A CLASS DIVIDEDThirty years ago Jane Elliott taught the third grade in the white, Christiancommunity of Riceville, Iowa. The day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed sheplanned an exercise that wouldn't just show her students what racism is -rather, it would give them first-hand experience of what it felt like to beoppressed for something out of their control.
Elliott divided her class by the color of their eyes, marked them witharmbands and proceeded to treat one group as if superior in capabilities to theother. The superior students performed better than they ever had before, whilethe inferior students' performance dropped. The next day, the third graderstraded ranks and their performance reversed in accordance to their groups'status.What did the children learn? How did the experience affect them later inlife? Clips from her original classes and interviews with former studentsconfirm that Jane Elliott's workshops make them permanently moreempathetic and sensitive to the problem of racism.
Sandy is the one who said, when we did our reunion five years after theygraduated from high school - I asked Sandy whether, having had thisexercise when she was in third grade, had changed her life at all. She is theone who said "Yeah, now when I hear one of those bigoted remarks, I wishI had one of those collars in my pocket and I could take it out and I couldput it around that person's neck and I could say: Now, you wear that for twoweeks and see how you'd like to live that way for a lifetime." Rex is theone who said "I have that collar in my pocket for the rest of my life, I can'tget that collar out of my pocket". (INTERVIEW WITH JANE ELLIOT)http://www.newsreel.
org/transcri/essenblue.htmThe children learned that discrimination has a tangible affect on theirperformance in everyday activities. Elliott has gone on to do the exercise withnumerous adults and almost without exception the participants' abilities, suchas reading and writing, are grossly affected.Jane Elliott's approach is especially relevant today.
It demonstrates thateven without juridical discrimination; hate speech, lowered expectations, anddismissive behavior can have devastating effects on achievement. Blackmembers of the blue-eyed group forcefully remind whites that they undergosimilar stresses, not just for a few hours in a controlled experiment, but everyday of their lives. Although these concepts are food for thought they aremerely preludes to the main course. The most important lesson to be learnedhere is that just one person can make a difference.Next we join a group of 40 teachers, police, school administrators andsocial workers in Kansas City - blacks, Hispanics, whites, women and men. Theblue-eyed members are subjected to pseudo-scientific explanations of theirinferiority, culturally biased IQ tests and blatant discrimination.
When theinevitable resistance by a blue-eyes surfaces, Elliot cites the outburst as anexample of their inability to work in a group or follow basic directions. Theutter failure of the offender pre-empts any future resistance. In just a fewhours under Elliott's withering regime, we watch grown professionals becomedespondent and distracted, stumbling over the simplest commands.Growing up in northern California shielded me from all but the mosttrivial discrimination growing up. At 19 I moved to Hawaii and received areality check.
The local population, which was predominantly Polynesian,generally disliked outsiders, especially Caucasians. Situations developed thatwere uncomfortable to say the least. Eventually, familiarity with theenvironment enabled me to avoid the more dangerous faux pas; unfortunately,without changing my skin color, I would never be anything but an outsider.Later I moved to Richmond California and was again the minority. Though Imade some good friends, I could never quite overcome the barrier associatedwith my skin color.
Perhaps some day, through the efforts of people like JaneElliott, discrimination will exist only in the annals of history. In the meantime,we would do well to follow her example.
