The Themes Of Prejudice In Brown Eyes And Blue Eyes

The blue-eyed members are subjected to pseudo-scientific explanations of their inferiority, culturally biased IQ tests and blatant discrimination. When the inevitable resistance by a blue-eyes surfaces, Elliot cites the outburst as an example of

On the first day of the experiment, the blue-eyed children, or the in-group, were told they were superior to the brown eyed children, the out-group. On top of being told they were better and smarter than the brown-eyed children, the out-group was not allowed to drink from the same fountain, play together at recess, or go back for seconds at lunch-time. The brown eyed children received less recess time, had to wait to go to lunch, and wore collars for easy recognition.

From here, we witness some of superior blue eyed kids began to act arrogant and bossy to the inferior brown eyed kids. Blue eyed Russell was taunting John at recess, calling him ‘brown eyes’ and John retaliated by hitting him. After the two boys fought at recess the teacher asked if responding with violence made him feel better, he replied no. His answer goes to show that responding with violence is ineffective and a waste of time and energy. They compared it to someone calling a black man the N-word.

On April 5 1968 Jane Elliot preformed the historical experiment in her 3rd grade classroom separating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. After the death of Martin Luther King her students raised quiestions and she wanted to think of a way to make her students understand what minorities in the U.S feel like. Jane believed that her students would understand what it felt like to be discriminated against by separating them by their eye color. She asked her students if they wanted to be treated like a person of color for a day, judging their peers by the color of their eyes. The students went along with it and that coined the experiment that would later be known as “A Class Divided”.

In a powerful experiment we were able to see through the eyes of a kindergarten children prejudice dynamics. In a famous experience by Jane Elliot she separated her class between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. Professor Elliot had separated her students by making one eye group inferior to the other making them have certain benefits and better treatment than the other group of students. Eventually, the students were switched the following day. This experiment have showed this group of kindergarten students how colors and discrimination affected the minority population. After this successful experiment with the kindergarten student’s professor Jane Elliot had done many other experiments using adults using the a similar technique blue-eyed

“A Class Divided”: When asked the question, “do you think you know how it feels to be judged by the color of your skin”, a few felt that they did. Initially the children were excited to participate in the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment, until they realized they would be the people being judged. Once the teacher announced that the blue-eyed people are the “better people” than the brown-eyed children, immediately voiced their disagreement. One blue-eyed boy stated, “My dad has brown eyes and he’s not stupid.”

In watching the video Jane Elliot specifically separated the class by eye color Blue eyed meaning that you were better smarter and appreciated more in society and brown eyed meaning you were less than, not a good person, and not as smart as a blue-eyed person. And one of students was subjective to that because one his parents was brown eyed and he didn't quite understand why was his dad being labeled as less because of his eye color. The kids quickly recognized that brown eyed people were labeled as bad people and people who are flat out bad. One of the students who was labeled as brown eye immediately felt the treatment of not be treated equally and being put down based upon his eye color.

Elliott gave an excellent example of prejudice and discrimination to her 3rd grade pupils. She split her class in two groups according to their eye color. She set up the rules since the beginning, where the blue eyes group was superior to the brown eyes group and uses a color collar to make the inferior team more visible. It is heartbreaking to see little kids discriminating against each other within that little time and being mean to their friends. Also we see that the kids who were appraised performed better on their tests and work in general. Elliott repeated the exercise to the employees of the Iowa prison system. The reaction to the employees was similar to the 3rd grade kids. They started to prejudice and discriminate

Elliot wanted her students to feel. Her students learned what if felt like to be an outcast and to be treated different. One student was struggling with the transition and said “the way they treated you, you felt like you didn’t want to try to do anything” (ACD). These students started to understand how you can discriminate someone easily because they look different when actually nothing is different about them.. At the end of the experiment Mrs. Elliot asked the blue eyes group how they felt when they were wearing the collars and some students reported that “they know how they (brown eyed students) felt” (ACD). When these students were reunited fourteen years later, this experiment had a lasting effect on them. A woman tells her life experience and says “I wish I had that collar in my pocket. And say ‘wear this’ and put yourself in their place” (ACD). Because they understood how it was to be mistreated they can recognize that this behavior is wrong and find different ways to help the person that is being mistreated or even yet, prevent

Jane Elliott’s blue-eyed brown-eyed discrimination experiment showed behavior changes between the two participating groups of students. The article A Class Divided states, “In contrast, the “superior” students — students who had been sweet and tolerant before the exercise — became mean-spirited and seemed to like discriminating against the “inferior” group” (A Class Divided). When one group of the students was considered “Superior” to the other group, they would become cruel and treat the other students poorly. The article also explains, “On both days, children who were designated as inferior took on the look and behavior of genuinely inferior students, performing poorly on tests and other work” (A Class Divided). Students that would normally

Thus, when they returned as adults they proved that the experiment taught them a valuable life lesson. The US edition of The Guardian States that “such anti-racist policies can create divisions where none had existed by turning everyday playground spats into ‘race issues’... but at the end of Jane Elliot’s experiment the class seems to come together in agreement of an even deeper closeness. I also believe it was ethical because no one was hurt and no one suffered as a result of the experience if anything they grew. The only thing I find unethical about the experiment would be the deception of the students when she was explaining her phony scientific research of the superior and inferior groups.

In the 1960’s psychologist Stanley Milgram set up what could be deemed as a controversial set of experiments. His goal was to see if he could determine how ordinary German citizens could have been a part of such atrocities committed against the Jewish people in World War II. Milgram also wondered if something like that could still take place in our modern society. The true motives of the experiment were not revealed to the participants until after the experiment was concluded (Stangor, Jhangiani, Tarry, 2014). The participants were recruited from the general-public. They were told the experiment was to determine how punishment influences learning and that they would be paid four dollars for participating in the experiment.

She pointed out flaws of the brown-eyed group and seemingly better traits of the blue-eyed group that made her statement seem correct leading to a generalized prejudice. Elliot then made rules for the groups, including that of recess time, drinking fountain privileges, lunch privileges, and segregation on the playground, giving advantages to the superior blue-eyed group and disadvantages to the inferior brown-eyed group which is a small-scale simulation of societal and governmental oppression of minorities. The kids laughed at the “other 's” misfortune, two kids of each group got into a fight, and hateful things were said by the “good” group while a look and feel of disappointment, shame, and exclusion was shown by the “bad” group. The roles were effectively reversed on the second day by using the same methods. The brown-eyed group were more than happy to give their collars to the blue-eyed group. The situated identities of the children were changed by Jane Elliot, an authority figure, by declaring that people of one eye color were better than people of another. She pointed out flaws and supposed shortcomings that made the one group seem inferior and the other group adopted this generalized view. This turned into discriminatory rules and acts in the class and on the playground.

Racism in The Bluest Eye "There is really nothing more to say--except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how." When bad things happen to us, the first thing we ask ourselves is "why"? Most of the time however, the answer to "why" is not readily available to us, and sometimes there is not an answer at all.