ENG216 - Cultivating Curiosity

Implicit bias test link:  https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html Let's just say that this test was not what I expected but I found it very interesting nonetheless. On one hand I think it could definitely show signs of our repressed prejudices but I also question its accuracy on some level (mainly just because I have very twitchy fingers so some of my keyboard clicks may have just been due to my arthritis rather than some bias that resides deep within me). I decided to complete the Transgender IAT and the Sexuality IAT because as a trans/nonbinary and bisexual person, those are two topics that have had a strong impact on my life. I also chose the Race IAT because my race has never really been much of an obstacle that I've had to tackle so I thought it would be interesting to see the results of the test with the initial belief that I don't have much bias toward race. My results consisted of this: I moderately prefer transgender people over cisgender people, I ...

 Article link:  Paul Bloom: Can prejudice ever be a good thing? When I think of prejudice, my first thought is that it's a synonym for discrimination and it's reserved for people who are truly ignorant immorally biased. But Paul Bloom argues that prejudice can be completely natural and rational. Prejudice helps us to make judgments, whether they're accurate or not, and Bloom argues that if we couldn't make guesses and perceptions about things then we wouldn't survive. On one hand, I can understand Bloom's argument. But at the end of the day, to me there's always been a difference between "judgment" and "prejudice." Maybe it's just the English nerd in me but the two have different connotations, different undertones. To me, a judgment is a guess or an idea based on one's immediate perception of something else, while prejudice is much more negative and more equal to discrimination than just a simple judgment. I can't exactly agre...