s like when someone says you can’t understand what they’re going through because you aren’t them. We can’t understand what reality is because we aren’t “reality” beings. Reality is itself a separate thing within which we exist in some form or manner. But it’s worse than that.

As we build narratives to make sense of our sensory data, we add layer upon layer of conceptual information, each more abstract and removed from reality than the last, as each level of processing through our minds manipulates that information through the human experience, making it more a product of our mind than of reality. Now imagine how much narrative exists in our lives. Imagine how far we’ve come from simple-minded creatures steeped in reality’s harsh and foreign environment to the deeply moral consumers of politics and entertainment we are today. Consider how buried we’ve become in human experience over thousands of years. We don’t just exist individually, though we process as such, but we exist as a single mind formed by parental minds who were in turn informed by their parents, and so on, and who all were nurtured inside a cultural mind that developed from other cultures across all of human history, over the course of which an unfathomable amount of narratives have been absorbed and further manipulated into new narratives expanding out in all directions as necessary to understand different and new stimuli and ideas. It’s a convoluted network of information expanding across all dimensions, and we’re processing it through the filter of human narrative at countless resolutions. It’s enough to drive a single mind absolutely mad in trying to conceive of it.

So let’s zoom in a bit, back to you. What does this mean for you in particular? It means that all the thoughts and opinions you formulate are a result of narrative, not objective examination of reality. It means that you take in the world around you and create a narrative to process it. That narrative, being your unique conceptualization of reality, is so deep-seated that it seems inseparable from your Self, and it is considered so at a subconscious level. Subconsciously, you see this grand metanarrative as defining you because it is literally your entire perception of reality. That means that if something comes along which threatens it, your subconscious mind is going to react to it as if it were a threat to your existence, and that reaction is going to then manifest itself abstractly through your conscious thoughts and actions. This is how we get things like confirmation bias, among other cognitive fallacies. It means that when you then take in new information, you are filtering it through the criteria of whether or not it threatens your perception of reality, and thus your Self. It means that when you absorb new information, you are immediately applying your pre-built narrative to it. You are finding a way in which to fit the new information, rather than allowing it to complicate the narrative—especially if it might complicate the narrative in such a way as to require an intense amount of reevaluation, reorganization, and editing of your grand metanarrative.

It means that you aren’t a creature built to understand the truth per se. You aren’t of a form which naturally perceives of the reality around you as it exists on its own, but only as it exists in relation to you. As a result, you are intrinsically a poor judge of truth. The best you can muster is some pragmatic “truth,” or something anthropocentrically functional as the “truth.” It means that you would do well to consider this as your pride allows you grandstand about how adeptly you perceive the world around you, what its problems are, and how they ought to be fixed, particularly from the perspective of a single person who has been around for a very, very short period of time, and who has knowledge only through countless narrative filters, and who has only absorbed this knowledge in reference to oneself and in regards to its utility in a fabricated metanarrative. The lesson here, I’d say, is that we aren’t as smart as we think we are, and we don’t see what we think we see, and we ought to wonder what dangers the refusal to acknowledge this might manifest themselves in ways we aren’t even capable of perceiving until it’s too late.

We may want, each of us as individuals, to make a solemn and primary effort of stepping back as often as possible to gain as broad a perspective as we can concoct from our insufficient senses as we try to speak on what is true and what isn’t, and what role we play in speaking on that truth. Are you concerned with the truth? Or are you concerned with where your perception of reality stacks up against the perceptions of others? Do you care to know of any truth beyond your fabricated veil, or are you content to remain in the battle arena of ideas among mere humans, where cohesion trumps the truth per se? Are you satisfied being constrained to the fickle winds of ideology, or do you want to set out beyond that conceptual fog and evaluate ideas beyond their relevance to your Self? These are the questions a philosopher asks him or herself, and the good philosophers among us have endeavored with great effort to exist in some manner beyond themselves, and to gain some portrait of reality past the bondage of the mind insofar as such a thing is possible.

But this effort begins with probing your processes. It begins with attempting to understand what obstacles your own mind and body have laid before you, and not being afraid to explore this environment. Once you know what you’re made of and what that stuff has deemed its purpose, you may at last begin to distinguish yourself from the baser drives of your being. You may then set out with a wary sense of confidence that the critical eye by which you perceive the world around you is working to guard itself against bias of any sort, and that the conclusions you may come to might be of some distant truth, distinct from your influence over it.

One ought to fear most, I think, that they are experiencing a fabricated reality of their own creation. In prioritizing this fear, one might then be inclined to experience more carefully.

#philosophy #synthetic narrative theory #narrative #story #perception #reality #truth #mind #self #processing information #understanding

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disorientedblog-archive · 6 years ago

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Arrival, Return (Stay the Course) November 2018

by Erin Wong / photo: Sam Kay

After a timid knock, I peer around the corner at my boss glaring into her computer. Hey, I say softly in fragile Chinese. Can I have a minute?

She nods, and waves me into the meeting room, barely pausing to look up. What’s up?

I have to take a call, I murmur, and continue to stare at her, still standing in the doorway, a child clinging to her mother’s skirt. Her face opens as her eyes find mine, and she breaks into an empathetic smile.

Should we maybe take the call together?

My shoulders relax as I settle next to her and dial. A voice answers and meets my own with surprise, so I rush to introduce my colleague before virtually disappearing amidst the rapid Mandarin that ensues. At first I listen in earnest, concentrating on the clipped music as someone might grasp at fading sound. But eventually, as a child would, I allow my mind to wander in between the complex corridors of their language.

For apprentices in Chinese – and I imagine many types of discourse – phone calls pose the additional challenge of conversing without the unspoken apology of a bowed head and series of smiles, without the diversion of humor or charisma. Yet these buffers serve of critical importance, because in hiding my appearance, I experience both ordeal and private blessing. We avoid the essential, mystified moment in which my fellow observes, wait, but you look Chinese, and I must say, yes, well I am Chinese; and yet I miss the parrying emphatic pause in which I reclaim a sort of common ground – and so I’m here to keep on learning.

Sometimes we never arrive at understanding. This first moment can extend anywhere from a grunt or shrug to the entirety of our relationship. One can never know whether these new encounters will bring a gush of welcome or a sniff of contempt, whether I am allowed the agency of an American expat or reduced to the daughter of negligent parents. I am given only one faithful assurance: that I am an oddity in Beijing, and my existence here is defined and disrupted by the ever-present dues of a past divergence.

—

For the first fourteen years of my life, I thought miraculously little of this divergence – that of my ancestors’ departure from a distant continent to the one I call home.

My childhood took place in suburban Seattle, insulated by way of entry into affluent neighborhoods and private schools. My parents folded easily into western convention: my mother, a Hong Kong native with British education, who moved to the Midwest at the age of sixteen; my father, a third generation immigrant, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. On Thanksgiving weekend, they would drive my brother and me down to Portland, where we’d bake pies with white aunts and uncles, then sneak into the movies with a troupe of Hapa cousins. White America bore my first friends, role models and educators, the first romantic rhapsody when a boy takes your hand and asks you to dance. And in the darkness of a grade school gymnasium, it was possible to believe myself both seen and invisible.

Once removed from this vacuum, however, I began to see etchings of color. Between packing my childhood into boxes and stepping off the plane in Hong Kong, this epiphany gave way to a series of unshakable patterns and behavior as high school flooded around me, like rapids at a crossroads of culture.

I pursued familiarity in those from the U.S., with whom I shared a cadence of language. Though I oscillated between overlapping groups of Korean, Hong Kong, and American classmates, I related most to the latter, and shamefully attempted to win their allegiance at the expense of the others. More than once, I sat in earnest discomfort, listening to new friends mock the accented English or alien pop music of another student—a practice I could not justify, not only for the acceptance I enjoyed in Seattle, but also because Hong Kong was clearly a part of me. I knew this now in the arms of extended family, and in the mirror, as my placement of features echoed in the millions outside. Still, I grappled to retain the exempt invisibility I once possessed. When asked if I cared for the eccentricities of other Asians, I repeated without hesitation, no way, you’re right, that is weird.

The city seemed to echo our high school hierarchy, with whiteness concentrated in office buildings and elite clubs, while local Chinese manned the wet markets and sustained the service economy. Although padded in privilege, I watched without direct harm the results of a system in which social capital stretched along intertwined axes, a system that promised my family and I would forever place below the utmost echelon. This dichotomy, though imperfect, proved just enough to insert itself insidiously in the mind of an adolescent. And in my youth, I learned to hate this part of myself, to hate this new environment that forced me to forfeit worldly access.

Thus I retreated to the U.S. for the remainder of high school, and learned to hide these aspects well. I distanced myself from Chinese America, eager to rewrite statistical bias and failing to find solace there. Though I flexed the ability to feign whiteness, I could no longer ignore stereotypes or prejudice; but this time, rather than implicate others, I resorted to a silent resignation.

In college, it was not uncommon for a partner to say something alarming mid-tryst, where vulnerability lets loose the laws of good conduct. On one occasion, I sank into the embrace of distant friend, and he stopped to stare at me hungrily, his eyes flickering in the dark so like the freedom of that first dance. Then he leaned in and whispered drunkenly, God I’ve missed Asians, with all the tender calamity of a husky sweet nothing. Nausea coursed through me, but I could no longer tell whether rage and revulsion pulsed outward at my accomplice or inward, against my own body, as we continued on.

I recall lying awake well into the night by his side, imagining a world in which I put on my clothes and walk out of his life without looking back. In this world, I call the Asian American friends I do not have and they tell me people like him know nothing of beauty, beauty like a deep purple bruise pressed into a rabid strength born of affliction.

Years later, walking through a park in south central Los Angeles, a friend would turn to me and say in thoughtful reflection, you know, I think we might be the only white people here. To which I could only throw up my hands and laugh a small, triumphant laugh, for it had been my private mission all these years to erase my ethnicity completely. But when this goal was at last accomplished, I knew whiteness only as something in which I would never take part.

—

Despite my best efforts to hide our relation, China refused to keep quiet. As the nation came to occupy more of the global stage, I wore the threat of its industrious population like a badge across my face; and when asked to represent views I did not know, for the first time, I found I wanted to know. Of course, I faced a fraught relationship to China, with part-time inhabitance in an autonomous territory and the language capacity of an inattentive student. Yet the call of awe and adventure, ignited by my years as an unwilling envoy, convinced me that acceptance lay in wait for wayward diaspora. After two decades in hiding, I took the leap – and shattered myself across the streets of Beijing.

The first blow came from my colleagues at the international office of my fellowship. Though I arrived in the midst of other fresh-faced Americans, and repeatedly offered assurance that I did not speak well, some combination of generosity and general bias led most to continue as though I understood them perfectly. It was an active battle to emphasize the opposite, and the first few days I carried an open secret that somehow only I believed. Then, all at once, the full story broke open across the kitchen table.

As the conversation shifted into comical banter, I smiled uncertainly in a room full of laughter, causing a colleague to turn to me and ask, so how much of what we say can you understand? To which I replied meekly, at least 50-percent? An unreasonably high estimate at the time, but one that felt necessary to dampen the sting of an ousted charade. I watch as their collective expression molds around this new information, hovering in the shape of disappointment as we stare into our food. The color that crawls into my face feels just as unbidden as this tide of assumptions; I entered the role of imposter for no other reason than my face, and the immigrant version of a once-native last name. Over time, we develop an equilibrium at which both Chinese and English offer buoyance for friendship, but this moment of mortification buries itself into my subconscious, germinating into a strain of social anxiety.

I start to avoid getting lunch in large groups, leave meetings early, smile and wave instead of stopping for small talk. I ignore invitations and let new friends slide, an introversion so unlike myself that I question my motives for moving here. Somewhere, far beneath the waking mind, I acknowledge this reaction as self-defense, an attempt to buffer the sadness of what feels like failure – to my family, my heritage, but foremost, my own expectations. The city had opened fire on the naïve notion that I shared anything in common with its populace.

In an ironic twist of solidarity, compassion comes in the form of other foreigners. Yet the world continued to haunt me in a way it did not them – waiters, drivers, front desks and phone calls, always the same incredulous expression, but you never learned Mandarin, or even Cantonese? I reluctantly empathize with the opposition, as invisibility returns at the cost of silence. China is, in its majority, comprised of those who have never met someone like me; I am a surprise, and a cliché—a student who didn’t study hard enough the classical art of knowing oneself.

It’s as though we approach understanding on winding highway, and at every stage, one has the opportunity to stop or find a route elsewhere. Sometimes it’s me, exhausted with the same explanation time and again; sometimes it’s my collocutor, daunted by the prospect of additional patience in engagement. In Beijing, my anxiety and resentment compound with local surprise and disinterest, such that the off ramps double in number. And it is this looming dispassion that scares me most. I am met with the possibility that I alone without my words, without a presupposition of innocence and significance, do not warrant pursuit in camaraderie. This, compounded with the towering notion that learning Chinese might simply be too hard, that cross-cultural closeness might never coalesce, forms the paralyzing and insurmountable fear that I might never find footing in a world I had come to believe I must belong.

—

After a year of emotional tumult, I find myself back in the amicable throng of my father’s family, thirteen cousins of varied age, build and character grinning at each other as we prepare dinner for our parents. My grandmother sits silently at the dining table, watching us work with an absent-minded smile.

She and I, we rarely spoke in my childhood. Affection translated instead through heaps of steaming food and the press of an extra sweater, wide smiles across the dining room table. She might mutter snippets of advice in English, or I’d overhear her converse in Cantonese, but she largely remained a fixed point of silence, always with the same short grey hair in contrast to the brilliant floral patterns nestled around her. No more than a week away from Beijing, I realize that my time abroad may have opened a new channel of understanding between us.

Mah Mah, I offer gently in Mandarin, sitting beside her under the pretext of cutting olives, I visited your campus last year in Beijing. She turns slowly, her smile no longer absent-minded. The university, you mean? I was studying to be a doctor there.

Yes, I know. I saw the lake too, the famous one, and walked around the gardens; it’s beautiful there.

Yes, it is beautiful. I lived there for almost four years, she says, nodding, her eyes clouding over. I had heard her story before, wherein she graduated top of her class, moved from rural Guangzhou to university in Beijing, and on the brink of becoming doctor, the tremors of revolution convinced her parents to send her away.

When she looks at me again, I feel that she is seeing me for the first time, a memory on the opposite shore of eight decades. I watch her on the western bank, wondering what she must see in her progeny, none of whom remember her native language, most who will never know the depth of her story. From the east, she watches an alternate universe where, with the blessings of privilege and peace, she lives freely in the urban epicenter of her mother country.

I am lucky, I blurt suddenly, and I am grateful to be there now.

She blinks, and she forgives me. Well, I imagine it’s quite different from when I was there.

We continue on this shared wavelength, onto other places we used to live, other things we used to do – church, piano, painting – stories long since tucked away. We talk of the new Asian American support center opening up in Portland, an enterprise I once would have disregarded, but now declare a necessity. We sit quietly on the edge of a bustling kitchen, and my grandfather emerges from the ruckus to place his hand on my shoulder.

For a moment, I am transported from the world around us, in which we prepare a feast of Mexican food at a summer lodge beneath Mt. Hood, where hip hop booms within the walls and Frisbees kiss the cedar pine, away from the glamor and sex of America, into the shadow world on which our story is built. In this world, my grandparents fought tooth and claw to keep their family of seven afloat, working night shifts at the Flower Drum, fetching bread ends from the bakery to feed the coming day. From long hours as a waitress at the Sichuanese diner to his white uniform in the Second World War, from the brief exchange of faded pictures that determined who they both would marry, all the way back between the mountains of Guangdong, where, for the first time, this story began – I watch in my mind’s eye as though to remember.

I gaze at my grandmother, and into the decades of pain and resilience that sit like a well dug miles deep behind those eyes. At the bottom, I see myself in Beijing, scrabbling to find a way to the surface, to recover some semblance of acceptance. But in fact, I belong nowhere else upon arrival; my grandparents labored for years to escape that world, their sacrifice evident in our assimilation sprouting from the ashes of departure.

Shrieks of joy come from the living room, where my youngest cousin in being shaken upside down by my brother, pulling me out of my reverie. I am tempted to hide, and cry, but the hand on my shoulder squeezes, and my grandmother makes a soft noise, 嗯. She watches the tousle of grandchildren on the carpet, laughing in tiny, shaking cackle.

—

I come from a long line of irrepressible immigrant energy. My mother’s grandfather, an entrepreneurial boy from Haining, who built his fortune on fine cloth and wrote history in Hong Kong hours south of the revolution; his first daughter, on the passenger ship home from college, fell in love with an introverted academic who would whisk her from Texas to Canada before growing roots back east again. My father’s grandfather, a thin bookkeeper from the outskirts of Guangzhou, answered the call of his uncle’s fish cannery and opened an import store on the Oregon coast. He and his wife, and their children, and their children, lived through a bloody America that bore exclusions acts and riots and murder before packaging the Chinese alongside distinct fellows in a single Asian entity that made fervent gains in wealth, education, and social grace. On this battleground, they fought and won survival, amid violent slurs and exoticization, the isolation and certain despair, persisting such that one day, decades down the line, we might claim this land our own. And on Thanksgiving weekend, my brother, mother, father and I drive down to Portland together, to reunite a circle of loved ones and rest atop our tired empire, buttressed by the nobility of forefathers who simply put their heads down and beat on.

On the plane ride home to Beijing, a strange insignificance arrives, like that of a single thread, braided into an intricate fabric stretched halfway around the world. I am but one of many millions of migrants who were granted safe passage between these nations. Not only this, but other identities in both have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of darker tragedy; to seize up in light of indelicate acceptance is to forsake the brave knowledge of those before: discomfort and rejection are the pedagogy of self-acceptance; oppression, the window to truth. Like my forebears from Asia, I travel with agency, and with respect to their decision, I bow in the humility of return.

In my second year, I find footholds in friendship, working to bridge the distance from expat to local. Passersby still stare as I struggle to read, but I concentrate instead on my teacher’s rounded smile, the way she pedals her hands to signify balance between characters. I catch dinner with an old friend, and she tells me she hears a new confidence in this voice; confidence, perhaps not in language, but in the art of knowing oneself, knowing that my first name and face represent the south, knowing why my great-grandparents sewed gold into their clothing and once fled far from here, knowing the dignity, grit, and unparalleled intrigue of my Chinese colleagues and friends – uncovering at long last, a story to expound my existence, and a reason to continue its writing.

I don’t claim to meet expectations, but I do lay claim to a life here, swimming my way back to an identity I must earn, paying dues for the past divergence, day by day, character by character. And acceptance, when it does come, rains down with a depth of understanding more honest than any identity crisis, one that says this ‘white-ass’ Chinese American bit the bullet and made a home for herself, that much closer to the middle between two worlds.

Erin Wong served as a Princeton in Asia fellow in Beijing from 2017-2018 and continues to live there, working at an environmental NGO.

#China

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katrinratto · 6 years ago

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Bias Impacts Your Business Decisions But You Can Learn To Control It If You Follow This Proven Advice

The human brain is hardwired to make generalizations.

Generalizations allow us to process the truly colossal amounts of input our brains encounter every day. They’re necessary for us to function and not be overwhelmed by data.

Generalizations also help by creating shortcuts in our brains.

Unfortunately, those shortcuts are a double-edged sword.

They allow us to move through the world and quickly assess a situation. But, they also lead to unconscious biases that impact our interactions with others.

Whether we’re talking to the guy in the drive-thru window, calling our sainted mothers, or chatting with our co-workers, unconscious bias influences the way we perceive everyone.

Unconscious bias happens outside of our control. It happens automatically when our brain makes a quick judgment. The HR team at Advanced Systems, a workforce management provider, explains that biases are:

…automatic and unconscious ways our brains try to help us. We cannot notice, remember, and value everything. These are not bad things only bad people do. But bias is a problem.

Good managers can’t afford to allow their biases to impact the way they perceive their teams. This is especially true when making hiring decisions, during annual performance reviews or when making recommendations for promotions.

With so much at stake, you owe it to the other people you work with to see clearly and make appraisals based in reality.

In fact, the ability to ground your decisions in facts, not speculation, is one of the most powerful traits of great leaders.

So, let’s take a look at the most common types of leadership and management bias and ways to overcome bias in the workplace.

Similarity Bias

Similarity bias over-values people who are like us.

This bias is rooted in the classic “US vs THEM” dichotomy.

Similarity bias states that we like people who are similar to us. Birds of a feather flock together, right?

And, we tend to treat people we like well.

The danger here is that managers influenced by the similarity bias may mistreat people who are different from them. These perceived differences could be based on age, race, sexual orientation, gender or personality.

As I’m sure you know, biases against people of different races, genders, sexual orientations or ages are considered discriminatory. And whether you truly harbor negative feelings for these groups, or just subconsciously prefer people who are similar to you, the results are the same.

What You Can Do

Make the effort to find similarities with all of your co-workers. While you will always be naturally drawn to people who are clearly most similar to you, there are universal human traits that connect us all. Taking the time to get to know your employees and find common ground will humanize them and help level the playing field.

In-Group Bias

Most people have friends at work. These friends are our in-group.

Managers have in-groups, too. And, in-group bias occurs when managers treat members of their in-groups better than members of the out-group.

We tend to think highly of the people we befriend. After all – they’re our friends.

But, if we’re not careful, we may make decisions that benefit our friends based on an over-inflated assessment of their abilities or simply out of the desire to help them get ahead.

In-group bias doesn’t stop with helping your friends. It can also actively manifest through behaviors that hinder your out-group. The Advanced Systems HR team points out:

The out-group is managed with more command and control, which reinforces the label by limiting their ability and motivation to grow and perform. No matter how well-intentioned the extra support and supervision, lack of confidence and appreciation lowers employee engagement, performance, and retention.

What You Can Do

Consciously identify the members of your in-group and out-group to raise your awareness of this issue. Then, take steps to avoid acting on positive or negative bias:

Seek out the opinions of other managers and employees to help round out your perspective of your report’s work performance.

Perform a self-assessment – can you be neutral regarding this employee? If the answer is no, remove yourself from the decision-making process.

Do your best to remove your feelings from the equation. Gather facts (not perceptions) to support your appraisal of the employee.

Timing Biases

Timing biases prioritize certain time windows instead of the whole timeline.

Some biases are based on timing. Here are three examples of timing-related biases that may impact your relationships with co-workers.

First Impressions Bias

First impressions are powerful. They’re tied to a known psychological effect called anchoring in which people:

…unconsciously latch onto the first fact they hear, basing their decision-making on that fact… whether it’s accurate or not.

This is true when you’re negotiating a salary, buying a new car, seeing a business name or business logo for the first time, or appraising your coworkers.

First impression bias means that your first impression overrides the reality of the employee’s behavior in the time since you’ve met them.

A first impression cannot possibly encompass the totality of an employee’s work performance or capabilities. Humans are not static; rather they are constantly growing and evolving – for good or bad.

First impression bias doesn’t leave room to acknowledge change or factor in new data. And that’s no good.

Spill-Over Bias

Spill-over bias occurs when a manager’s opinion of an employee is too heavily influenced by events that happened in the past.

If an employee had a stellar first year and then let their performance slide, and you’re still fixated on their earlier performance – that’s spill-over bias.

Likewise, maybe an employee was a class clown during their training, but pulled it together and delivered awesome results once their training was complete. If you can’t get past the idea of that employee as a sass-talking joker, then spill-over bias is at play.

Recency Bias

When managers are unduly influenced by a co-worker’s most recent actions, they are suffering from recency bias.

Let’s say an employee is going through a troubled time at home and their work has suffered for a few weeks. A manager influenced by recency bias might overlook that employee’s positive contributions and strong performance earlier in the year.

An employee should be judged on the entirety of their work performance. It’s not fair or accurate to judge an employee’s overall performance only on first impression, or a portion of their working timeline.

What You Can Do

Make sure to consistently touch base with your employees and record your impressions as you go. This running record of performance will provide a more accurate view when annual assessment time draws near. It’s also a good idea to perform reviews more frequently than once a year. Building closer relationships and assessing employees more frequently will help to sidestep timing biases and lead to stronger empl0yee performance.

Expedience Bias

Expediency bias only sees the top of the iceberg.

Ask ten people the same question and you’re likely to get ten different answers. This is because people are formed by their life experiences and we all walk a unique path.

Expedience bias occurs when managers think that just because it’s the most obvious answer to them, that it must be true.

This bias is particularly compelling when a manager doesn’t want (or have the time) to dig deeper.

Relying on what seems to be obvious is quick and easy. However, as Beth Jones, Khalil Smith and David Rock of Harvard Business Review point out:

Expedience bias tilts us toward answers that seem obvious, often at the expense of answers that might be more relevant or useful.

Imagine if a support representative were judged by how many calls she took per day. If you heard that on average she only spoke with 12 clients per day, you might assume she was lazy or inept. That’s the “expedient” answer.

But, what if you learned that each of those clients were high-value spenders and had been planning to take their business elsewhere? And, that 80% of her clients stayed with your business as a result of her efforts?

It’s important to look beyond what seems obvious to make sure that you understand the whole picture.

What You Can Do

Take the time to dig deeper. Make sure you understand the full context before drawing any conclusions. To help achieve this goal, work to understand the parameters that should be measured in order to get a true understanding of each employee’s contributions. Then make sure those are the parameters that you measure.

The Harvard Business Review team also recommends setting pre-determined goals with your reports on which their performance can be assessed.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias knows it’s right.

Have you ever said, “I bet today is going to be an awful day,” and then turned out to be right?

There’s a good chance that this was confirmation bias at work.

Confirmation bias occurs when people focus primarily on the data that confirms their initial hypothesis.

This bias can be a sort of secondary bias that piggy-backs along with other biases.

For instance, Joel’s car broke down and he arrived late on his first day of work. Joel’s manager Kim remembers this and carries a negative first impression bias against Joel that never really goes away. She mentally tracks every time Joel arrives late. These occasional infractions confirm her opinion of Joel as a late person.

Confirmation bias is seductively powerful. We all want to be right. This bias simply involves looking for the evidence that you’re right while ignoring the evidence to the contrary.

What You Can Do

Learn to be your own “devil’s advocate.” Ask yourself if your argument is really as air-tight as you think it is. Review the opposing evidence with an open mind. And, seek out alternative perspectives from other people who know the employee or topic at hand. Most importantly, be willing to learn that you were wrong (if that turns out to be the case).

The Bias Game Changer: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is key to overcoming all types of management bias.

If you don’t want to be a biased manager anymore, focus on improving your emotional intelligence.

As we mentioned in a prior article,

Emotional intelligence (sometimes also called EI or EQ) is the ability to identify and regulate your own feelings, and the feelings of people around you.

And, the cornerstone of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. That’s the ability to accurately identify what you’re feeling and appraise your own motivations and behavior.

This higher-level awareness of your own emotions, motivations, and perceptions is essential to rising above the influence of your unconscious biases. As we previously explained:

You can modify your behavior for the better if you can identify your own bad habits and catch yourself when you’re doing them. So, in addition to creating the foundation for EQ, self-awareness is also the foundation for self-improvement.

The ultimate remedy to all types of bias is self-awareness. Bill George, the author of Finding Your True North, offers three great techniques for improving your self-awareness. Check them out here.

from http://bit.ly/2O3ZxyF

#Marketing

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you-agency · 7 years ago

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Nudging for good. Daisy Parker

YOU Agency’s Daisy Parker explains the concept of Nudging and how we can ‘nudge’ consumers to make a purchase and change their subconscious behaviour.

“Don’t underestimate the force” said Darth Vader, especially when ‘the force’ comes in the form of an outrageous $666 Douche Burger. In an amusing tongue-in-cheek marketing tactic to boost sales Franz Aliquo formed the $666 Douche Burger – described as a “f-ing burger filled and topped with rich people s-t” this high-priced menu item increased sales of the second most expensive item due to our bias for middle values. Not wanting to be seen as cheapskates but also not wanted to pay the ridiculous $666 for a burger wrapped in $100 bills people went for the middle value items.

Studying a Behavioural Economics module at university made me aware that I do not make decisions in a void, there are other forces at work whether it be adding an expensive item to drive sales or simply moving products in supermarkets to eye-level. Our ability to have our choices altered based on the context of our surroundings made me interested in Nudge Theory.

Nudging came to prominence in the book Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness by Thaler and Sunstein (2008). It defines nudging as ‘any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentive’.

Nudge Theory has been applied widely to both public and private sectors, from political campaigns to public health initiatives. The former President Barack Obama and former Prime Minister David Cameron have both endorsed the use of ‘nudging’. However, the public naturally dislike nudges because they see them as a threat to autonomy, failing to recognise that nudging is already influencing their choices.

The novelty of Nudging lies in two features;

Firstly, it uses both behavioural economics and social psychology to predict people’s behaviour. Classical Economists believe ‘each of us thinks and chooses unfailingly well’. Whereas Nudge theory acknowledges sometimes our decisions can be irrational and affected by our environment.

Secondly, nudging is used as a ‘way of steering people’s choices in directions that will improve their lives without restricting their freedom’. This ‘steering of choices’ is facilitated through Choice Architecture. Essentially, the way you present the choices to an individual will influence what they choose.

Nudging ‘can be applied to a wide array of problems arising from our behaviour’. A specific example is using nudging to solve problems of child obesity in the healthcare industry. In the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study III (SNDA-III) it was found that only a quarter of high school students eat fruit at lunchtime. Resulting in at least one third of school children in the US being obese or overweight in 2018. Individuals are drawn to options that promise convenience and so choose fast food because of the association with convenience. By putting healthier food in an accessible place or placing it first in the lunch line, increased healthier food choices by 18.8%. Nudging in the healthcare industry has also proved extremely effective for other areas such as smoking, adherence to medication and treatments.

However, despite the benefits to healthcare and our longevity, critics of nudging believe it to be ‘infantilizing’ and implies people cannot make beneficial decisions for themselves. This wrongly assumes that they must do the behavior they are being nudged towards. But, nudges have escape clauses, if they did not they would be a ‘shove’, and by providing this opt-out it means people are still free to circumvent the nudge. In the school canteen, they still offer unhealthy food on the menu. People can still choose to eat a burger and fries because they have not excluded unhealthy food. Legislations, laws and prohibitions are ‘shoves’ and surely infantilize people more because they are actively limiting the choices available.

The converse to ‘shoves’ is having no nudging at all and this is inconceivable. Nudges have been influencing people even before Behavioural Insights teams and Nudge. School canteens were still feeding children healthy and unhealthy options and the same biases and heuristics were shaping people’s choices. The only difference with this new intentional nudging is, with people’s best interests at heart, it can counter nudge the brightly packaged, high calorie options. People inherently are less likely to do things that benefit them in the long term like saving money for emergencies, pension plans or eating healthily.

Nudges are ‘low cost solutions that do not require legislation’. Altering the choice architecture of a school canteen is not expensive. It costs nothing to move the fruit in front of the chocolate cake. Whereas, the cost to the UK economy of obesity was approximately £15.8 billion per year in 2007. In the US, the medical care costs for obesity in 2017 was around $190 billion. Comparatively, nudging is cheaper and could potentially be a long-term solution – the more that elementary school children were taste exposed to vegetables, the more they liked them and ate them in the future.

When Richard Thaler signs copies of Nudge he always writes “Nudge for good”. Nudging occurs all the time whether it be in cafeterias or whilst driving, and to try and eliminate all nudging would be impossible. Nudging for ‘good’ involves having people’s best interests at heart, being Asymmetrically Paternalistic and providing an opt-out. However, with regard to marketing, most importantly, they are cost-effective. In a world where a huge marketing budget is expected to equal huge rewards having an idea as simple as a nudge could indirectly lead to better ROIs and happier clients.

#YOUAgency #Nudging #Marketing #Advertising #behavioural economics

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laurarosser · 7 years ago

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Paper Submission: Materiality, creativity, material poetics

Title: The Agency of Error: The role of human error in a post digital society

Abstract

How are people affected by error in a society that is dominated by accuracy and predictability? Erik Kessels (2016) writes about having the courage to fail and Mark Nunes (2012) documents the need to reclaim error from ‘… the trajectory of the unclean.’

Computers are programmed to recognise errors and correct them, with autocorrect systems and spellcheck aiming to compensate for human frailty. My practice explores our dependability on autocorrect systems by working with social strategies to reveal the errors returned by digital technologies in response to human interaction.

Systems are put in place to avoid error; what if systems are created to disrupt this? For example, what happens if the delete key is deleted? My research examines how this can be uncovered through a socially engaged print practice, questioning the relation between participants and miscommunications, in a digital age and networked society.

There is a direct link between printmaking and digital practices; print is the intermediary between digital technology and traditional methods of communication. Rethinking this connection discloses some of the challenges of new and evolving technologies and online communities, revealing the role of social art practices in a post-digital culture.

Introduction

Through a print based practice, I hope to acknowledge our reliance on digital systems in terms of applications, user interfaces, autocorrect, suggestive typing and question whether their existence assists in creating a new form of poetics.

By interpreting texts created through miscommunications and the relationship between error and human, analogue and digital methods, language is freed from traditional structures and linear narrative. Participants can play with errors to create new texts, independent of autocorrect systems. In turn, I interpret these miscommunications and the relationship between human, analogue and digital methods through installations, social media and paper-based works.

Through determining links between practice, context and social situations, my research encourages participants to embrace the tactile imperfections of errors, and to become part of the work themselves. Background

My research draws from participation, dialogue, print and the internet to reveal the relationship between manmade error and digital technologies. I create community spaces with opportunity for human error, by organising social groups where people contribute short free verse that is unpolished, responsive and intuitive. By positioning historical methods of communication and print production to sit playfully alongside digital technologies and online social communities, I have developed the intentions of my work Type ‘n’ Tweet (2016) where a paperless typewriter was connected to a Twitter feed. My research happens as much in real time discourse, as in material objects.

Furthermore, I question our dependence on autocorrect systems by working with social strategies to reveal the errors returned by digital technologies in response to human interaction. Systems are put in place to avoid error; what if systems are created to disrupt this? Such as, what happens when a spelling test is based on commonly misspelt words? Or an algorithm promotes misspelling? By employing methods of misdirection, I create scenarios where the active viewer may create errors. Main Text: Planning for Spontaneity; how do you create authentic and honest errors?

An important consideration is how to approach the planning of a socially engaged art event, where the desired outcome is an unplanned thing; such as an unforeseen synthesis of letters, misplaced words or lost letters.The indexical position of the artist means that the artwork is always framed by the artist’s intention. Working with participants who are not involved in the conception or management of the work frees them from predetermined actions.

There are distinct aesthetic considerations when an audience becomes active by participating in the work. Social art practices have the ability to blur boundaries between art and life, between the material object and experiential or relational attributes. Providing participants with instructions that are predetermined by the artist, yet without the participants comprehending the reasons why, is clearly controlled by the originator, but it allows people to contribute without the confines or restrictions of the desired behaviour.

As in my work, Type ‘n’ Tweet (2016) at Port Elliot Literature Festival I invited participants to type messages about dreams. The typewriter paper was removed and prevented participants from visualising the words as they typed, although it showed on the live twitter feed. The desired behaviour was creation of miscommunications between typist and twitter, the typewriter assuming the role of the error.

Successful collaborations need to do more than involve the audience purely as the objects of predetermined instructions. To create authentic errors, the collaboration must extend beyond leading participants into pre-conceived actions. No matter how subconscious this moulding may be, it is impossible to erase this knowledge. Can an error be planned and created by its originator without subconscious bias?

The role each contributor plays in a socially engaged art project requires careful consideration. Maria Lind highlights that ‘Collaboration has become an umbrella term for the diverse working methods that require more than one participant.’ Participation offers a more appropriate position for the events I run. Lind (2009) defines participation as “ … the creation of a context in which participants can take part in something that someone else has created but where there are nevertheless opportunities to have an impact.’

The participants’ relationship and the experience is at the centre of the success of my socially engaged art works. A common critique of relational art practices is that the focus is too heavily weighted on relations over aesthetics (Bishop, 2004) In contrast Moran and John-Steiner (2003) held a vision of collaboration that can ‘liberate [participants], for a time, from the prison of the self … [and] taking risks, buoyed by collaborative support, contributes to a developing, changing self’, which identifies with the breadth and reach of social art practices.

In my work Touch (2015) I invited participants to take part in a socially engaged event, where I taught people to touch type. I focused on developing the collaborative experience reflecting Moran and John-Steiner’s (2003) definition. The participants fully engaged in the typing pool experience which took place in an old telephone exchange. The participants were given instructions, such as to bring a typewriter and to work through a series of step by step typing exercises. All participants were required to leave their typed test sheets behind after the event.

As the typing pool worked through the exercises under my (not so) expert touch typing guidance, they acquired some new touch typing skills. Importantly from my perspective the group produced rich errors and poetic repetitions as they repeated the exercises. Each typist in the group produced their own unique account. The project was manifest in a dematerialised, ephemeral artwork with no typed works retained after the event.

Providing participants with instructions enables people to know what is expected of them when engaging in a specific project, for example Alan Kaprow used music scores as a method of instruction. Kaprow’s happenings used the musical scores to guide the audience’s behaviour in directions that are planned by the artist. Kaprow defined happenings as ‘something spontaneous, something that just happens to happen’ (1959).

18 Happenings in 6 Parts by Kaprow (1959) is one of the earliest and most significant of these, because it was the first opportunity for a wide audience to experience an event like this. Instead of being passive members of the audience, they participated in the work. The events developed ideas around chance encounters and blurred the boundaries between what is ‘life’ and what is ‘art’. Similarly, John Cage’s work 4’ 33’’ (1952) connected with systems and the digital through the use of scores as instructions for his events.

John Cage disliked the concept of ‘improvisation’ as it pre-conditions certain events. Can authentic errors be pre-meditated or pre-conditioned? From my experience, this is not possible. Errors that are pre-planned are neither genuine or authentic. When planning such participatory events, the focus should be on creating pre-defined unknowns; a space for participants to make an impact and contribute to the work.

My 30 Minute Typo (2017-18) project created opportunities for participants to take part during the lunch break. Using any device with a web browser, as a group we discussed the question, ‘what does an error look like?’ Or, which errors are influential or significant? Participants contributed texts onto a web page where the delete key was disabled. Authors of texts used in my research will be listed as contributors and their input to the project was essential; the project would not exist without their contribution.

As with Kaprow’s scores, a set of simple instructions to manage the event provides participants with a pre-defined, unknown space to contribute. In addition, a separate set of instructions enables me to retain authorship of the work. Flow diagrams, in the form of step by step actions that outline the role of the error, the author and the participants; each with its own set of instructions. There is a non linear narrative to error manifestation and social art practices, similarly to the more organic nature of digital developments in terms of technical change.

The use of code as a structure that underlies software is equivalent to the underlying format of the score or the set of rules used in my socially engaged art works. In my participatory events algorithms have been used to create tactics that offer pre-planned control over certain elements, such as time, duration, location, subject, equipment, web page or software. The algorithm does not outline the desired behaviour. For example, participants do not know that the delete key has been disabled, as this could subconsciously or consciously lead to an adjustment in typing to compensate. Even if you told the group you wanted them to make errors, they would be unable to resist modifying their technique.

Jack Burnham critiqued for Artforum and had a certain take on conceptualism. Burnham borrowed the word ‘system’ from theoretical biology and in his 1968 essay System Esthetics he announced the relational character of conceptual art and newer research-based projects. Burnham composed the term ‘metaprogram’ consisting of instructions, descriptions and the organisational structures of programs. Setting up a set of conditions under which the work operates in effect becomes programming. Every decision made becomes part of the code.

The function of error exists in the same way as it does for a computer programmer. Algorithms aim to minimise or remove human or computational error. How about an algorithm designed to make errors manifest or maximising the flaws of inadequate software?

Following spending time in Poland working with translators, I became aware how much meaning and detail can be lost through translation. Employing dictation software in my recent work Copy Coffee Shop (2017-18) a three way conversation about Copy Shop (2017) by the German rapper Romano with a Polish friend and dictation software, highlighted the relation between discussion, software, things and error. Where does the error reside? Is the error the material thing? Or is it the affect or a miscommunication that is the error? Or is it the miscommunication itself?

A conference titled Speculative Realism was held at Goldsmiths in 2007 (Bryant, Srnicek & Harman) from which two branches of philosophy developed: speculative realism and new materialism. These sit at the point in time where we have a certain amount of control. Centrality is thinking about the world in certain ways, where objects have the same agency as humans. Following on from the avant-garde and to a lesser extent Duchamp, this is a utopian vision of art, but it is always tethered to the domain of the artist.

If human agency is no longer at the centre of the work, what impact does it have? When human agency is removed, consider the relation to digital, non human intelligence and artificial intelligence. It is the work that is the art, even if we aren’t saying it is so.

According to new materialism, before objects there are relations, things are always related to themselves. Karen Barad is a philosopher and physicist and writes about new materialism and a need to meet the universe half way. To explain new materialism Barad brakes it down to individual atoms. She focuses on the vibrations between atoms, stating that the static binary atom is a fallacy, with relationality coming before objects. In socially engaging works the relation and the experience of the errant is the focus. The static material paper is not the focus of the work, it is a mere representation of the error.

Assembling texts and characters together, there is a vibration between words. A physicality not contained in a static thing. Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2010) discloses the vibrating energy of things and the ways that atoms organise and are placed on a page. Is this where the error resides, as vibrations between things rather than with humans? Is it the vibration that determines how letters, spaces and punctuation are arranged on the paper or screen?

The ontology of words is not predefined, the outcome of predictive text is not predefined. It is an emergence through the software that is being considered in Copy Coffee Shop (2017-18). Through the process of poesis it is possible to bring an error into being, into existence, and to exist independently of object.

Considering that objects and things have the same agency as humans and things are all related to one another. A focus in my practice is on developing a place where poesis can occur, and relations between people, devices, software, letters and punctuation can vibrate in a space to create pre-defined unknown errors.Which leads me to question, how does software operate without human interaction? What occurs when dictation software communicates with dictation software? This is an area I have not yet thought through fully.

To conclude, I intend for this research to redefine error and gain a sense of the significance of human error in a post digital era and how human and digital relations support one another through a social art practice. Planning for spontaneity and authentic error, requires multiple non-linear sets of predetermined instructions. This provides a well-conceived creative space for the participant, the thing or the object to assume the role of the error and to be playful, thus encouraging unexpected errors to manifest.

Word count: 2126

Key words: Metaprogram, new materialism, speculative realism, system.

References

Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. John Hope Franklin: Duke University Press.

Bishop, C. (2004) Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, ‘October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.’ October 110, 2004, pp. 50-79.

Bryant, L., Srnicek, N. & Harman, G. (2007) The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Victoria, Austarlia: re.pressBurham, J. (1968) System Esthetics. Artforum. Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/0/03/Burnham_Jack_1968_Systems_Esthetics_Artforum.pdf (Accessed 4th January 2018)

Lind, M. (2009) Complications; On Collaboration, Agency and Contemporary Art.Public: New Communities 39: 53-73. Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjukMHjgMHYAhVjDcAKHYtUCmEQFggnMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.journals.yorku.ca%2Findex.php%2Fpublic%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F30385%2F27912&usg=AOvVaw2FvdfkM8Sxds2_wOrAf9hf (Accessed 4th January 2018)

Moran, S. & John-Steiner, V. (2003) Creativity in the making: Vygotsky’s contemporary contribution to the dialectic of development and creativity, ‘Creativity and Development, no. 2’, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 61– 90.

Nunes, M. (2012) Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures. New York: BloomsburyKessels, E. (2016) Failed it! How to turn mistakes into ideas and other advice for sucesfully screwing up. London: Phaidon

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theuptownian-blog · 8 years ago

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My title may be a bit misleading. I’m not advocating for an Oscars for black actors. I am merely pointing to the fact that how we watch the Oscars and how others watch the Oscars is quite different. Mostly, we watch award shows expecting some sort of let down (i.e. Beyoncé not winning AOTY at the Grammy’s). True to form these awards shows never seem to disappoint us. We hope every year for mainstream America to accurately critique our artistry. At times they get it right and often times they get it wrong. This year’s Oscars were no different.

Viola Davis won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in a movie. I saw Fences, the movie she was awarded the Oscar for. She carried the film and that’s saying a lot with a cast that included Denzel Washington, arguably the greatest actor of our era. Viola Davis’s performance captured the power, strength and ultimate vulnerability that is the black woman. They bend, but never break. Viola Davis’s ability to bring such emotion to her roles, is the reason she is at the top of her profession. A true Thespian and one of only two black female EGOT winners. The EGOT is the triple crown of acting. It is when you are awarded an Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony. For actors there are 3 mediums. The stage, the TV screen and the movie screen, winning an award for excelling in all three mediums says a lot about her craftsmanship. This award is well deserved, if you haven’t seen the movie Fences, please do so. It is important for the times we are living in. It forces me as a black man, to think of the scars infidelity leaves on the women we love. It is a story about mediocrity, complacency and disloyalty. It is a story of pride and ego. Viola Davis’s role will resonant with many women, a fact I personally wish were not true. Nonetheless, Mrs. Davis earned this award and all the future accolades that come with it. I want to note that Mrs. Davis staked her place in Hollywood by working hard and not by allowing Hollywood to define her. We should all take note and use this as motivation to succeed in our respective industries. You can catch Mrs. Davis in her role as Annalise Keating on the hit TV show HTGAWM, it airs Thursdays at 10pm on ABC.

Alicia Vikander, left, presents Mahershala Ali with the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Moonlight” at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 26: Actor Mahershala Ali attends the 89th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 26, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Mahershala Ali accepts the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Moonlight” at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Mahershala Ali won the academy award for best supporting actor in a film, for the movie Moonlight. Ali’s role as a mentor to a young boy who is fatherless, with a drug addicted mother and coming to grips with his sexuality, is one of the most important roles of this era. One can’t advocate for change without acknowledging that all stories need to be told. The same as we wish for more roles depicting black actors, because we want to see ourselves appropriately represented on film. The LBGTQ community deserve there stories to be told as well. African-Americans aren’t monolithic our stories differ and Moonlight places a spotlight on that. Ali becomes the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar. The fact that it’s 2017 and we are still dealing with first anything, says a lot about the county we reside in. Either way, Ali’s performance is one for the ages. Whether it’s in the critically acclaimed House of Cards or many other roles. Ali brings it every time. In addition to Ali’s award, Moonlight won best picture after a confusing few minutes where The movie La La Land was first declared the winner. Apparently, the wrong card was given to Warren Beatty and he mistakenly declared La La Land the winner of best picture. After a few moments of confusion, the creators of Moonlight swapped stage with the creators of La La Land. Moonlight had its moment and all was well again. I’d chalk this up to human error, I’m sure the conspiracy theorist will come out in droves. Nothing to be alarmed over, the one thing you can’t account for on live TV is human error.

The crowning moment of the night was a reaffirmation of sorts. We knew Denzel Washington would not be awarded his 3rd Oscar, 2nd for best actor. The best actor award went to Casey Affleck, the younger brother to the more notable Ben Affleck, for his performance in Manchester by the Sea. Despite, Denzel Washington clearly outperforming Mr. Affleck. The award went to a Hollywood insider, with a history of sexual misconduct. Affleck’s past is only important because the same benefit of doubt afforded Casey Affleck was not given to Nate Parker. The director and star of Birth of a Nation, was not shown such leniency despite an acquittal on all charges. Mr. Parker’s moment in the spotlight was sabotaged. Parker is black and Casey is white. Yes, the degrees of sexual misconduct are very different. If one is excluded from reaping the benefits of his art because of an alleged past, both should be. But what’s America without a little racial undertones. I mean we built this country on slave labor, no affirmative action or social programs can erase the vile, history of our ancestors. To play devil’s advocate, I feel Fences by August Wilson previous exposure became a hindrance of sorts. Fences, has been a running play for quite a long time and while Denzel portrayed the character brilliantly. One could argue James Earl Jones depiction of the character on stage, is a hard act to follow. But Washington’s performance wasn’t up against Jones, it was up against Affleck’s. I also must admit I’m biased, I love all things Denzel. Also, I am still dealing with the pain from him not winning an Academy Award for his depiction of Malcolm X. In my community Denzel is a folk hero, revered, respected and often imitated. When he speaks, we listen.

Overall, the Oscars came and went. Black America makes up 13% of the population and we can’t win all the awards. Even if we feel we should. If I’m being objective, every decision made by the Academy isn’t made on race. Most of it, I’d like to believe is based on merit and artistry. Sure there may be subconscious bias-ness to certain films due to cultural ignorance. But all we can do is continue to tell our stories and educate those who lack knowledge of our culture. From the speeches and the tears. I love seeing those who look like me, in a place where people just like me, weren’t even allowed a short time ago. History was made and it is my hope that through the arts, we as a culture can continue to give our contribution to society.

The Black Oscars My title may be a bit misleading. I'm not advocating for an Oscars for black actors. I am merely pointing to the fact that how we watch the Oscars and how others watch the Oscars is quite different.

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