Tag Archive for implications

News and Beliefs

As I watch the news, I’m struck by the subtle ways that prejudice is spread. Nobody notices, but our brains do. So we accept it, coming to believe that what has been hinted at is true.

Two examples: 1) A suspect in an assault is referred to as “a homeless man,” but never “a man who lives on Gregory St. in San Jose.” 2) The person who vandalized is “a Black man,” but you don’t hear that the person was “a White man.”

The result is that our brains think, Of course, because Black men are dangerous and homeless people don’t care about anything or anyone.

It doesn’t seem right to me. It DOES seem like we need to filter what we hear before its implications get lodged in our brains.