Week Eleven Videos - Prejudice

            Hi, All!

            After watching Paul Bloom's TED talk about prejudice, I found myself confused really. I have never thought of prejudice as a good thing in my life. I assumed that prejudice was something that only horrible people did and intentionally did to belittle others. Bloom argues that prejudice is not the birth of ignorance and is natural. I agree with his argument that prejudice or bias can be beneficial in cases of dangerous people. I believe that people can initially think of someone as something, this is what one was taught, but I believe that your second thought should be after some inspection of the situation. Seeing a black man and thinking that he may be doing a number of stereotypical bad things, but if you take a second to reassess the situation peacefully, you could realize that this may not be the case. 

            If one does believe their first thought of prejudice and bias without assessing the situation, this leads to prejudice and racist thoughts about one person or group. I also agree that bias is natural. Confirmation bias is a concept I've explored in my Communications courses and I believe it is natural to want to be with people who have the same interests, viewpoints, and ideologies. I see people argue that wanting everyone to think the same is a bad idea that is occurring in our social technological world. I understand that this is a bad thing and that others should be given the opportunity to think their own thoughts and have differences. 

            But how do you come to terms with someone who has opposite thoughts to you when it comes to an important topic? One topic that is fresh for me is supporters of Donald Trump and the police. I know that they have the right to think any way they may want, but I don't know how to deal with people who support someone who I do not support. How do I do this? 

            Erin Odom from The Humbled Homemaker shares some of her tips to get along with those different than you. She says to 1. Ask questions and be interested in hearing about their interests and likes, 2. listen and be actively listening to them, 3. Seek shared experiences and try to connect to this person even though they are different from you. 4. Avoid the topics you may have differences between and 5. Kill the competition between you and this person, you both are people just trying to live. I will try to use these topics when going forward in life.