(clicking) - Now that we have discussed the types of bias and we know a little bit about the brain, you're probably wondering how these biases are formed. Biases and socialization go hand in hand, as socialization influences bias and biases also influence socialization. So what is socialization? Socialization is the process of learning through interactions with individuals, institutions, and culture, various societal norms. These include systems of oppression that we just talked about, including the resulting privilege and power dynamics. This permeates through parents, guardians, peers, teachers, and other influential individuals in our lives. Much like oppression is an ongoing, ever present system, socialization is a cyclical process that's happening all the time unbeknownst to us. Let's discuss the cycle of socialization in detail. Now, keep in mind that most of us are a blank slate until biases begin, and as we talked about, biases can begin to develop very early in childhood. The first socialization stage happens in childhood around about five to seven years of age. The thing about these first socializations that make them so impactful is that they come from those that we love and trust. These are our parents or caregivers, our teachers or relatives and others we look up to who introduce us to our first set of norms and ways of being. Think about childhood. Think about who your parents, guardians or caregivers told you were good or bad, who to trust and who you shouldn't trust, and who are good strangers and bad strangers. These are examples of the ways we are socialized in the early parts of our lives. The second socialization stage involves institutions and culture. We talked a little bit about systems and how institutions are part of systems. We as individuals move into these systems and institutions that make up our culture and may begin to realize that there are messages that we're receiving through these places and spaces. The institutional socialization begins when you enter institutions and their corresponding systems, such as education. This is an integral system and institution where socialization occurs. I would argue it's probably the most impactful system because most of us, unless we're homeschooled, matriculated through that system of education. Healthcare is another system that has haves and have-nots, particularly related to access. Often that access is aligned with socioeconomic status. Other systems include faith traditions, businesses, and criminal justice. All of those are institutions where biases exist that get socialized into perspectives. What's more, the messages through these institutions are embedded through cultural artifacts, such as the media. The media is another major agent of socialization because most of us are exposed to television and other visual media. The visual depictions that we see affect that which we begin to accept as normal based upon what is represented. Conversely, if there's no media representation of a person, place or thing, one may not have the opportunity to engage with it and may therefore be leery of the unknown. Back when I used to do community-based racial and social justice work, we had a media monitoring task force where we would engage with both print and television media outlets and get them to think about the way they were depicting different groups of people. For example, if you're talking about a suspect in a crime, if they mention that the suspect was of a particular race and ethnicity that's not white, then you want to make sure that you're being consistent and naming the race and ethnicity of the suspect that is white. This way you're not socializing viewers to associate crime with persons of color. This is also present in artifacts, such as song lyrics and language. Think about some of the language that we use that is socialized, for example, the way we use words like white and black. So a little white lie means that it's not as bad, right? But when we use words like black mark or that someone is blackmailed or black balled, that suggests something negative. Another identity-based term that we've been socialized to use is the word lame. Historically, this actually refers to limited mobility and was used a lot more frequently in the past. We've been socialized to use even some of this language because of media and song lyrics and things that we hear in these systems. So how are these enforced? Well, there's stigmatization and rewards and punishments within each of these systems. I have a really great friend who's multiracial, who's half indigenous and half white. When she was in school, she noticed that if she told people she was indigenous, rather than her precociousness being interpreted as a good thing, she was always sent to the principal's office. She learned then that there was a punishment associated with part of her identity. However, when she didn't tell people that she was indigenous and she passed for white, she noticed that she wasn't stigmatized. She was rewarded by being put in advanced classes, for example, and now she's a very well accomplished professor with a PhD. Similarly, there are many who have chosen to hide their invisible disabilities, such as neurodiversity, for example, because of the stigma associated with them. That's also an example of privilege where people observe who the haves and the have-nots are, and then we even begin to internalize the accompanying rationale, whereby the haves sit in a position of more resources, success, and opportunity, and the have-nots don't, without really thinking about the systems and biases within the systems that accompany that position of privilege or lack thereof. That said, socialization is enforced through discrimination and empowerment. So we talked about height and weight bias earlier. Now, let's think about the standard of beauty that's depicted in the media. Typically we receive messages via media images that thin is in, which is rewarded by those who fit that criteria being regarded as attractive. Thus, this group is empowered with the notion that they are recipients of positive bias or bias that is often in favor of them. Conversely, those who are overweight may be subjected to what has come to be known as fat shaming or receiving discriminating and persecuting behavior in the form of stereotypes, sometimes limited opportunities, negative messages, and even dehumanization. It might be why there's a global diet industry encouraging us to look and be more like the privileged group. Horizontal oppression may occur among those groups on the receiving end of the bias or discrimination because of its effect on identity authoring. And if you begin to internalize negative messages leading to devaluing yourself and people like you, then you will respond to people who look like you negatively. Socialization can also result in cognitive dissonance, which we discussed earlier in the previous module. As a young child, I went to a school where there were very, very few people of color. My mother was from a country where the majority of folks looked like her, as a Caribbean person in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. I would go home and be told that my skin was beautiful, my hair was beautiful, and she even made sure I saw people who looked like me by coloring the people in my books brown. These were all affirming messages. However, when I went to school, for example, it was made very clear to me that it wasn't great to be black, so much so that a classmate told me she couldn't be my friend simply because I was black. That resulted in a lot of dissonance for me as a child, because I was getting two competing messages. For some who collude with these systems, they may be going along with the resulting impression without even realizing it. When you do come to realize it, however, guilt can set in. If you don't have that realization, you may begin to internalize these patterns of power and begin to, as I said before, rationalize that it's the fault of those people on the receiving end of negative bias, and then it's natural for them to be in a subordinate position. Sometimes the cycle of socialization results in silence, where people feel so dehumanized that they don't as though they can speak up for themselves, and the cycle just continues. The reality is nothing changes without intentional reflection, or the status quo will just be maintained. The cycle of socialization is occurring all the time. If we're awake and moving through the world, then we're being socialized. The only way to interrupt that cycle is to acknowledge it and engage in intentional reflection, which can look like questioning, evaluating, and reframing your perspectives. (clicking)
