Default Attitudinal Responses

Although I've always been a compassionate and understanding being, my reactions are not by default reflective of those traits. The only reason they are for the most part now is because I have critically analyzed myself and what I value, and as long as I understand a topic or situation, I know how to react in a way that stays true to who I have become as a person (for the most part). 

I honestly think it wasn't until my first year of college that I realized that I was inherently sexist and although it was unfathomable to me that I could be, I was even somewhat racist. 

I'm white. I grew up in St. George. I grew up with racist and sexist family members.

The sexism stemmed from the traditional gender roles within my family. The ironic thing about this is that all of the women in my family have been strong feminist role models within my life, yet they don't consider themselves feminists and unlike me have not recognized their inherited sexism towards women. 

Once I started to recognize this default response I did a lot of crying, self analyzing, apologizing and forgiving. What was frustrating about this is that I immediately gained a default response of anger towards men about the injustices, especially when it came to the men in my life who I loved but were this way. So I had to work through a lot with all of that, and I am still doing so, and I think I will continue to be doing so for the rest of my life. 

My father raised me to not be racist, but the rest of my family were and still are racist. I do recognize that I have a bias towards whites, because I understand them, and it's easy to navigate interactions with them. When I recognized this attitude within myself I had to make a lot of behavior changes, and condition myself to respond to people and situations that overcome that attitudinal response within myself. For the most part this has become second nature to me, but i'll always be working on it.

These are not the only default attitudinal responses I have, but they are the hardest ones I had to evolve from, and certainly ones I still have to be very present-minded about today in order to be true to myself and what I stand for.