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Implicit Bias how it affects us and how we push through Melanie Funchess TEDxFlourCity HD 108

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    ♪ [gentle digitized music] ♪
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    ♪ ♪
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    [applause from audience]
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    >[MELANIE FUNCHESS]
    I would like to begin my talk
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    with an important message,
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    you know, like the ones for
    the pharmaceutical companies
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    when they see people walking
    lazily along the beach
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    or running in slow motion
    through fields of flowers,
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    where they tell you the
    side effects of their product?
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    [audience laughs]
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    “Nausea, vomiting,
    heart arrhythmia, constipation,
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    Ugh! impotence.
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    [intensely]
    Erections lasting more than 4 hours.”
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    [audience laughs]
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    But seriously, I'm going to say
    some things during my talk
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    that may make you uncomfortable,
    [with emphasis] and they should.
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    But what I ask of you in this time
    is to stay present with me through this
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    and ask yourself some critical questions,
    to really listen closer
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    and really question your
    own thoughts and behaviors
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    and be open to a new view of yourself.
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    You may ask, as I start to present this,
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    you may say, “Oh, Melanie,
    I got that. I know this.
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    I read the book!
    This doesn't apply to me.”
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    I would like to challenge that belief.
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    You may say, “What is this concept
    that is so controversial that she feels
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    she needs a prefaced statement?”
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    The concept is implicit bias.
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    Let me tell you a story.
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    A young couple, college sweethearts,
    they graduate school,
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    begin their careers, get married,
    and start a family.
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    As they start to approach their 30s,
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    they begin to say that they're closing in
    on the American dream.
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    They purchase their first home.
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    Three weeks after
    they close on this home,
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    the husband becomes violently ill.
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    This family — husband, wife,
    three children ages 5, 3 and 1,
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    and a baby on the way —
    go searching for the diagnosis
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    that has stricken this otherwise
    healthy and vital 32-year-old man.
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    Turn to your neighbor,
    and say, “Four weeks later.”
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    >[AUDIENCE] Four weeks later...
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    >[FUNCHESS] ...as this man lays
    critically ill and dying in the hospital,
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    doctors are circling
    around a cluster of diseases
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    that they know must be
    the thing that is killing this man,
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    despite the fact that all the tests for
    these diseases have come back negative.
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    They begin to harass the husband
    and ask him to "tell the truth"
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    and to really open up and let them know
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    about his IV drug use and his
    secret unprotected sex with men.
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    You see, they were trying to make
    the case to continue looking for HIV
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    despite multiple negative tests.
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    Finally, the wife comes and says,
    “Why— What are you looking for?”
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    to which the doctors reply,
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    “We're looking for HIV
    and sarcoidosis.”
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    So the wife, kind of perplexed
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    because [she] thought
    they'd already ruled those out,
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    says, “Well, why are you
    looking at only those diseases?”
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    to which the doctors say,
    “Well, as a young African-American male—”
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    She becomes irate
    and says, “Stop right there!
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    I want you to check my husband
    for things that white people get.”
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    >[AUDIENCE] Ooh.
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    >[FUNCHESS] And magically,
    within days, they have a diagnosis.
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    Stage IV B,
    non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma;
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    and a prognosis: two weeks to live.
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    You know, the implicit bias
    that existed within these doctors
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    resulted in the behavior
    that showed what diseases
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    they chose to — and not to — look for.
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    The implicit bias of these doctors
    said how much they value
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    they placed — or did not place —
    upon the information
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    that they received
    from the patient and his wife.
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    You may say,
    “Melanie, how does this happen?
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    How do we, as good activists
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    and hardworking, progressive,
    open-minded American citizens,
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    how do we continue to fall into
    the story of these stereotypes?”
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    Implicit bias, those unconscious things
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    that have been flowing
    through us since childhood.
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    you may say to me,
    “Well, what is implicit bias?’
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    Well, I'm going to give you
    an academic definition.
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    Implicit bias, otherwise known
    as implicit social cognition,
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    are those attitudes and stereotypes
    that affect our behaviors, our decisions,
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    and our attitudes unconsciously.
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    I relate it to, like, ”The Matrix.”
    Anyone here seen “The Matrix”?
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    When you're in the matrix,
    you don't know you're in there.
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    You're just happily walking along
    thinking everything is okay.
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    Well, I'm here today to yank out the plug
    and disconnect you from the mainframe.
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    [audience laughter]
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    Let me share with you another story.
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    There's a fourth-- “Picture it….”
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    (I feel like Sophia Petrillo
    [from the TV show “Golden Girls”]).
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    [as Sophia] “Picture it.”
    [audience laughter]
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    Fourth grade math class,
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    a teacher asks for volunteers
    to go up to the board
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    to work on long division.
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    One young girl and two
    of her friends go up
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    and they start working on the board.
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    The little girl is the first one done.
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    Since she's the first one done,
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    she starts checking her answer
    and looking over it,
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    and now that she's very convinced
    that she's got the right answer,
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    she waves to the teacher
    to check her work,
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    but she hears a sound
    from the back of the room.
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    >[in a deep voice as the teacher]
    "The answer is wrong.
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    Check it again."
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    The girl, quite perplexed
    because she checked it twice
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    and she knew it was right,
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    she goes back to the board
    and she checks her computations again,
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    getting the same answer,
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    so she goes back to the teacher and says,
    “Teacher! Teacher! I know it's right.
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    I checked it three times.”
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    Now at this point, the teacher
    being very stern, sharply says,
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    [in a deep voice]
    “I said it's wrong. Check it again.”
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    Now, the girl is thoroughly perplexed.
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    It's math.
    It's either it's right or it's wrong,
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    so she goes to her desk
    where she has a calculator,
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    so she starts working on her computation
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    and it's the same one as is on the board.
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    Now she's thoroughly convinced.
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    She says [to herself]
    “The teacher cannot say anything.”
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    So she holds up her calculator
    and says, “Teacher, Teacher! Look!
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    I got it right, all the way
    to the thousandth place.”
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    Now, this teacher, thoroughly upset
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    at this student continuing
    to challenge her,
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    says, “I said the answer is wrong.
    You niggers can't do anything right.”
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    >[AUDIENCE] Ooh.
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    >[FUNCHESS]
    The student is struck dumb
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    by the words that just
    hit her like a cannon.
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    She didn't understand.
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    Why is the teacher saying
    this to her?
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    >[STUDENT, to herself] I don't understand.
    Why is this happening?
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    >[FUNCHESS] Her father
    was a mathematician with a PhD
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    from a prestigious university.
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    She had learned long
    division in first grade
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    and a different method for doing it.
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    She didn't understand.
    Why was her teacher saying this to her?
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    This little girl learned the first
    of many valuable lessons that day.
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    First, she learned that her teacher
    did not see her as a gifted student.
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    Two, her teacher didn't see her
    as the child of educated parents.
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    The teacher did not even see
    a correct math problem on the board.
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    Some people may say
    this woman was a raging racist
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    that only saw the child
    as an uppity nigger
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    who could not conform and do right.
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    But what I'd like to offer
    to you today is another frame.
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    Could it be that this teacher,
    her implicit bias had so ingrained to her
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    that Blacks were so intellectually
    inferior and unintelligent,
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    that it was impossible for
    a child in an urban school
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    to not only get the problem correct,
    but do it in a different method?
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    Then when faced with something
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    that all her life, that her biases
    had told her was impossible,
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    that could not possibly be,
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    reacted from such a primal place
    to protect that worldview
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    that she had held sacred
    up until that time?
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    There's another quote [from "The Matrix"]:
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    [paraphrasing] "Some people are
    just not ready to be unplugged.
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    They are so inured, so dependent
    on the system as it stands
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    that they will fight to protect it."
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    Again, in “The Matrix,” that's Morpheus.
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    Implicit biases are pervasive.
    We all have them.
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    Even people with avowed
    commitment to impartiality,
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    like let's say judges.
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    Now, you may say to me,
    “Melanie, these are wild stories.
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    These are extreme examples.
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    We are good people.
    Good people don't do these things.
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    That can't be real.”
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    Let me tell you today:
    This is very real.
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    I'm going to share a piece
    of information with you
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    about these stories that's going
    to tell you how real they are.
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    These are both stories out of my life.
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    In the first story, I was the wife,
    Who, big and pregnant —
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    as my mother said,
    “big with child” — had to fight
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    to get people to check my husband
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    for things that white people got.
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    And the implicit biases,
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    those doctors could have
    left a woman without a husband,
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    children without a father,
    and a mother without a son.
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    I was the grifted fourth grade
    student in the second story.
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    In that story, in the end,
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    it led to my first act of
    nonviolent social protest.
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    I staged a sit-in for 100 days
    in my living room.
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    [audience applauds]
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    Now, I'm going to share
    one more story with you
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    just so you can understand that—
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    you may say, “Well, Melanie,
    you're kind of old
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    and these things may have
    happened long, long ago
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    in a land far, far away like Tatooine
    [from “Star Wars”], you know?
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    But I just want to let you know
    that this happens
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    [quoting from “The Music Man”]
    “right here in River City.”
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    [audience laughter]
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    So, this September,
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    a beautiful, gifted African-American
    ninth grade girl enters school.
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    Because she's been in an honors program,
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    she entered ninth grade
    with enough credits
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    to technically be a tenth grader.
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    Now, this young lady has a goal.
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    Her goal is to go to Cornell
    and study neuroscience.
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    She has had this goal for many years,
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    and all the people in her circles,
    you know, nurture her in this goal
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    and make opportunities for her
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    to start to build the building blocks
    to make her goal a reality.
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    So, she enters ninth grade,
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    she goes to meet the guidance counselor,
    as ninth graders do.
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    And as guidance counselors do,
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    she sits down with the student
    and says, “Well, what is your goal?”
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    And this young lady,
    she's very confident,
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    as 14-year-old girls can be.
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    You know how that is.
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    [audience laughs lightly]
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    She goes and says, “I want to go
    to Cornell and be a neuroscientist,”
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    to which her guidance counselor reacts,
    “Well, that's a, that’s a big dream,
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    but let's look at something
    more uhhhhhh realistic, like MCC.”
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    In that moment,
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    the student stood stunned
    as she watched her goal crumble.
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    And people may say,
    “Well, Melanie, he's just one person,”
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    but he's so much more than that.
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    He was the guidance counselor.
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    In the schools, just so you know,
    the guidance counselor
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    is the person who was charged
    with setting the academic plan
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    to help students get
    from point A to point B
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    to get to their goals.
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    So, if he didn't believe in her,
    how was he going to help her?
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    And if he didn't help her,
    how was she going to attain her goal?
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    This was the match
    that ignited a forest fire
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    of self-doubt, negative self-talk,
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    that resulted in depression
    that manifested itself
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    in school avoidance,
    of decrease in grades,
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    and eventual lack of ability to engage
    in the everyday life of this child.
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    You know what the ironic thing
    is about this story?
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    This is my daughter's story.
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    Forty years later,
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    the words may have changed,
    but the bias, the power,
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    and the potential impact remain the same.
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    But you know,
    what's even worse about that
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    is that my daughter's story is not unique.
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    This story repeats itself
    hundreds of times every year
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    in the Rochester City School District
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    for hundreds of students going in
    with dreams and goals.
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    The thing is, the counselor
    did not look at my child
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    and did not look at
    her academic record,
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    did not look at it,
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    but just because of the way,
    what he saw when she walked in,
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    crushed her dream.
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    But I don't want to leave you on a downer,
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    and I'm going to tell you,
    there is hope,
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    because what has been done
    can be undone.
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    Our brains are malleable.
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    There are these incredible, incredible—
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    [chuckling] even though
    my brain is farting right now…
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    [audience laughs]
    …they are incredible.
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    There are these incredible
    capacity for growth and change.
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    And so, you might say to me,
    “Melanie, how do I do this?”
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    First, what I want you to do
    is to call yourself on your own stuff.
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    When you're walking down the street
    and you see that person coming
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    and you cross over
    to the other side of the street,
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    call yourself on it.
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    Ask yourself, “Why did I do that?
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    What did that person do
    to facilitate that response from me?”
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    And then once you've done that,
    and you start looking at yourself —
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    and I don't want you to think
    I don't understand it —
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    This takes you being extremely self-aware,
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    But once you do that,
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    you start having these conversations
    with your family and friends.
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    It's very easy to have these conversations
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    in the nice, warm, fuzzy
    places of a TED Talk,
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    but it's much different to have it
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    at your Sunday dinner
    with your mother-in-law, okay?
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    [audience laughs lightly]
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    What we're looking for,
    we say we want to be better,
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    but in order to have this
    better world we're talking about,
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    we must be better ourselves
    and be better to each other.
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    We have to move into what I call
    “transformational activism.”
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    In order to create a world with equity,
    we must do some things.
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    First, do your own personal work.
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    Two, make some connections
    with people that don't look like you.
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    Three, when you have privilege,
    use your privilege to create equity,
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    And guess what:
    many of you in this room have it. Use it.
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    Four, intentionally and deliberately
    engage in non-biasing activities.
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    That means, get out of homogeneous groups,
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    get into some heterogeneous groups
    where not everybody's the same
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    and start learning some stuff.
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    Take that stuff and share it with others.
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    I want to leave you with some
    new language: “Ubuntu.”
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    It's a [unclear] Bantu word
    that translates into the idea of,
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    “I am who I am
    because of who we all are,
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    and we are who we are
    because of who I am.”
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    It talks about the interconnectedness
    of us all.
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    It is one step beyond
    “I am my brother and sister's keeper.”
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    It is, “I am my brother and sister
    and they are me."
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    I see you, I see myself.
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    When you look at yourself
    next time, see me.
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    [audience applauds]
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    ♪ [music] ♪
Title:
Implicit Bias how it affects us and how we push through Melanie Funchess TEDxFlourCity HD 108
Video Language:
English
Duration:
16:13

English subtitles

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