General Chat

Hi Janey,

Not meaning to be picky (but I probably am sorry lol), but I believe she made a point of calling it an exercise when she started it rather than experiment. (probably for scientific reasons)

Did you see the exercise she did with prison officers in the 80s (I think). It was interesting to see the exercise done with adults rather than children. I shouldn't have been shocked but I was at how adults can let others be bullied and demeaned.

I think she was also on the Oprah Winfrey show a few years back. Thanks for the Wikipedia link - I shall read through that when I get a chance.

Background info for anyone not familar with the original blue eyes/brown eyes experiment. (I think I learned about it in psych 1, in 1969.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

She said, after a discussion with her grade three students about the assassination of Martin Luther King: "I could see that they weren’t internalizing a thing."

Yup.

Sue and others, what you would have done in those artificial groups really is not the point.

The point of the experiment was to learn. To learn what it means to be a member of a group - the oppressed or the oppressors.

It was organized to illustrate to white kids how racism worked and what it did. Stereotyping -- what the experiment is about -- isn't limited to race, of course. The experiment itself actually has nothing to do with race. It is purely about stereotyping and the organization of social relationships on that basis.

Saying "I'm not going to oppress the blue eyes just because I have brown eyes" and stomping out is not how the real world works.

In the real world, groups of people are stereotyped, and oppressed and exploited. And other groups benefit from that, by virtue of birth alone. Stomping off the planet isn't an option. Enjoying the benefits of being the advantaged group is one option. Doing something about it is another.

I'm not saying I don't benefit from my membership in the advantaged group, far from it. But I'm certainly never going to pretend I don't.

it's a shame I missed it, I found A class Divided a very interesting programme when I watched it.

I can imagine how frustrated Jane Elliot must feel when after all these years racism is still rife.

Is the programme being repeated?

Errr not the fat person cos I wouldn't fit my fat butt in too!!!!!

I watched the programme and thought it served absolutely no purpose other than to divide a group of people who would have got along quite well.

I would have been one of those with brown eyes who walked out as I would not have subjected a random group to abuse. As I have blue eyes anyone trying to abuse me would have got an earful then I would have walked out!

You cannot generalise as the programme portrayed. It would have been more useful to showcase the effects of bullying IMO.

Without her actually living in the UK she cannot tailor the experiment to our particular social problems. Actually that applies to any academic who chooses to spout their opinions on the UK who aren't resident here.

Sue x

evening ( I have electricity again so I'm reasonably cheery lol)

I would sit next to anyone bar the woman with the screaming kid lol...I have had that two days running on the bus :)) but I prefer not to sit at the back, would rather stand ..whoever was sitting there lol

xx

Fiona we know everybody where we live

its like one big happy family most of the time

I'd probably sit next to the nearest person. I'm a Londoner and I probably wouldn't know the old lady who lived in my street, lived in my street, if you know what I mean.

*and she might well be the black person - although she probably wouldn't be the punk rocker, or the rabbi for that matter*

id sit next to the little old lady, coz shes of my street and i no her lol xxx

to put this in context
you get on the bus there's only seats next to
a black person
a Chinese person
a white person
a ginger person
a punk rocker
a fat person
a thin person
a woman with a screaming kid
a rabbi
somebody wearing a red jumper

and the little old lady who lives on your street

who do you sit with ????

Janey, it's very early and I am out for the day stripping walls lol.... but no , I haven't spent long in US ( quick visit to LA and having friends who are American and others British who went to live out there for a few years) .... it was a generalisation of course...more a recognition of how atrocious the racism in America WAS, rather than a commendation of how it IS now.


back later xx

Rose, you haven't spent time in the US, have you?

The racism is everywhere, and is appalling.

When I was in a suburb of Dallas visiting my then partner's family for a wedding, his younger brother took us on a drive around town. He was going into an area he started to call "N......" and checked himself and said "black town".

(- edit - the very fact that there is such a place in a modern city in the western world as "black town", let alone the fact that a university graduate about to get married in a church the next day would call it -- and let's not mince words -- "niggertown" -- says about all that needs saying.)

A bicycle shop owner in Florida I was buying a used bike from so I could cycle around with my dad when I visited him about 10 yrs ago decided to tell me a tale of the two "N"s who had done something or other.

I've spent time in most regions of the US, in big cities and small towns, in the rural deep South and the urban northeast, and in between. The racism and all of its consequences is one of the big reasons I just don't want to be there anymore.

It is everywhere, and it is just as bad in its nature and its effects as it ever was when there was "official" segregation. The US is about as far from "completely" moving on as can be imagined.

The kind of racism that existed and exists there is not something that a society moves on from. It is something that takes a huge, long-term commitment by individuals and the society to remedying -- all of the disadvantages that the population victimized by the racism has suffered for decades and decades, in terms of education and housing and employment and community infrastructure and every other kind of opportunity and resource you can think of.

That really is how it is, and not much is really being done about it.

Hiya hun how are you ?

I've remembered that from when i was little .!
It was something my mum said & has always stuck with me .

Love Karen xx

that about sums it up Karen :))

I missed the program .
I'm a bit fed up of hearing about Race / Politically correct issues . ( that's just me )
All i need to know is

We all cry the same tears .

as an experiment , I think it had value...the first time....

I disagree with her that "all" whites are "conditioned to think they are superior" ... she comes from the US and is of the time ( as was pointed out) when segregation was the norm there .... her own country has moved on ...not completely ,that will never happen anywhere... but more than could have been believable prior to the 60s.

the programme got on my pip tbh . some ppl make moutains out of molehills
and use race cards just coz they think they can and they are allowed, thats my opinion and now im going to bed coz ive got a bad knee and im tired..
Rosex

Mine too, Fiona

Come to that, I'll pretty much gaurantee that there's no-one on here who's family isn't likewise.

Sue x

They're normal as well :))

my family are just normal people

what colour people are doesnt matter to me

My tribe/family is multi-ethnic - and of course vastly superior to anyone else's lololol