Meet Me and My Biases

Written by Samantha Cotter

We are all restricted by our own bias and your biases are not necessarily the same as my biases.

Bias comes out of backgrounds, race, sexuality, gender and many other factors that shape us into how we define ourselves.

My goal in the writings on this page and any other page is to write with a consistent consciousness of my bias. To understand my bias you must first understand who I am.

My name is Samantha Cotter, I am a straight, white, cis-gendered female from Apex, North Carolina where my conservative parents still live. My birth father died when I was very young and my mom quickly remarried my stepfather who went on to raise me. Currently, I am a full-time student at American University in Washington, D.C. where I am pursuing a B.A. in Political Science.

Outside of school, I do a lot- too much most would say. I have the immense honor of being Co-President of Women’s March Youth Empower, the youth voice of Women’s March. This past January I spoke at Women’s March on youth activism and the importance of having youth within activist movements. Furthermore, I am the Founder of reSISTERS and created a video on my personal experience with sexual assault in hopes of getting youth to understand the connection between the #metoo social media movement and policies their elected officials vote on to get youth to vote in the Midterm elections.

You may not relate to my biases but you have a right to know they are there. I can only speak on behalf of my individual experience and vow to always be conscious to never try to speak on behalf of anyone else.

As a white woman, I try every day to be continuously conscious of how much space I take up and how I work to not take up the space of women of color.

Those are my goals for these blogs posts. I will leave you with a quote I said, (I promise I'm not that arrogant), “we will not wait to have our voices heard tomorrow, while our futures being decided today. Youth of America, our time is now!” Samantha Cotter, Women’s March 2019