Inspired by Jane Elliot
Today it is my pleasure to write about my personal hero in courage: Jane Elliott.
A couple of years ago I saw her documentary movie “Blue Eyed” on TV. It was eye opening: How does it feel to be judged as inferior by something you can’t change: The color of your skin or in her seminar the color of your eyes.
After the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 she taught her students how non-white people feel by dividing the class into two groups: Blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. Almost immediately the blue-eyed children acted like superior based on Jane’s pseudo-scientific explanation that blue-eyed people are smarter. The next day she made the brown-eyed children superior by reversing her pseudo-scientific explanation. The blue-eyed children acted inferior although they were superior the day before. The participants remember this lesson to this day: At the day they were inferior they worn a collar. Some have that collar still with them – 40 years later.
Her seminar, even if you just see it on TV, lets you reflect on what you take for granted and see as “normal” – for others, it’s common racism.
I can highly recommend watching the movie “Blue Eyed”.
Jane Elliot is my inspiration in courage, since she and her family pay a high price for her commitment in anti-racism training.
Please find more information at her homepage http://janeelliott.com.
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