{"id":12316,"date":"2025-03-06T17:13:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T23:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rctc.edu\/echo\/?p=12316"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:13:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:13:50","slug":"yellowjackets-diversity-series-concludes-with-victoria-alexander-addressing-implicit-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/yellowjackets-diversity-series-concludes-with-victoria-alexander-addressing-implicit-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity Series Concludes with Victoria Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"diversityOn Tuesday, March 4<\/span>th<\/span> Victoria Alexander concluded the Yellowjacket Diversity Series with her talk on implicit bias. Once the room, full to the brim with students of varying grade levels, quieted down, she was able to begin.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor someone who experiences microaggressions, it might be like death by a thousand cuts,\u201d said Victoria, a diversity, equity, and inclusion activist.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout her talk, Victoria made sure to highlight that <\/span>all <\/span><\/i>people have implicit biases, whether or not they recognize them. She illustrated this through her opening example of an airport scenario. It goes as follows: imagine yourself in an airport, running late for your flight, and you see a number of fellow passengers as well as workers, such as a couple in the security line, a janitor, a flight attendant, workers in a nearby nail salon, and the pilot of your flight. Then, she asked students one simple but powerful question: what do each of these individuals look like? The results were quite telling.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, she also noted that the biases we have can always be changed, or in sense \u201cunlearned,\u201d in order to reshape our cultural contexts and create social change.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Victoria taught students about something called the \u201ccycle of socialization,\u201d which involves levels of socialization, rewards and punishments, and, ultimately, results. Throughout this cycle, we as individuals end up becoming biased through our variety of personal experiences, the opinions of those around us, and whether or not we try to fit into or avoid stereotypes about the people groups we belong to.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, if the process of our lives creates the bias that we try to fight against, how do we actually get rid of the bias altogether? The first step in this process is to \u201cwake up.\u201d In order to change and manage the biases we may hold, we first have to become aware of what those biases are.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The skills to build and steps to follow provide a framework for retraining our brains and quieting or eliminating our implicit biases. Firstly, we must be able to empathize with experiences that we do not personally have, as well as hold difficult conversations about those topics. Racism, homophobia, sexism, and more can be hard to talk about, but they are a reality for someone, and it is important that those stories are heard. Next, becoming aware of our own biases and reaching out to others is crucial in becoming a more open, inclusive, and socially just individual.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Targeting our own bias as well as the bias of others can look like many different things. From standing up to those who use microaggressions, to practicing and visualizing scenarios with difficult conversations, to taking the time to educate yourself on the impacts of the \u201c-isms and \u2013obias,\u201d you are actively becoming less biased.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All in all, today\u2019s session was a truly eye-opening way to end the Diversity Series and provided much valuable information to help students combat their shortcomings and become culturally competent.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, March 4th Victoria Alexander concluded the Yellowjacket Diversity Series with her talk on implicit bias. Once the room, full to the brim with students of varying grade levels, quieted down, she was able to begin.\u00a0 \u201cFor someone who experiences microaggressions, it might be like death by a thousand cuts,\u201d said Victoria, a diversity, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1050,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yellowjackets-diversity-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1050"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}