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Luis Arteaga History 11 CR Ramos September 9, 2010 2:00 pm

Racism at its Worst: A Class Divided

In the short film, A Class Divided, renowned teacher Jane Elliott recounts an experiment she conducted with her third-grade class in 1968. The Blue-Eyes/ Brown -Eyes experiment split class into two groups. One consisted of blue-eyed children, the other brown-eyed. While one group was told it was superior in many ways, the other was told it was inferior in many ways. From intelligence to cleanliness, the group told to wear brown collars around their necks were inferior to the other group. The result was strong prejudice between the groups that at one point turned violent. Elliot conducted the same experiment with employees of a prison who were told they would be attending a workshop. But this time there was not a transfer of a false sense of superiority. The group with blue-eyes was forced to wait outside the lecture room until the brown-eyed employees were told how inferior their blue-eyed co-workers were. The blue-eyed group was aggravated further when told the many ways in which they were inferior to their counter-parts. At the end of both experiments there was a realization of the cruel nature prejudice has on people, and how it can turn best-friends into worst enemies, and friendly co-workers into despised relationships. Elliotts goal was to eliminate any prejudice feelings her third-grade class might have towards their fellow human-beings, and she

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accomplished that when that same class visits her, and express how they feel about segregation. And the same goal was applied to the prison employees, to eliminate thoughts of segregation and hate, to show we are all equal, we are all human. Jane Elliotts reason for the experiment was simple to demonstrate how racism feels. She wished to exercise this onto her third-grade class. The results horrified her. When the children with blue-eyes were told they were better than their brown-eyed classmates both groups began to hate each other. The blue-eyed children would call the others names. Instead of being known by their real names, they were called brownies, or simply brown. The next day the kids were told the statement of superiority was a lie. This time brown-eyed kids were told they were the true superior ones. The kids who were told they were better felt proud of themselves, arrogant, even. Those who were told they were not as good as others seemed depressed, some angry. Racism was proving to create segregation in which one group suffers at the cost of another groups happiness. What was remarkable was that whichever group that was told it was superior at the time performed better at card games and math quizzes they had used in the past. And those who were inferior at the time did worse than they had in the past. What this proved was that, through segregation, the confidence given to a student by their teacher has a direct correlation to whether they perform good or bad. When the experiment was performed on the adults, with the brown-eyed group told they were superior, the reactions were the same, only more aggressive. Brown-eyed people pointed out the flaws in blue-eyed people. Elliot confirmed this and further aggravated the blue-eyed group. As a result, blue-eyed people began to speak louder, and angrier at Elliot. The notable difference between the two experiments is that the younger

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participants had violent confrontations with each other. In the case of the adults, they only raised their voices. Among the adults, only a few stood out that spoke their opinions. Superiority and inferiority did not increase or decrease the amount of those who spoke out. Only those who were singled out from the inferior group spoke against Elliott, and only those chosen by Elliott from the superior group spoke. This shows how segregation and racism is led and fought by few, and it is those few that speak for the rest. The adults that truly learned from Elliotts experiment were those that spoke out from the blue-eyed group. Those few felt what it is like to be judged prematurely, based on physical characteristics. In conclusion, racism is a state of mind. Segregation and racism have both been exercised by humans for many years, and only until recently has it been proven wrong. If people can turn on each other simply because some are told they are better, then it proves racism is evil in nature, and it is an evil that has existed, and still does in some today. Racism had the power to make some children perform at their best, at the cost of others performing at their worst. Jane Elliott, through her experiment, not only showed how vile racism can be, but how reversible it also is.