My other half and I watched this documentary on Channel 4 on Thursday. The write up in Total TV Guide says "Former teacher Jane Elliot uses an exercise she employed 40 years ago in Ohio, using British adults from various backgrounds to show how susceptible people can be to bigotry. The volunteers experience inequality based on eye colour to show how easy we can become victims of discrimination"
We are in a mixed race relationship, and come across various forms of discrimination when we're together. I am also disabled and also get discriminated due to my disability.
The programme was interesting, as a number of the people who took part in the exercise reacted as though it were real life, and not an experiment. All the blue eyed people in the group were "collared" and segregated, and the brown eyed were given comfortable chairs, and fed better in the meal break. The results were astounding. It made a few of the group realise that they were treating people different, and unconciously as it was something they had always done. It was "ingrained" into them.
I was once asked, "are you with your other half because he is black?" my reply, "no, I am with him because he is him... normal, natural and treats me well." I don't see skin colour, I see the person. We are all the same underneath.
I'm interested in what other people think about the programme? it really was an eye opener, and very thought provoking.
Please note, that this thread is meant for debate, not personal attacks. Thank you!!!
"kitty"
I dont feel racist. My three best friends are chinese, indian and jamaican (would make for an interesting gangbang I suppose. lol)
and yet, a group of black guys hanging around in the street primes me for a fight more than a group of white guys. So some sort of racism must be hard wired into my brain I suppose.
It may simply be the fact that more black guys have initiated fights with me than white guys.
(im taking the broadest possible classification of race here. I know that skin colour is not race. I mean no offense to anybody.)
Unfortunately I never got to watch the program.
I didn't see the programme but I know of the original experiment and understand that it worked very well in showing discrimination can be something we are all capable of, being black, white or pink with blue spots on.
I understand that the programme last week didnt work out quite as well as the original though.
I watched the programme because I have the original footage of Jane Elliot(somewhere )that I used when I was tutoring Community Work Skills etc. It was a good tool because it taught "difference and discrimination", bringing up many things for participants who were able to discuss issues in a safe confidential environment.
It is interesting to watch how and which participants reacted to what was said. Although I felt she was on the bullish side, if one person went away and reflected on the workshop and thought about how they talk, behave etc. etc. result!
Thank you all for your comments so far! We have watched all the programmes this week, and the one discussing IQ was particularly interesting. We were discussing this in length, and we came to the conclusion that IQ is also a contentious subject when it comes to racism. We feel that we have intelligence in different forms, that is not really relevent to the tests that Mensa for instance, set down to get your IQ score.
I have qualities which my other half doesn't have, and visa versa. It doesn't matter that he's black and I'm white, as long as you can get on and work/live together happily it shouldn't matter. But it does to some.
Going back to anais's comment about being harder to do the workshop in this programme, the brown eyed woman did ruin part of it. But the comment that offended my other half and I, was when the teacher said, "there was a mixed race child who fell over and scraped her face, and I was suprised to see she had pink skin underneath" :shock: We were both flabbergasted when we heard that....
If I can find it, there is a little ditty about colour from a black persons point of view which goes along the lines of, "when I wake up, i'm black. When I'm asleep I'm black. when you (white person) are sick you are green, when you're cold you're blue... and you call me coloured???"
There's more to it, but that is all I can remember right now. Maybe someone out there will know more. But what do you think??
*kitty*
I'm in the army (apparently were bad for racism) and my experience isn't a bad one. Yes we have racist jokes, but we also joke about each others mothers. For example, my mum died when I was 14. Someone said they had fucked my mum. I replied, that would be hard as she died when I was 14. His reply was, in fact I won't put it because It would probably upset people. The point I'm trying to make is I knew he didn't mean anything by it. It was just humour, all be it a fucked up one (I did laugh at his discomfort). Everyone knows when something is meant malicously. Surely we can accept contraversial jokes without worying about the human rights brigade.
Before I get bombarded with shit-o-grams I don't condone antagonistic views or comments as long as everyone shares the nature as to which it was intended. "It", being humerous and not insulting.
No doubt people will comment on what I find humerous others would find insulting. To that I say we live in a multi cultural society and crude jokes are part of our every day life.
There's a good test to see how implicitly racist people are, called "Project Implicit", run by Harvard University.
The results are quite revealing if you do the test properly.
About 20 years ago I was in an amateur evening drama class, and we enacted this experiment without realising what it was until after.
It was the same principle where half the group was humiliated and the other half played a series of improvisations which demonstrated a variety of prejudices. It happened that one of the group was studying pscychology and was able to direct this very well.
We were questioned with each improvisation and found our reactions were compromised and hypocritical etc. It seemed there was no right answer, as all our efforts were manipulated by the pscychology student.
I would say the group in the experiemnt on tv recently were fairly well behaved. Some of these experiments could get quite out of hand, if you think about it.
But people have mixed emotions and ideas. Which can't always be isolated and made to stand on their own. We all experience thoughts and feelings. What makes us responsible is to recognise them and employ them in the fairest way.
I am not sure a life of doing this has made Jane Elliott one of the beautiful people.
All this stuff can go to far. The psychologists are asking us the questions they can't answer for themselves. they are getting too much of a foothold into people's lives and simply dabbling irresponsibly.
What can we expect next? A multi ethnic representive group there at the birth of our children and during the formative months, in order to make sure the child develops without any prejudices? Its madness.
Well said Crash.
You make a good point about dabbling Duncan but I ought to stress that the work done for TV and the ongoing work by Jane Elliot isnt being conducted under the auspices of a professional body. if such experiments were to be conducted under the auspices of the BPS or APA for example, the proposal would have to be vetted and cleared by an ethics commmittee. They are pretty careful to avoid physical or mental damage to participants. (This wasn't always the case as evidenced by some of the appalling group experiments conducted in the 50s and 60s.
Training/edeucation in the workplace, is not subjected to such rigorous controls. I recall with some disgust one particular "leadership" course I attended where one of my colleagues was left a battered and broken emotional shell as a result of some fairly intense "training" using some fairly brutal and dangerous techniques developed from an understanding of the human psyche. She had a breakdown shortly after and never returned to that place of work.
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