I have never heard of mindbugs before. I knew that the mind can perceive things differently even after we have analyzed the situation, but I was not sure there was a name for that. It is amazing to know the way our mind processes information. However, it is scary to see how even after knowing and seeing the right answer, our mind can still interpret the wrong information.

It is unsettling to think that we have to question the way our mind thinks. We have our own judgements towards different situations and ideas but what makes us think that we are right about what we believe? This is especially unnerving for court cases, where they can sometimes rely heavily on eye-witnesses accounts. This makes me question the justice system as there have been many cases where the offender was proven not guilty through DNA test or the eye-witness coming forward saying they have lied. This reminds me of the court case in the book Just Mercy, where a black man, Walter, was framed for the murder of a young white girl in Alabama. He was found guilty with only having one eyewitness, a white man who was told by the officers to lie about Walter’s whereabouts during the murder. That was all the evidence it took for the court to convict Walter for the murder. A lie that made no logical sense was held as a belief by the town for years, which an innocent man almost died for. Because of the way the mind works, I think the way decisions are made in court cases should be reevaluated and based more on hard evidence.

I’d heard of mindbugs before and was always sort of freaked out by them, so I had never considered them an advantageous product of evolution. I didn’t know that at least visual mindbugs were a result of the retina processing things in two dimensions instead of three dimensions and then automatically converting them into three dimensions in order for us to navigate and survive in a three dimensional world. What freaks me out about mindbugs isn’t the fact that we don’t realize two tables are the same size, but that it shows how much work our mind does in processing without our knowledge or active effort.

Knowing more about mindbugs, it makes what I had known about eye witnesses being extremely unreliable. Our brain jumps to conclusions and fills in the gaps in our memory without us realizing it, so the likelihood that two people will remember the same event accurately and identically is extremely low. I knew implicit biases were a thing but never really considered why they existed. I assumed it had to do with the environment you were raised in or something along those lines. I had never considered that mindbugs would be part of the explanation. Since we don’t know everything about an individual by looking at them, we use their appearance as a basis of sorting them into a social group and then judging them and acting upon that judgement – all subconsciously. I hate knowing that there’s so much brain activity that we can’t control.

Reading the chapter from Blindspot, I was suddenly … very afraid of myself. While I had an awareness that we often are rather untruthful, it never hit me how this jeopardizes our ability to obtain truth. How can we trust ourselves, or others, or the very information we collect if the people who write them are a mess of subtle biases?

The section on the reliability of surveys hit me the most, as recently I took part in this psychology study thing with some heavy survey questions on my behaviors and sense of self. But now I question, can I really grasp who I even am? I know plenty of people who define themselves in ways I don’t agree with, so then, would other people’s perceptions of me be more accurate? But they have their own jumble of mini shortcuts and stereotyping and things happening too!! Moral of the story, I really gotta be suspicious of everything now …

In Blindspot by Banaji and Greenwald, the authors discuss how humans each day make ‘unconscious inferences’ about objects, information, and even people. This can include making mundane inferences about a person’s political views or even what region they are from in the United States. One can assume that it does not matter whether these inferences are right or wrong. However, making these inaccurate judgements can be very dangerous in serious matters. For example, this reading references the determination of trust or intelligence based on only a picture of an individual. The implications for these assessments can mean someone’s life or their safety. This can be seen in mistaking an innocent black man as a suspect because his appearance is similar to a certain stereotype. This reading was fascinating for me since it demonstrated that our unconscious thoughts can have farther reaching consequences than we anticipate.

The CTAA article discusses different ways to evaluate moral arguments. One that stood out to me was egoism. Egoism is an argument form where any action by any person is moral as long as it creates the most possible pleasure for that individual. The article states that egoists are selfish, and selfishness is regarded as a moral flaw, therefore egoism is not moral. I think that egoism is a good argument form however.

 If everyone is doing what is best for them, then each person creates their own happiness. If everyone creates happiness for themselves, then everyone will be happy. This also is less stress on each individual because they only have to be concerned with one person- themselves. If a person cannot do actions that creates the most happiness for themselves then that is their fault. Therefore, Egoism is a good moral argument form.

I went to the race talks in with Dr. Crutcher THC. They were really fascinating to hear everyone’s stories and different experiences. Though I  am personally a white student and these acts don’t immediately impact me, they still shook me to my core. The fact that people on this campus had the audacity to write those actually astounds and disgusts me. I was really moved while listening to all of the stories because I realized that I have so much to learn. As a white person, I need to be an ally, and that doesn’t mean just not committing racist acts myself but standing up and speaking out. I have to learn how to be a better ally to people of color and how to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. Hearing the anger and the disappointment in the stories really helped me realize that this is not just a person of color problem, this is a campus-wide problem that we all must do our part in because that is the only way that anything will ever change on this campus. All I can hope for at this moment in time is that I learn how to be better and that every other white person on this campus learns how to be better so that we can support the people on this campus who are fighting for change. 

This ties into what we are talking about in class not only because we talked about these events, but also because when we think of leaders we often think of white men. Throughout my leadership and the humanities course we often came back to the same issue of societal norms. As a country we have decided that the quintessential leader is a tall, white, goodlooking, man. Which is detrimental to everyone who does not fit that mold. I want to use the advantage that I was born with to learn about and try to support people who were not born with the same advantages. I’m not sure how to do that and I am just starting to learn but I believe that if everyone just tries to learn about different experiences and use that knowledge to become an ally, then the United States may become a better place for people of color because right now we are not doing good enough.

On Wednesday, January 29th, I attended the Eco-Corridor Mini Symposium, which was a presentation of the senior capstone projects of several Environmental Studies and Geography majors followed by breakout discussion groups. If you don’t know, the Eco-Corridor/Gambles Mill Corridor is the patch of land behind the Print Shop that the Office for Sustainability has been working on for the last year. It was often used as a running path and there were a few community gardens in the middle, but nothing significant had been done with it. Hearing these projects were especially relevant for me, because the spring project for my SSIR is to present proposals for more projects for the Eco-Corridor. The projects presented ranged from introducing a freshwater mussel population to regulate the water quality of Westham Creek which runs through the Corridor, to taking drone images of the land before and after construction to use for advertising and possibly to create LIDAR data. My group is focused on the physical restoration of the area. Our project idea right now is to 3D print a topographical map of the Corridor to put at the entrance. Some other group’s ideas are a pollinator meadow (which is actually already in effect), a farmer’s market/5k to achieve community outreach, and signage throughout the Corridor.

I’m very excited for the official opening on Earth Day, because the purpose of the Eco-Corridor is so students can have an outdoor/green space to retreat to on campus. There will be a newly renovated path that leads right to the river (which I think a lot of students miss out on), outdoor classrooms, community gardens, picnic tables, and an area by the creek called Little Westham Beach for general recreational use. Although the Office for Sustainability is the main driver behind this project, many of the ideas and actions came from students. It gives me some hope that the University sees value in spaces that are created by and for students.

On Thursday, January 30th, I attended the Community Meeting held to hear students express their concerns and feelings about the racist acts of last weekend. I had also attended the open mic event held on the Forum that Tuesday, and the stories and messages I heard at both were some of the most powerful. I cried at both, because although I was aware of the racism on campus beforehand, I had no idea of the awful walls and prejudice some students have to face. The story that particularly stuck with me was told by a senior girl from China (I don’t remember anyone’s names, I’m awful at names) about how she never felt comfortable in the business school, as the atmosphere is dominated by white people in Greek life. Even the professors are mostly white old men. I also avoid B-school if I can, but then she revealed that she was a B-school major. I was absolutely floored; imagine not feeling welcome in your home school for four! years! And the tour guides who are POC who talked about how they now feel conflicted when they give tours, because what are they supposed to say if a POC family asks them what their child can expect? Racist slurs written on doors? Immediate segregation dependent on whether or not they participate in Greek life?

There are so many problems on this campus that sit at the University’s core, and although it took way too long to have these conversations become campus-wide, I desperately hope they continue. I hope the University listens to the student voices that need to be heard, and as someone who benefits from white privilege, I will put in more effort in supporting my fellow students so that Richmond can actually one day feel like one big community.