There is a lot going on at U of R recently, and the renaming of buildings seems to be the most recent in the schools attempt to “reconcile with the past.” I’ve got lots of opinions on the matter, mainly because I have already seen and felt some of the painful reactions of the Richmond POC community, and wanted to understand why the University was acting so foolish around the subject. I think the renaming of Mitchell-Freeman hall is the most genuine reflection of campus life that we have seen thus far.

Prior to the pandemic, students organized and united over racial injustice on our campus. President Crutcher held an open discussion form, tons of clubs were founded to further address racial biases, and many faculty and staff signed petitions in support of the movement. As beautiful of a display as all of these forms of protest are, they embodied an ideology of equality that I believe is just not present at U of R. We are not a progressive school, and in fact some of the most racist interactions that I have witnessed have taken place on this campus. We are also not all a bunch of white supremacists, don’t get me wrong, but if you start to look at the students who lead POC protests, you may start to notice the same few continuously pushing for equality. This, although seemingly harmless, is extremely problematic for both POC and non-POC community members. Not only does this lack of intersecting participation exhausting and harmful for the powerful POC people who have taken it on, it also gives other students a feeling of exemption from racial conversation. Similar to the free-rider theory, allowing students to think that our campus is inclusive or diverse is not realistic. The tone-deaf nature of Mitchell-Freeman, however, is.

I took the implicit bias quiz towards gay and straight people, and I was told I have a strong preference for gay people over straight people. I’d say that this doesn’t even kind of surprise me. I identify as a bisexual woman, and I have found much more support and safety for my sexuality in the queer community than in the straight one. Sometimes I feel as though my sexuality is heavily fetishized among straight people as well (Stereotyped among straight girls who think that because I’m bi I have no standards and immediately think I’m attracted to them after I mention it). The first comment that men tend to make towards my sexuality is something pertaining to sex, and specifically the ways my sexuality can perform for theirs. It’s pretty disgusting, so it makes sense I feel better with the people that don’t objectify me one way or another. Not to say that I hate all straight people- you guys (even though I don’t entirely believe you exit because I believe everyone is on the queer spectrum to some extent) are pretty cool too. But when I am around gay people, I sometimes tend to feel more human, and more appreciated in a non-sexual way.

I recently watched a Tik Tok where a gay woman was saying that she knew she was gay from a very young age, but didn’t know how to recognize it because the media objectifies women so much, she thought it was normal to be attracted to women in that sense. I feel as though this is a pretty universal truth, and one that queer women in particular have to work through every day. Growing up in a straight society, we are implicitly told that women are objects and that romantic relationships should have the end goal of reproduction in one way or another. I don’t know if other gay people have experienced this, but I had to fight back my own internalized preference for heterosexuality (And low-key homophobia) before I could fully accept my sexuality and feel liberated as a queer woman.

According to Dr. Bezio’s podcast, implicit bias refers to the snap judgements we, as humans, make everyday when we see someone. These judgments can be made of people’s ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, ability, or gender. I feel as though snap judgments are only a small part of the ways implicit bias interacts with us every day. I see it more commonly in the ways people look at me when I’m wearing more boyish clothes than girlish, or when I’m entering a space where few look like me. I notice it when I dare to play the devil’s advocate in class. In reality, I feel as though everyone views implicit bias more so by the ways it may oppress or affect themselves, versus genuinely looking internally and acknowledging the ways we judge others. Not to say this is a bad thing per se: I think it’s a very human thing to do to want to know what others are thinking of you. But I feel as though the fact we never acknowledge we, ourselves, can be biased just creates space for more judgement. Similar to performative activism, recognizing someone else’s bias and pointing it out can be just as harmful as being outwardly biased yourself. This is to say, I feel as though sometimes it’s more important to be able to recognize and work on our own biases instead of seeking for the bias in others.

An interesting thought that crossed my mind throughout both the podcasts and the readings is the idea of how implicit biases come into play when justifying a moral argument. As mentioned in prior readings, moral arguments depend on an ultimate truth of what is right and what is wrong. This kind of judgement cannot be made without the help of our own implicit biases, which in turn makes morality quite subjective. Although we may all know this to be true, how is it possible, then, that we all agree on morally corrupt things?  I feel as though this is best exemplified in the death penalty and the “pro-life” movement. Many anti-choicer’s are quick to say that abortion, of any kind, is murder, and that no one has the moral authority to take a life. However, when it comes to black drug offenders, the sooner they are executed the better.  The implicit bias that an anti-choice person has towards liberated women or POC people may have, in my opinion, more to do with their anti-choice position than the actual value they place on human life. And yes I’m sure you can make the argument that a drug offender is not innocent but a fetus is, but then I’d argue who are you to decide who is innocent or who is guilty? I don’t know. Just rambling ethical thoughts now.

It is undeniable that every individual has a criteria of what they would consider right or wrong. In Dr. Bezio’s podcast, normative and relative ethics seem to provide frameworks of philosophy that would best help guide someone in determining what is right and what is wrong. From a normative perspective, there is a right and wrong that must be upheld and respected. A relativist believes that you should do as much as you are capable of getting away with.  Dr. Bezio mentioned our society runs with a hybrid version of both schools, and I found that this idea in itself creates a very unique moral problem. How is it possible that we function in a society in which we both allow people to do as they please in some areas of life, and have complete control over actions in others? It seems as though we, as a society, have collectively participated in the normalization of some forms of morality and not others. I believe it can be argued further that even the morality our society has agreed on today will one day be seen as corrupt.

Take, for example, the morality of slavery. Today, the enslavement of people is viewed as morally corrupt (unless you are a sociopathic monster) right? We, as a society, believe that forcing someone to do labor against their will without any form of compensation is a form of enslavement. We even go so far as to tear down the statues of people that once owned enslaved people ( I completely agree with this notion, don’t get me wrong). Have you gone to Wendy’s recently? What about Walmart or McDonalds? Does your phone run on Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T? If you answered yes to any of these, you (including myself) are unknowingly supporting companies that use uncompensated and forced labor of inmates; AKA modern-day slavery. How does our normative ethicality compensate for that?

I feel as this “grey area” of ethics (seems like an oxymoron in itself) is something I find a great deal of trouble with, especially when it comes to the time period we exist in. As issues of racial and social justice are being discussed, the need for a normative ethicality increases. We, at some point, are going to have to agree on concrete and justifiable definitions of what we consider just and unjust. There are currently people suffering from racial and/or discriminatory violence because we just can’t seem to agree where the “line” of ethicality is. People, specifically marginalized groups, are falling victim to the unresolved debate of what is right and what is wrong. Dr. Bezio touched on this idea on the micro scale of our current political system. Because both parties continuously chose to play into an ethical gridlock, there are millions of Americans at risk of destitution. This has kind of turned into a bit of a ramble but I would almost say that arguing which ethicality is the most important seems, in itself, unethical in a normative sense, when there are people currently suffering.