Everyone has their preferences. Remember to be tolerant. Lesbians don’t accuse straight women of sexism; some biases are implicitly respected to that point. For clarity, because there will be semantic detractors, a preference is a tendency is a partiality is a bias by relative synonyms; the title uses the term bias because I’m partial to alliteration.
To my point, it’s my belief that we’re all biased; an example for your credulity, we innately value our family over strangers. You know the question: what if you had to make a choice with a gun pointed to your head? Against a stranger, you’d have to more than hate a family member to save the stranger instead. Then it’s not unreasonable to find our biases subtly expand. We humans are creatures of comfort, we find comfort in regularity, and nothing is more regular than our reflections; itself an instinct recognizably adhered to by virtue of our homogeneous relationships. Of course, all rules have exceptions, ironically often products of biases themselves: short women who only date tall men for example.
To be clear, my purpose is not to validate offensive behavior. Circumstances inevitably arise during which we feel excluded due to inconsequential biases, such as demographic marketing, like browsing the melanin scrubbed Task Rabbit service. However misappropriated, this constructive reaction is more admirable than the anger that results from forgetting our own perpetuated exclusions. While some scenarios can insult our sensibilities, science has proven that explaining a problem can help alleviate the associated stressors. You’re welcome!
Instead of preaching mythical purity, let's acknowledge that our tolerance and biases define our individuality; and along the following lines, do not impede your growth:
But today most black Americans not hampered by poverty or prejudice take for granted their right to study Italian, listen to Britney Spears or opera, play in the NHL, eat Thai food, live anywhere, work anywhere, play anywhere, read and think and say anything. —Stephan Talty, Mulatto America, 2003
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Often I chose my reading libraries for my students making sure they felt represented in these stories. I also didn't feel comfortable playing them movies where they also did not see themselves. Not that we have to constantly immerse our youth in mirror-role models of themselves - but children are more likely to be engaged in imagery where they feel they are included. Growing up in the 1960s, I was force bused to an all Black school in Springfield Gardens. I know what it is like for that minority child in a basically homogeneous community. Then growing up gay where I couldn't find myself in any of the literature unless I read between the lines. In HS, I had fierce debates with English teachers about Walt Whitman's motivations in his poetry.As in Mannahatta: "the winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide, The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes," I would say it was because he was gay that he wrote that. How could I say such a thing about this great man? Well, he was great because of who he was. It was Bayard Rustin's and James Baldwin's gayness that made them experience the ultimate otherness within their own communities. Perhaps this is why I'm sensitive about inclusion and making this a primary motivator as a teacher for all of my students.
Advertising companies are infuriating. Ad campaigns are meant to target narrow demographics and focus on stereotype. Advertising fosters feelings of otherness as does television and film - music and art. That is why there is always the need for young people to push the envelope. Widen the scope. Redefine what is beautiful. What is normal.
As for cereal, I always have been and will always be a maple and brown sugar kind of guy.
Read this comment with a friend, we're both jealous of your students. Let us know if you ever need someone to remind them of how lucky they are. As a black immigrant growing up in America, from what I remember, my entire introduction to slavery was watching Roots over the course of a week - to be elaborated on in a future post.
You're spot on about advertisements. My cereal of choice? Strawberry Honey Bunches of Oats: the joys of being a healthy adult!
Here is my school blog. An elementary school in the hood where you grew up. I've lived here since before you could look over the cement fence your father built. http://bit.ly/14CYyos