No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Stanford CS Major

Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by cpncrunch on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:51PM (#9927640)

When I say "give the benefit of the doubt", I mean trust but verify, i.e. ask the person why they're asking if you are lost. Saying that we should just automatically assume bias is intellectual laziness and is just perpetuating the problem rather than solving it.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by pd1 on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:52PM (#9927642)

That seems unnecessarily aggressive to me, even though it could be meant in the best of intentions.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by codygman on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @02:48AM (#9928080)

I can confirm it comes off as aggressive even when you try to apply a lot of touch since this is how I handle these things.

I find that a sometimes simple questions like this can turn into people calling me a SJW (then dismissing everything I ever say), "your the racist for accusing me of being racist", people thinking that I'm being mean to them, etc.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by cpncrunch on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @09:20AM (#9929418)

So the solution is to just automatically assume people are racists when they ask if you're lost? Nice.

Also, what exactly are you saying? I can't see how "no, why do you ask" said with a smiling face in a friendly tone could be construed as either aggressive or SJW, but then maybe I don't live somewhere where people are incredibly touchy.

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Re:No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Sta... by gress on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @01:16PM (#9930932)

You are acting as though 'being racist' is a massive crime that people need to be protected from even thinking that they might be complicit in.

The evidence shows that almost all of us, including members of minorities, are conditioned to have racial prejudice.

The reason this is a problem is that it systematically puts some people at a disadvantage based on their appearance, even though the evidence also shows that within group differences are greater than between group differences.

Unconscious bias can be overcome by making it conscious.

We are all racists. We can overcome the problem if we face it.

Trying to protect people from having to consider whether their actions arise from unconscious bias is actively working to perpetuate the problem.

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