In Chapter 1 of the assigned reading, the author, W.E.B.

Du Bois talks about the

discrimination that African Americans experience as they grow up in America. He

describes a desire of a world where African Americans can become their “better and

truer self” and where just by being both black and American means that they are entitled

to the same opportunities without being discriminated against. The author then goes on

to mention that though the emancipation of slavery was viewed as the key to a

promised land, what ended up happening was the newly freed people were not actually

as freed as they anticipated. There was a period of chaos due to this change from war

to the terrors of the KKK. It was only until the 15th amendment that slowly started to

create a shift towards the true attainment of liberty for African Americans as it as a clear

and visible sign of freedom.

W.E.B. Du Bois also mentions the struggle that African Americans had to go

through since his poverty was due to him not having any land in his name and being

thrown in a competition with white neighbors that were rich and owned land. He

believes that schools are needed more than ever to develop a generation of gifted

minds and kindness. The author stresses the importance of the power of voting as it’s

needed as a defense to prevent a second slavery. He also describes how unity of

different traits and talents of races should be complementing rather than opposing each

other so where one might be lacking the different races can give instead of creating

unnecessary contempt.

One way this reading was related to a previous reading is the concept of

interconnectedness in The Sociologically Examined Life. As was described,

interconnectedness is all the different people that contributed to someone’s success like
a talented musician that created an environment which allowed them to thrive and

nurture their talent. By being aware of our own interconnectedness, we are able to use

the talents of many different people spanning different races and instead of alienating

people, we can create an environment that welcomes all different types of people with

different ideologies and learn from them and help each other succeed.

Another way this reading was related to a previous reading was the concept of

sociological mindfulness. The reason why it is connected is because by being socially

aware of what we feel and what we think on any given moment, we are able to remove

some assumptions that we might hold. By removing assumptions like associating

negative words with African Americans, it could save someone’s life which might be in

the hands of what decision a police officer makes when doing a routine check on

someone’s house who happens to be a person of color. This implicit bias is further

explained in the Invisibilia Podcast, “The Culture Inside.”

The podcast starts off with an interview with a father who described himself as a

“Good Samaritan” but when presented with a situation where he saw an African

American walking in the street, he automatically assumed that the person could have

been dangerous. This affected him quite deeply due to the fact that he adopted his

daughter who was also African American and created an internal conflict with him

because he was very disappointed in the way he acted and the way he felt since how

could he ever describe that to his own daughter and make her feel safe from him. This

was his implicit bias, the unconscious thoughts that the person who was African

American was perceived to possibly be dangerous just because of the color of their skin

and no other reason.

 The podcast then goes on to talk about how these implicit bias affect our

behaviors toward the different races. These can be as subtle as looking less at the

person whose race you might have a negative association with and leaning back and

having a closed posture. On the same note, if a crime is committed by an African

American then they are twice as likely to have their photo shown in the news as

compared to a person who is white.

The good news is that the podcast talks about that there is a way to change how

we respond to our bias. The first way is detecting it and understanding why those

thoughts come to mind. Instead of forcing it away, you train yourself by replacing it with

a different response. This is also related to sociological mindfulness since it’s taking the

time to step back and really give yourself time to understand the context of your

thoughts in a nonjudgmental way. By doing this, we can all grow and help each other

in America strive towards the ideals of a better future regardless of race.