There are times when biases are completely understandable.
Example 1: I had one experience with a police officer that I strongly suspected was racially motivated. Other than that one time, I hadn't had any bad experiences with police officers. In fact my experiences with police officers have actually been good. So, based on my life experiences, I don't have biases against the police.
Example 2: This example is only hypothetical. A black man who lives in a different city has had not just one bad experience of police unjustly treating him badly. He has had many such bad experiences. The people he know such as friends and neighbors have also had many such unjust bad experiences with police officer. In this particular case, it would be understandable for this person and people in his neighborhood to have biases against the police because of their life experiences.
Example 3: Over my lifetime I have purchase several used cars and a couple of new cars. I never own more than one car at any one time. Each time I bought a car involved me trading in a car except for when I bought my first car. Through all of those years of dealing with used car salesman and new car salesman, I've come to the conclusion that they will lie, mislead, manipulate the numbers, play on your emotions, and do whatever it takes to get as much money out of you as they can. Because of my many dealings and experiences with car salesman, I have developed a bias. When I was much younger and inexperience in buying cars, I had been screwed over at least twice maybe three times. By the time I got to buying my fourth car, I had learn how to master the game of buying cars. It is a game. If you play the game right and possess knowledge, you can drive off the lot with a really good deal. If you are inexperience and lack knowledge, you can get screwed big time buying a car. Does this mean every car salesman utilizes these business practices? Of course not. But, does it mean that I have biases regarding car salesman based on my life experiences? You better believe it. I'm no dummy. In this particular case my bias is making me smart. Otherwise I would just be someone who is gullible who never learn his lesson.
@TheCobbler,
Racism is a personal choice made by our free will. Bias is an objective result that we have to accept to understand the world.
If you want to abandon racial discrimination, you can do it anytime and anywhere.
If you want to give up bias, that wouldn't be easy. That's because our ability to understand things are limited within certain extent for certain period of time. Of course, we can spend time finding out whether white people can dance or not but it certainly doesn't worth the time and efforts. We have so many daily problems to look after that we can't afford the time, don't we? Our brain tends to simplify information to make it less of our time and attention so that we can focus on more important things in our life. That's why bias occurs.
I am biased in that I much more like pork than beef.
Cobbler needs to read one or more dictionaries. I see this thread as efflorescence over nothing much, based on his take on what bias means.
@ossobucotemp,
Does your pork eating bias like Jews, blacks or whities?
I like murder mysteries, does that make me biased?
Is preference bias? Or is bias a code word for prejudice and segregation?
Who done it?
You can find it, "chosen ones" ...an evil concept.
We are all created equal.
READ THE US CONSTITUTION.
@TheCobbler,
Yes I do. Bias with good reason, but still bias. Racists are trying to explain away their racism with euphemisms, and you're helping them do their laundry.
@TheCobbler,
Preference is essentially bias. It's just a positive form and used differently. When you said you liked murder mysteries, you indicated a preference. If you were to watch a murder mystery and a nature documentary, the likelihood you'd enjoy the mystery over the documentary is higher. That's why it's bias too. Preference influences judgment. I find it amusing that this conversation is illuminating your biases.
@perennialloner,
Cobbler is biased in favour of murder mysteries.
@TheCobbler,
The right to discriminate is absolutely written into the U.S. Constitution.
Read Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3... for example.
https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm#a1
Freedom of speech implies a right to discriminate. We have, over the years, taken away some of that right using the commerce clause... but if someone wants to only socialize with a certain race of people, that is absolutely their right.
Cobbler,
You've simply become the slave of one connotation of a word with a few different meanings. Once you realize this, your thread may possibly progress to your satisfaction.
Really. Look in a dictionary.
Has bias by Blacks against other Blacks been covered elsewhere in this thread?
@TheCobbler,
TheCobbler wrote:
Does your pork eating bias like Jews, blacks or whities?
What does this statement mean?
@Lash,
Lash wrote:
Cobbler,
You've simply become the slave of one connotation of a word with a few different meanings. Once you realize this, your thread may possibly progress to your satisfaction.
Really. Look in a dictionary.
E.g.
bias
noun
1
mass noun Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair.
‘there was evidence of bias against foreign applicants’
‘the bias towards younger people in recruitment’
1.1 A concentration on or interest in one particular area or subject.
‘his work showed a discernible bias towards philosophy’
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bias
@TheCobbler,
Man, are you insulting; I was speaking of food bias, in the case of pork, it's less expensive here than beef is. I haven't eaten a good steak in at least a decade, and that is all about money. Re flavor, inexpensive pork can be very tasty.
I also have a bias re candy bars. I will reach for a Snickers before a Milky Way.
@centrox,
Several of us have suggested that Cobbler check out a dictionary, but noooooo, he wants to catch us in a hate crime.
I'll resist calling him a name, one that one of my grammar school nuns use to use. I think it was the german word for dummy. Possibly better than being hit on the hand with her ruler. I don't know for sure, as she never had cause to speak that way to me or use the ruler on me. She did catch me saying yeah instead of yes once, but no punishment ensued.
@centrox,
centrox wrote:
Racism doesn't have to be out in the open and clearly stated to qualify for the name. It can be under cover as you say. You call it 'bias', but I would say it is racist to suppose that black people like watermelons and and run fast, Jews are miserly or clannish, etc.
However, bias is assumed to be based on a pejorative rationale. Meaning, if one perceives that Jews are clannish (I'm a secular Jew), that perception could be fairly correct, but based on Jews believing that most Gentiles cannot have a sincere friendship with a Jew (especially in an ethnocentric climate) or that Jews are fed up with pandering to a Gentile belief that Jews are too different to really relate to well. And, by gosh, by golly, that could be true, especially when Gentiles start to show their love of the pagan culture that they supposedly gave up millenia ago (like contempt for the weak).
Preference should not be based upon bias, it should be based upon taste and intellect.
Bias connotes ignorance...
@McGentrix,
McGentrix wrote:
What if your biased against old people or babies? What about people of your own race? What if Eastern Europeans have a bias against Western Europeans? What about rich people's bias to poor people?
Do you even know what bias actually is?
Don't forget the bias against the nominally educated. But, if one doesn't care for macho personas, is it really a bias to avoid "blue collar workers"? Meaning, isn't there some degree of correlation between one's occupation and one's persona? Do we really want to get rid of the Sociology Departments at Universitys?
@TheCobbler,
Some times it does, many times it doesn't. Can't you read?
