Brown eye blue eye, Jane Elliott

[peter]

The other day, at the instigation of a radio presenter in the UK who following a brief excerpt from the address given by Killer Mike directed his listeners toward it, I watched the above named video on YouTube. (Sorry no link; I can't seem to do it from my machine.)

You may or may not have seen Killer Mike's emotional plea to the demonstrators post the murder of George Floyd, not to "burn down your house" in your frustration at the ongoing racism inherent in American (specifically) and Western society (generally), but are unlikely to have missed the repeated showing of the news footage of Floyd pleading for air as the police officer, now on a charge of third degree murder, knelt on his neck for nine minutes. The UK radio presenter presumably directed his listeners toward the above YouTube video posting, as a demonstration of how it might feel to experience for a day the treatment that black people experience on a continuous basis, and frustration with which, it was thereby implied, had led to the explosion of violent protest that had left dozens of American cities under curfew, as authorities despatatly attempt to halt the gathering storm which threatens to engulf the country.

In the video, shot I think in the early days of 'the experience' , we see anti-racism activist and educator Jane Elliott perform her "brown eyes - blue eyes experience" on a group of teenage students (the event being recorded over the day as it progresses) recruited by the lure of getting marks toward their end of semester grade, but unaware of the nature of what the 'experience' might be, but warned that it might include things that were uncomfortable or even upsetting. Worth noting at this point that Elliott originally performed this study on groups of much younger people, children indeed, over longer periods (a week was typical I think) but in a less ...... extreme.....??..manner, observing changes in the children's behaviour toward eachother as the week progressed. This observational purpose seems not to have been part of the one-day experience - the purpose being limited to that of giving the students a single day of experiencing what black people go through every single day.

At the beginning of the day, in the video, we see Elliott separating the two dozen or so students into two groups on the basis of their eye colour. Those with blue or indeterminate eye colour go into the blue group, the rest into the brown. The blue group are given collars to wear, that they might be easily identified and are placed in a room (a dozen or so of them) with only two or three chairs. They are left there for an hour or so while Elliott, who has maintained a bullish aggressive manner from the outset, explains to the other, brown eye group, that "today the criteria of separation we use every day in respect of skin colour is to be applied only in respect of eye colour. They, as the brown eyes, will get privileged treatment, will be treated with respect and dignity and will generally be seen as a superior 'type' to those of the blue eye group.

When the blue eye group are finally allowed in to the room, they are subjected over an extended period by Elliott, a forceful character in the extreme, to a verbal haranguing of extended duration, humiliated and occasionally reduced to tears, individuals selected an bullied - and every time they complain or raise objection, the litany of crimes that have been perpetrated against blacks by the whites (think the dragging of the man in Texas behind the car or the lynching of the man who had the temerity to speak to a white woman) are shouted into their faces in justification. This, Elliott tells them, is what blacks put up with on a daily basis and for them there is no escape! No-one in this room is in danger, she tells them; no-one will die. At the end the white members of the group will leave and re-enter their world of privilege - the black members (for there are black students there as well - will be similarly stuck in theirs. If the experience, says Elliott, changes the outlook of one individual amongst them, then it will have been worth the migraine she will have for two days as a result of the strain of performing the event.

While in it's truncated one day form, as noted above the purpose is educational alone rather than being along side an observational one, in the earlier studies I mentioned using children and taking place over a week, by the end of the week of privileges and special treatment, the brown eyes group of children had begun to treat the blue eyed group with a disdain and contempt that, in the manner of children, was not concealed. The prejudice based on eye colour seemed to have been driven in to them in much the same way that a skin based prejudice percolates over a longer period into the white child almost imperceptibly in our western society, whether we like it or not.

Well, I can't say about that; but what I can say is that as an event of any value in terms of actually altering the perception of white people toward black, of giving them the 'black experience' for a day in order to effect lasting change in them as they went forward through their lives, I thought it was bullshit. To subject a group of people to, an albeit limited, experience of trauma and bullying, of prejudice and humiliation for one day, is not going to imbue even the smallest grain of understanding, of true empathy, in respect of the grinding daily toll that the all encompassing 'miasma', of institutionalised racism inherent in our society exacts on the black community. Elliott's bullying tactics, far from achieving the goals which I'm sure she genuinely wants to bring about, merely leave, in the viewer and the participants alike, a sour taste in the mouth - a view of a goal worth mightily striving for, but brought not one iota closer as a result of the shedding of young tears and the breaking of young spirits. Better - far better, far more effective - to have spent a day of presentation of the facts of institutionalised racism, of the facts of white brutality and casual hatred, of the foul cases and obscene injustices heaped on the back community over the years....... and most importantly to have talked, white student to black, face to face about the issue, to get it from the mouths of those affected; now that would have been a day worth spending!

(Forgive me the shocking editing of this piece guys. I need very much to knock the grammar into shape, but simply haven't got the energy to do it right now. Maybe I'll come back and work it over in due course, but I think there is enough in there for you to grasp what I'm trying to say. It's a good example of how a piece comes off the pen (as it were) as a 'work in progress' if you like.)

(Edit; should work a little bit better now. Also, I have a bizarre sense of deja vu writing and working on this post. I've got a weird feeling I may have done a piece on it before.......
Frikkin' memory - not worth a fart!)