Recognizing Default Responses

In the first discussion post on civil rights, I recognize how influenced I was by the assigned reading. The author’s points and arguments aligned closely with my original biases and I ran with his ideas. I have grow up closely with educators. My grandparents, and all of my aunts and uncles on my father’s side were educations and administrators. I recognize a lot of the points and arguments I made can be traced back to discussions I had with my father when the DOJ would demand certain things; and also to ideas that could be considered ethnocentric, promoted by my religion. I recognize my failure at trying to see things from the other side as if I did not have the influences I did.



In reference to the Brock Turner case, I guess I was most appalled that the law did not center around the concept that this unconscious girl had been stripped of her underwear and violated, but that the law centers around the method of penetration. Having been taught certain ethics my entire life of not even thinking about committing such crimes, I can see how taken aback I was when I found out that others not only think about committing these types of crimes, but they debate to the furthest detail what constitutes certain crimes. I tried really hard to get outside of my automatic response and honestly found myself feeling very vulnerable, but more suprised of why the law is what it is-- evidenced by my very long, rambling-on post about it.



As for the discussion on free speech, I associate and identify very closely with those who suffer with depression and anxiety so when I found an article that defended free speech at the level of mental illness, I really took to it. Though I still think, after further review, that their arguments and studies were grounded, I do recognize why I chose to debate free speech the way I did through that article.



For the discussion and line of reasoning based on freedom of religion, I made a conscious effort to get outside of my “mormon views” and feel like I did an alright job of it. I lived in the “Bible Belt” for two years and found myself trying to think how those of opposing religious views taught me about what they believed. I tried as hard as I could to not do so condescendingly, because I had many harsh encounters, so I think that lead me to evangelical views that did not stir up feelings of anxiety and the like.


Finally, for immigration i’m so far out of being educated about what is the “best” way to deal with immigration that I was very heavily swayed by what I read. There have been a lot of studies, and a lot of research done on immigration, as well as influences from religious leaders referring to refugees and immigrants, that it was hard to really find a steadfast stance and argue for it.


I recognize, like Professor Young taught, that my two main attitudinal response sources are my family and my religion. Coincidentally, I talked today to a very white man who came into where i worked, who had worked and lived in the pacific areas near tahiti, fiji, the marshall islands and so on. I asked him why on earth he moved back to utah of all places and he told me that he sincerely regretted moving back. He regretted it because he has found how narrow minded people are when they do not get outside of their usual environments. He referred to mainland americans as very ignorant and biased.


This class was incredible at helping me to see outside my conditioned responses, to which I am very grateful and motivated to continue to get outside of them.