This week’s podcast came at an interesting time for me as I just did a presentation in my French class on the topic of culture. More specifically, I broke it down into adoptive culture and original culture with original culture being your ethnic heritage or family practices and adoptive culture being the customs that you currently practice or that belong to the country you live in if it is not your native country. I think it is an important facet when considering implicit bias because the cultures in which one grows up heavily dictates what one sees as normal in the world. If your culture has specific norms, for example, it can be strange to see people of other cultures performing actions that your culture does not see as normal.

On that same point, I think Dr. Bezio’s point about media and implicit bias was super compelling. I had already known that representation in the media was important for a feeling of inclusion or having role models that look like oneself but I never thought to take it that psychological step forward. The fact that our minds cannot separate movies from reality and therefore thinks that’s how the world is supposed to be makes stereotypes even more dangerous. If our brains get tricked into thinking harmful stereotypes about specific groups then that makes the levels of implicit bias higher in every person who views that piece of media. This makes our awareness of our implicit bias even more important to consider before publishing something.