Prompt 4 - Moral Muteness

Sometimes I think to myself, "Do I really have to speak up here?" or "Can I really make a difference by speaking at all?". I for one, have a hard time approaching conflict and oftentimes look at saying nothing at all as taking the high road and, in a twisted way, making the situation better. I'm not sure why I'm oftentimes mute in situations that conflict with my personal values, and as I said, I usually chalk it up to just being afraid to speak up. I'm working to become a better judge as to when I should intervene, but so far, I'm failing. One specific, and recent, situation that speaks to my habit of being morally mute is the time me and some of my friends were approached by a homeless man on High Street.

We were right across the street from the Union and myself and three other friends were standing in a circle in the middle of the sidewalk, it was probably around 9 at night when this happened. We were all dressed nicely from our Monday night chapter meetings and had just grabbed dinner. Two of my friends saw someone they knew and waved her over, I didn't know her that well but we all began to talk about our weekends. I turned my head, on instinct for some reason, and noticed a man creeping up behind my friend Jimmy. I didn't want to make much of his presence, so I didn't bring attention to him, even though I had a bad feeling about him being behind us. Before I had turned my head and made eye contact with him, it looked liked he was ready to reach into Jimmy's pocket and steal his wallet. Finally he inserted himself into our circle and cut right to the chase: "Excuse me, does anyone have a few dollars to spare so I can get a cup of coffee?" he said. I said "Sorry, I don't carry cash usually!" and my other friends agreed. I lied to him, which instantly made me feel terrible, but he looked ready to steal from us until I noticed him. Why would I give him money? The girl my friends waved over spoke up and said "I'm sorry we only carry our school IDs usually!" and the man's facial expression turned from a crooked smile to a complete scowl. He responded to her with "So what the hell am I gonna do since you won't help me? I'm homeless!" and charged towards her. Shell shocked, I just stood there even though I was the closest one to him and could have stopped him. Luckily, my friend Mike intervened and pulled her out of the way. The man stormed down High Street screaming at us with every stride. She was terrified, and I felt horrible for letting it shake out like that. We wound up storming back to the Union and finding her someone to walk home with.

So, my moral muteness comes in two forms in this situation. One, I didn't speak up when I noticed the man ready to steal from my friend. I could have made a point of it, and we could have walked away before he inserted himself into our circle. Two, I allowed myself to be a bystander when he was ready to harm one of the people I was with. Like I said in my introduction, I'm always afraid to insert myself in a situation when I feel it could be better handled by someone else. But none of us there were prepared for that to happen, and they handled it better than I could have imagined handling it all by myself.

Moral of this story: be weary of your surroundings, and never be a bystander if someone is in harms way. Whether it be making yourself a part of the situation at hand, or informing someone else more capable, NEVER be silent. The guilt you feel after being morally mute in a situation such as this is immeasurable.

END!

Prompt 3 - Implicit Biases

The first IAT I took was the one regarding skin color, and it told me that I have a moderate preference towards lighter skinned people over darker skinned people. This surprised me because I grew up a part of a predominately black family, and I don't exhibit any biases today since I'm biracial. I may or may not have made too many errors on this (when they flip the categories it threw me off) so this result may not be very accurate. I wouldn't consider myself biased towards one skin color at all. Did anyone else take this one?

I then took the age IAT and, unsurprisingly, it told me I have a slight preference to younger people than to older people. I'm by no means an "old soul" but I don't have any issues communicating with people older than I am, but I can understand where the IAT results come from. I think in this day and age we have proclivities to associate ourselves more with people of our generation and may find older people intimidating to communicate with, and sometimes I find myself in that place. I'm sure someone else in the class got this result. What do you think?

Finally, I took the IAT on sexuality and I'm not entirely shocked by the result that I have a slight preference towards straight people. While I don't think these biases are problematic, I think most people are socialized early in life (depending upon your family, so I won't overgeneralize this) and carry these biases, even if they don't realize it, later in life. I'm not letting this result detract from anything in my personal life, however.

Overall, IAT's are slightly aggravating to me because they bring to the surface unconscious biases that many try to combat because it's not how they would like to carry themselves. I think some of these implicit biases results are a product of errors in testing but I think it's interesting where we all fall on the continuum, and whether or not if we agree with that placement.

Prompt 2 - Relational Leadership

With a more recent example, McFarland, USA (2015) is a great movie full of examples of the Relational Leadership Model used throughout. In this movie, Coach White is settling into a new role as a PE teacher and self-proclaimed cross-country coach, the latter is something not exactly within his element. He coaches a team of predominantly latino boys, and they aren't very experienced. They come in last place at their very first meet, and the team suffers a few other setbacks throughout the season. Finally, they qualify for the state championship. The clip below (you can stop at 2:30) comes after a moment in the film that disengages the boys from the process (you'll have to watch it to understand), and Coach White uses relational leadership to bring them back to the purpose that's been there the entire movie: winning the 'ship. The entire movie is based around trying to bring about positive change to the group as a whole and the individuals a part of it, which is why I feel it best exemplifies relational leadership.