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A Diversity-Training Tool We Don't Need(kids need to experience prejudice to understand prejudice?)
Sacbee.com ^ | June 18, 2004 | LINDA SEEBACH

Posted on 06/19/2004 8:33:58 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay

(SH) - One of the more sadistic exercises practiced by some operators who drive the diversity machine goes by the name "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes." You may have heard of it, because an elementary-school teacher in Iowa first perpetrated it on her fourth-graders in 1968 and it quickly became notorious.

Jane Elliott divided her students into two groups based on their eye color. The blue-eyed children were forced to wear collars symbolizing inferiority, and were constantly humiliated by the brown-eyed children, egged on by their teacher. Elliott once told an interviewer, "It was just horrifying how quickly they became what I told them they were." She described how one of the blue-eyed girls changed from a "brilliant, self-confident carefree, excited little girl to a frightened, timid, uncertain little almost-person." You would think that any normal person would realize that she had just done an evil thing. But not Elliott. She repeated the abuse with subsequent classes, and finally turned it into a fully commercial enterprise, hawking workshops, lectures, books and videos. You can find her on the Web, but I won't give you the address because I think she is a disgrace.

Here's how her Web site advertises the workshop: "This is a one-day seminar in which participants will be exposed to an exercise in discrimination based on eye color. Blue-eyed participants will be identified as the inferior group and all the negative stereotypes ordinarily applied to people of color and women by white people and men will be applied to them. Those people having green or hazel eyes will be designated inferior or superior as the instructor sees fit." One of the many companies that sell her videos describes the results this way: "In just a few hours, we watch grown professionals become distracted and despondent, stumbling over the simplest commands." Why am I telling you about this now? Because an extremely and righteously angry woman wrote me recently that her son, a ninth-grader at Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, Colo., had been subjected to this abusive treatment in his English literature class, which was studying "Othello."

(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Colorado; US: Iowa
KEYWORDS: diversity; diversityeducation; education; educrats; hatecrime; janeelliott; martinlutherking; multiculturalism; pc; peakcharter; schoolbias
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To: Fintan

Glad I never had to attend a diversity class for company SHEESH!


21 posted on 06/19/2004 9:03:22 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: gitmo
One of the many companies that sell her videos describes the results this way: "In just a few hours, we watch grown professionals become distracted and despondent, stumbling over the simplest commands."

I worked at a division that attemped a social experiment once.

As a grey-green eyed person, it did not work any better than this would have. If a person is blessed with marketable and profitable skills, or even just a shred of integrity, they are burdened with the duty to more or less tell these people to GFTS.

22 posted on 06/19/2004 9:04:26 AM PDT by Gorzaloon (Contents may have settled during shipping, but this tagline contains the stated product weight.)
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To: Siamese Princess

I would like to see a day where there are no hyphens and everyone is just an American. I don't think we should have to have a terrorist attack for that to happen.


23 posted on 06/19/2004 9:05:16 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: fight_truth_decay
Here are a few of the responses of Holland students who participated in this "lesson". - The Magenta Project :

"It is true, we see it happen, but we don't do anything; we cooperate, because who is silent, agrees. Only now I have noticed that it is this way. But then the big question stays. What do you do about it? Make a stand as a person and protest against discrimination. That is what should be done, but you don't. Almost nobody does, and that is the problem. Because if all of us did, we could change it."
Barbara, 16 years old, brown eyes

" . . . A racist environment is very easy to create, much more easy than I thought. And the effects for the minority are much worse than I could ever dream of . . . ."
Anna, 15 years old, blue eyes

"Today, I have learned what it is to be seen by others as a minority. I did not expect that it would be so humiliating! In the end, I really had the feeling a bit that I was inferior. I was against racism and discrimination already, but now I understand what it really is."
Aletta, 15 years old, blue eyes

". . . When you have experienced it [discrimination] yourself, you look at it totally differently. Racism is no fun, and you would not like it if you were the person who's discriminated against."
Christian, 12 years old, blue eyes

"I have learned that the only one who can change me is myself because I cannot give myself another eye colour, but I can give myself other opinions. . . ."
Melissa, 12 years old, brown eyes

"When someone is being discriminated you have to oppose this and make a firm stand. So do not only say that you are against it, but also do what you say."
Student, 16 years old, brown eyes

"When you feel day by day what I today as a blue-eye felt (especially in the beginning of the day) then your life is rotten. . . . Racism is so very easy to do. Before you realize it happens. As a person, you are powerless, it makes more sense to revolt together."
Marten, 18 years old, blue eyes

"I think 'the game' today was very good at showing how it is to be part of a minority, although I was a brown-eyed myself (so I did not suffer). Only at the debriefing I realized that I, as a brown eye, had not wanted to make a stand for the blue-eyes. A very good lesson for me was that when it all started, I thought I would do that for sure, but during it all, it never really crossed my mind to do it."
Eline, 17 years old, brown eyes

"I think it was very anti-social how the blue eyed's were treated. As this is how discrimination works, then I think about it differently now."
Tamara, 14 years old, blue eyes

"I was one of the blue-eyes today, and I did not find that funny. I felt greatly discriminated against because we (the blue-eyed's) had to shut our mouth and stand still. The brown eyes were treated well. I really understand that people who are discriminated must feel very angered, like I felt today. It was very much worth it."
Jardena, 16 years old, blue eyes

24 posted on 06/19/2004 9:07:48 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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To: fight_truth_decay

Interesting background on Jane Elliott. I urge all of you to read this...

 

25 posted on 06/19/2004 9:10:14 AM PDT by Fintan (Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.)
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To: fight_truth_decay
do kids need to experience prejudice to understand prejudice

Who needs to "understand" prejudice, anyway? That's thought control, not education.

A civil environment, whether in a classroom or a workplace, can be achieved by requiring that everyone be treated courteously or professionally. Just leave people's feelings and prejudices alone, and enforce polite behavior.

26 posted on 06/19/2004 9:13:19 AM PDT by Tax-chick (A rifle without ammunition is just a stick.)
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To: fight_truth_decay
To heck with the beyotch, I've got green eyes, so there!
27 posted on 06/19/2004 9:14:59 AM PDT by Looking4Truth ((Muslim internment camps in the U.S. NOW!!!))
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To: cyborg
I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear I suppose.

..and the kids tell them (the lesson planner) what they want to hear? ..over adults taking the seminar.(referencing my post #24)

28 posted on 06/19/2004 9:16:57 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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To: fight_truth_decay

I think teaching children prejudice is a galling concept. Liberals love to destroy children's innocence.


29 posted on 06/19/2004 9:22:22 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: Fintan
Thanks and pulled this from your link:http://www.vdare.com/fulford/jane_elliott.htm

Thursday, March 16, 2000


Teacher calls Govs. Bush racists
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON — At an Education Department seminar on promoting diversity, a former teacher described Govs. George W. and Jeb Bush as racists, department officials have acknowledged. At least one House lawmaker wants an explanation.

Jane Elliot, an author who delivers lectures worldwide on race and bias issues, was invited to the department March 8 to deliver a presentation on how children become prejudiced.

During the presentation, she also advised about 50 employees who attended not to vote for Republican political candidates, department officials said Wednesday.

The Bushes are Republicans. George W. Bush is the governor of Texas and a candidate for president. His brother, Jeb, is governor of Florida. Their father is former President Bush.

Erica Lepping, a spokeswoman for Education Secretary Richard Riley, said Wednesday that the context of Elliot's remarks about the Bush brothers and GOP candidates was unclear.

``We had no reason to believe Ms. Elliot's presentation would end up with her saying the things she did,'' Lepping said. ``The comments were spontaneous and unanticipated.''

Lepping, who did not attend the meeting, said Leslie Thornton, the department's chief of staff, immediately sent an e-mail memo to staffers denouncing Elliot's political statements as ``comments that were inappropriate in an address to federal employees.''

Elliot could not be reached for comment Wednesday. She is a former third-grade teacher from Iowa and creator of a well-known diversity lesson that separates students based on eye color.

Elliot received about $7,500 from the department for participating in its speaker's series on diversity, Lepping said.

``We certainly don't endorse the comments and they don't reflect our views,'' said Lepping.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, criticized the seminar as another example of mismanagement at the department. He said Wednesday he had sent the department a letter seeking more details on Elliot's talk.

``I want a full explanation from the department about this seminar and what they are doing to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen again,'' Hoekstra said.

There was no immediate comment from representatives of George W. Bush.

Justin Sayfie, a spokesman for Jeb Bush, said the governor's ``record on diversity and inclusion in office speaks for itself. As far as the specific allegation, if it actually took place, it is absurd.''

"Say what you will, it means nothing,totally empty and nothing more than an insult to the will of the AMERICAN peoples already beset with trouble.May their hearts not be further burdened by such arrogance. May they be less deceived by your foolishness."
30 posted on 06/19/2004 9:27:07 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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To: Siamese Princess

"A great deal of what is called "prejudice" should actually be called "postjudice" -- common sense tempered with experience."

Great term. Dinesh D'Souza calls it "rational discrimination." One of his examples is if a group of toughs are walking toward one, exuding their "I-Don't-Give-A-Bleep-About-The-World" look, it is completely rational to avoid the situation by crossing the street. The theory is that, one cannot instantly be sure that these "toughs" are just projecting an image to placate a "rep" or to hide certain insecurities, not malicious intent. Some people have better instincts than others but in general don't have the time or the info to make an informed decision about the "toughs" real intent, background, etc. before one passes them.

People that want to project an image should not be surprised when people make on-the-fly judgements based on their clothes, banter, gestures. Don't want to be judged as a gangbanger, don't dress like one.


31 posted on 06/19/2004 9:42:42 AM PDT by torchthemummy (Florida 2000: There Would Have Been No 5-4 Without A 7-2)
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To: fight_truth_decay

They do the same type of BS to this day to "sensitize" college men to the plight of womyn in a man's world.

Teaching people to ignore skin color and judge people by the content of their character is just not in the politically correct agenda. It is not about diversity, it is about preserving strife. They have to torture little children in order to get their jollies.

They would achieve the same results by showing the black/white episode of the original star trek. ("Let that be you Last Battlefield" I believe) You could probably replace her entire curriculum and achieve more by showing the entire original series instead of her racist prattle.


32 posted on 06/19/2004 9:52:18 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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To: torchthemummy

His book 'End to Racism' is excellent. My example of a place where there's true 'ethnic diversity' but real unity is the US military. They didn't need Jane Elliot's help either.


33 posted on 06/19/2004 9:52:53 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: cyborg

Ditto! Now if we can just get AFN completely on-board the military will be even greater than it is.


34 posted on 06/19/2004 9:54:36 AM PDT by torchthemummy (Florida 2000: There Would Have Been No 5-4 Without A 7-2)
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To: GSlob

Let's be fair.

It's doubtful that there was much diversity to educate people about in ancient China.


35 posted on 06/19/2004 10:03:14 AM PDT by sharktrager (George Clooney has rubber nipples.)
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To: cyborg
I remember this idiot Jane Elliot on the tv...even when I was little I hated her guts.

I was an adult when that woman came on the scene. I believe Oprah had her on. She was downright creepy.

How about that for some youthful prejudice! *lol*

Nothin' wrong with hatin' her prejudicial guts. ;^)

36 posted on 06/19/2004 10:07:10 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: randog
I felt like the last human in 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'

That is a great descriptive sentence.

37 posted on 06/19/2004 10:14:18 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: fight_truth_decay
I'm astonished that this exercise is still done today on school children. The very first running of the experiment in 1968 may have been interesting, but it was unethical then and inexcusable now. I'm surprised there haven't been lawsuits.

In universities nowadays, if you wish to conduct sociological research, even just giving an innocuous survey to students, you're supposed to run it past a human-subjects review board. I'm sure this exercise would never be approved at the university I teach at.

38 posted on 06/19/2004 10:15:24 AM PDT by megatherium
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To: sharktrager

There were "outer barbarians, bringing tribute", or "owing tribute, but not bringing it", but they were not a part of curriculum.


39 posted on 06/19/2004 10:24:08 AM PDT by GSlob
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To: Siamese Princess

The truer words have not been spoken. You are absolutely right.


40 posted on 06/19/2004 10:29:13 AM PDT by GSlob
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