Equity advocate Nita Mosby Tyler’s talk delivers the message that ‘unlikely allies’ are critical to fighting injustice and inequality, and people should stand up against unfair treatment of others even when the situation isn’t about themselves. The NPR podcast ‘The Air We Breath: Implicit Bias And Police Shooting’ introduced several pieces of research that demonstrated the high prevalence of implicit biases in our society, and stated that in order to minimize biases and their impacts, changes need to happen on a cultural and societal level. Taken together, it is clear that speaking up and fighting for others in unfair or unjust situations not only help the oppressed but can generate long-lasting changes and eliminate implicit biases that are the root cause of systematic injustice.

The two pieces remind me of the famous piece “First they came …” by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, in which he talked about how his cowardice and silence about the Nazi’s atrocity eventually led to a collective silence of others when the Nazi came for him. Indeed, silence never brings permanent safety as long as oppression exists, even if we are not the ones directly suffering from it. No man is an island and it takes a coalition of different groups and communities and their collective effort to create a better world that everyone will benefit from. Personally, I try to keep myself informed and stay concerned about social injustice issues, but I am definitely guilty of not being very vocal or active in fighting them. Oftentimes, I watch people around me making great efforts and tell myself that the situation is already taken care of and that my participation will only make a negligible difference. Yet now I know that my voice and action count. Moreover, I’ve realized implicit biases permeate the mind of essentially every member of our culture and society, I will try to pause and check my assumptions before making decisions, both in personal and professional lives.