Angry eye

a thing

1. In this assignment, we watched a video about Jane Elliot, an older woman who was
trying to teach white students what prejudice and racism is like first hand. She conducted an
experiment where she separated blue-eyed (and green eyed) students from the rest of the class
and talked to them like most people typically talk to people of color. The groups were
separated while she briefed the brown-eyed students on how they should treat the blue-eyed
kids when they got back. They were to be spoken to in a demeaning tone, questioned
relentlessly, and laughed at. When the blue-eyed students were brought into the classroom,
they were forced to sit in the middle of the room, away from the rest of the students. Elliot
instigated conversation with these students so she could talk to them in the way other races
are spoken to. Some of them were really trying to soak it in, and some thought they would try
to stand up to her, only to get shut down. Early on, one girl cried. Later, another left. When she
tried to come back into the classroom, Elliot told her to leave. “Do you think people can just
walk away from racism?” This was a great point to make. People face issues like this daily and
these students only faced it for maybe a couple of hours at most, though they acted personally
hurt in a simulation. I think one of the most valuable points for me is when they pulled a black
student aside and she said she was tired of people telling her that they don’t think of her as
black, or that when they look at her they don’t see color. That is part of who she is. And for
someone to go out of their way to address that just to make themselves more comfortable at
her expense is still another form of racism that is being perpetuated.