I am the product of a bi-racial
relationship and I am beautiful
[Applause]
unfortunately not everyone has come to
the same consensus you’re ugly half bred
slave grey is an offensive color these
are just a few of the outrageous
comments that I have had to endure from
students in high school on a regular
basis I have been made to feel
inadequate for no other reasons but my
parentage the color of my skin and the
uniform craziness of my hair many
individuals today would argue that
racism has gone the way of eight tracks
and VHS players but I can tell you that
my father is still holding on to his
video collection and racism is still
here and running rampant throughout our
society just look at the horrible
incident that occurred just a few weeks
ago and Charlottesville Virginia while
at a white supremacist rally an
individual used his car to take the life
of a young woman standing up against
racism racism has existed for thousands
of years and is a war with no victorious
party prejudice wounds cut deep and they
never fully heal instead they fester
building up a fevered pressure and so
they finally explode with the poisonous
pus of unfounded hatred and needless
killings think about that because of
current racial biases we have caused
ourselves to revert back to a time when
racism and discrimination was as common
as sliced bread an ongoing study done by
the Southern Poverty Law Center have
concluded that in 2016 there were 917
active hate groups in the United States
Florida is home to 63 of them these hate
groups include neo-nazis the supreme
white alliance and the KKK
however these groups are just one tiny
aspect of this multifaceted problem
according to Ohio State University study
for the for race and ethnicity implicit
racial bias refers to attitudes or
stereotypes towards individuals of
different ethnic backgrounds that affect
our understanding actions and decisions
in an unconscious manner for example
what we see now in our society the
violence the hatred that is what’s
called explicit racial bias but what
this refers to is that unconscious
action still for example let’s say a
woman is walking alone at a street at
night and she instinctively clutches her
purse when she sees a black man walking
down the street but she’s completely
fine when a white man passes by her that
is implicit racial bias ongoing studies
from a Yale professor Walter Gilliam
have shown teachers a recording of four
students in a classroom setting they
were a white boy and girl and a black
boy and girl and during this setting
they asked the teachers to indicate
whether they saw any type of limitations
that the students were harboring as far
as behavior goes 42 percent of the
teachers indicated that the black boy
showed signs of behavioral challenges
even though no such challenges existed
similar studies have also showed that
black children are four times as likely
to be suspended
and twice as likely to be expelled from
high school with race being the key
factor when we limit a child’s
educational and mental development by
the negative words and actions that we
pose to them all we’re doing is setting
them up for failure we’re providing them
with negative self-fulfilling prophecies
and when a child hears these negative
words especially at a young age they
start to believe them they start to act
out based on the negative opinions and
assumptions of the people around them
another research done by the Yale Law
Journal regarding the judicial system
also shows that they do harbor implicit
racial bias studies have shown that
prosecutors are more likely to bruise
oom a defender is guilty based off of
ethnic background for example a study
was done they saw that black men who
were charged with murdering a white
victim were 50% more likely to be
sentenced to the death penalty compared
to only 24% of white defenders and if
the judicial system is also suffering
from implicit racial bias and is
completely blind to it how do we go
about fixing something that we don’t
even realize exists well thankfully
there’s project implicit now project
implicit is a nonprofit organization
that was founded by scientists in 1998
and their job is to basically bring
awareness to implicit biases that people
do not realize that they have as of 2011
many companies throughout the US and
Great Britain have started to
incorporate project implicit tests and
their assessments into their adversity
training
locally Universal Studios also uses this
test to help in their microaggression
classes as part of my own research for
this TED talk I decided to go ahead and
take an implicit racial bias test
provided by Project implicit during this
test I was asked to as fast as possible
press a particular key every time I saw
a positive word and a black face and
then pressed a different key each time I
saw a negative word in a white face
halfway through the test I was asked to
do the opposite so negative words with
black faces positive words with white
faces and this was just to see if I
harbored any type of automatic
preference to black people rich as white
people my results showed that I did not
harbor any type of resentment or discord
towards people different races this
information for me was not surprising
being biracial I’ve always kind of had
the ability to just go and mingle and
conform the way I speak and behave to
whomever I’m talking to other
information that I gathered later on was
extremely eye-opening between December
2002 and 2015
3.3 million people have also taken the
implicit racial bias test of those
people 18 percent showed signs of no
automatic preference between white and
black people that’s me so people like me
but 68% of people showed automatic
preference towards white people while
only a mere 14% so automatic preference
black people scientists are also working
on ways to solve this issue studies
suggest the adults who harbor any type
of racial bias tend to be lacking in
empathy so what they’ve done is they
started doing research on how they can
fix this and in one particular study
they took a group of participants and
submerge them into a virtual reality
scenario they gave each of the
participants an avatar of the opposite
race and then when these participants
were put before a virtual mirror studies
suggested that their implicit racial
bias levels dropped that’s awesome
that’s awesome implicit racial bias is
an epidemic it’s a wildfire that has
spread in uncontrollable proportions the
only way to combat this issue is with
another flame and that’s knowledge
because knowledge has the power to bring
hope and to bring change now right now
right this minute this is the time for
action go out sit down and take an
implicit racial bias test join in on a
microaggression class it could also be
as simple as changing the race of the
avatar on your favorite video game
now is the time to change now is the
time to break down those barriers that
we have step outside your boxes judge
people by their characters and not your
preconceived notions of them tear down
the walls that fear has built and let in
that love for Humanity thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
relationship and I am beautiful
[Applause]
unfortunately not everyone has come to
the same consensus you’re ugly half bred
slave grey is an offensive color these
are just a few of the outrageous
comments that I have had to endure from
students in high school on a regular
basis I have been made to feel
inadequate for no other reasons but my
parentage the color of my skin and the
uniform craziness of my hair many
individuals today would argue that
racism has gone the way of eight tracks
and VHS players but I can tell you that
my father is still holding on to his
video collection and racism is still
here and running rampant throughout our
society just look at the horrible
incident that occurred just a few weeks
ago and Charlottesville Virginia while
at a white supremacist rally an
individual used his car to take the life
of a young woman standing up against
racism racism has existed for thousands
of years and is a war with no victorious
party prejudice wounds cut deep and they
never fully heal instead they fester
building up a fevered pressure and so
they finally explode with the poisonous
pus of unfounded hatred and needless
killings think about that because of
current racial biases we have caused
ourselves to revert back to a time when
racism and discrimination was as common
as sliced bread an ongoing study done by
the Southern Poverty Law Center have
concluded that in 2016 there were 917
active hate groups in the United States
Florida is home to 63 of them these hate
groups include neo-nazis the supreme
white alliance and the KKK
however these groups are just one tiny
aspect of this multifaceted problem
according to Ohio State University study
for the for race and ethnicity implicit
racial bias refers to attitudes or
stereotypes towards individuals of
different ethnic backgrounds that affect
our understanding actions and decisions
in an unconscious manner for example
what we see now in our society the
violence the hatred that is what’s
called explicit racial bias but what
this refers to is that unconscious
action still for example let’s say a
woman is walking alone at a street at
night and she instinctively clutches her
purse when she sees a black man walking
down the street but she’s completely
fine when a white man passes by her that
is implicit racial bias ongoing studies
from a Yale professor Walter Gilliam
have shown teachers a recording of four
students in a classroom setting they
were a white boy and girl and a black
boy and girl and during this setting
they asked the teachers to indicate
whether they saw any type of limitations
that the students were harboring as far
as behavior goes 42 percent of the
teachers indicated that the black boy
showed signs of behavioral challenges
even though no such challenges existed
similar studies have also showed that
black children are four times as likely
to be suspended
and twice as likely to be expelled from
high school with race being the key
factor when we limit a child’s
educational and mental development by
the negative words and actions that we
pose to them all we’re doing is setting
them up for failure we’re providing them
with negative self-fulfilling prophecies
and when a child hears these negative
words especially at a young age they
start to believe them they start to act
out based on the negative opinions and
assumptions of the people around them
another research done by the Yale Law
Journal regarding the judicial system
also shows that they do harbor implicit
racial bias studies have shown that
prosecutors are more likely to bruise
oom a defender is guilty based off of
ethnic background for example a study
was done they saw that black men who
were charged with murdering a white
victim were 50% more likely to be
sentenced to the death penalty compared
to only 24% of white defenders and if
the judicial system is also suffering
from implicit racial bias and is
completely blind to it how do we go
about fixing something that we don’t
even realize exists well thankfully
there’s project implicit now project
implicit is a nonprofit organization
that was founded by scientists in 1998
and their job is to basically bring
awareness to implicit biases that people
do not realize that they have as of 2011
many companies throughout the US and
Great Britain have started to
incorporate project implicit tests and
their assessments into their adversity
training
locally Universal Studios also uses this
test to help in their microaggression
classes as part of my own research for
this TED talk I decided to go ahead and
take an implicit racial bias test
provided by Project implicit during this
test I was asked to as fast as possible
press a particular key every time I saw
a positive word and a black face and
then pressed a different key each time I
saw a negative word in a white face
halfway through the test I was asked to
do the opposite so negative words with
black faces positive words with white
faces and this was just to see if I
harbored any type of automatic
preference to black people rich as white
people my results showed that I did not
harbor any type of resentment or discord
towards people different races this
information for me was not surprising
being biracial I’ve always kind of had
the ability to just go and mingle and
conform the way I speak and behave to
whomever I’m talking to other
information that I gathered later on was
extremely eye-opening between December
2002 and 2015
3.3 million people have also taken the
implicit racial bias test of those
people 18 percent showed signs of no
automatic preference between white and
black people that’s me so people like me
but 68% of people showed automatic
preference towards white people while
only a mere 14% so automatic preference
black people scientists are also working
on ways to solve this issue studies
suggest the adults who harbor any type
of racial bias tend to be lacking in
empathy so what they’ve done is they
started doing research on how they can
fix this and in one particular study
they took a group of participants and
submerge them into a virtual reality
scenario they gave each of the
participants an avatar of the opposite
race and then when these participants
were put before a virtual mirror studies
suggested that their implicit racial
bias levels dropped that’s awesome
that’s awesome implicit racial bias is
an epidemic it’s a wildfire that has
spread in uncontrollable proportions the
only way to combat this issue is with
another flame and that’s knowledge
because knowledge has the power to bring
hope and to bring change now right now
right this minute this is the time for
action go out sit down and take an
implicit racial bias test join in on a
microaggression class it could also be
as simple as changing the race of the
avatar on your favorite video game
now is the time to change now is the
time to break down those barriers that
we have step outside your boxes judge
people by their characters and not your
preconceived notions of them tear down
the walls that fear has built and let in
that love for Humanity thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
Please follow and like us: