Nita Mosby Tyler begins her talk with a story of going to a ballet school. She says she was turned away from multiple schools for the sole reason that she is black. Nita questions why nobody in the class said, who cares? Let her dance. The main takeaways from Nita’s talk  is addressing the issue of nobody speaking up for people being discriminated against if it doesn’t help them too. She explains how in order to have change, you need the presence of “unlikely allies,” people who are not directly affected by the issue but want to help others. Even when it seems like the issue might have nothing to do with you, you can help make change for the better. Nita also says along with the unlikely allies, the people needing the help cannot question their efforts, and they must accept the help. It is a joint effort.

The main takeaways from the podcast “The Air We Breathe: Implicit Bias And Police Shootings” is that the connection between the individual mind and society have a very important connection. People’s individual actions sometimes happen because of the way others act in their village. It is mentioned that prejudice may be so deeply buried we don’t even realize we think like that. They did a series of experiments to show this is true.

Some argued that just because you answer questions in a certain way does not mean they will act that way too. They decided to test  how the people answering these questions compares to where they are living and the amount of “justifiable homicides.” They found that often places with high levels of implicit bias also had higher rates of police shootings of minorities. They mention Terence Crutcher, a black man who was shot by a police officer for no reason. The police officer claims she is not a racist by any means, and she cares for all people. The community though, may not share all of her beliefs. This goes to show that if your community feels one way about something, even if you disagree it is still somewhere in the back of your mind.

I believe there were many things in the ted talk that can be included in my own life. In the ted talk, Nita explains how just because it doesn’t have to do with you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help out. She asks how much faster change can occur if, for example, black and Native Americans stood in front of immigration issues, whites led the charge to end racism, men led the way to end unequal pay for women, etc. This definitely changes the way I think about countless issues where I might have stood by and said I believe a group of people should have rights, but I didn’t do anything about it when I should have fought for their rights.