A Class Divided

I recently watched a video on PBS called ‘A Class Divided’ for my diversity class. In 1970, third-grade teacher, Jane Elliott, conducted a televised experiment with her students. This experiment showed how discrimination can quickly affect the behavior of both the discriminators and the discriminatees. She accomplished this by dividing the all-white rural Ohioan class based on their eye-color. She told them that blue-eyed people were better than brown-eyed people and that they should be restricted and treated differently. She made the brown-eyed children wear collars to clearly mark them as the inferior ‘brown-eyes.’ The following day she told them that she had lied and that brown-eyed people were really better and switched the collars to the ‘blue-eyes’.

For me, the most interesting and surprising thing about the broadcast was how quickly the children’s behavior changed based on the new prejudices. “I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating, little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes,” Elliott recounted. Many of the blue-eyed children began to bully and taunt the brown-eyed children. One of the boys being taunted punched his former friend in the gut. A look of helpless anxiety and dissatisfaction came over the children wearing the collars. Their academic scores dropped dramatically on the day they wore the collars.

I feel a little bothered by this video, because the children being observed actually went through a harrowing emotional experience during the experiment. Despite this feeling, I think it actually had a positive effect on the children. The video included an interview of the third grade class fourteen years later, and each young adult testified to the experiment having a profoundly powerful positive impact on their lives. It helped them identify with minorities and all people who were different from them.  

The scene that will stick with me the longest will be the two boys discussing the punching incident and what led up to it. The brown-eyed boy admitted that punching the other boy didn’t make him feel any better. Elliot asked the blue eyed boy about the taunting, “Were you doing it for fun--to be funny, or were you doing it to be mean?” “Mean?” the boy responded with a guilty expression.

The video was very interesting to watch. I think the unique thing about it is that although the experiment seems ahead of its time, I don’t think it would be permitted in any American school today. Even Elliot admitted that it could be damaging for many children. Nevertheless, the ‘Blue-eyes, Brown-eyes Exercise,” was an informative, eye-opening experiment and taught us something important about human nature.

References:

A Class Divided; March 26, 1985; PBS; William Peters; Charlie Cobb;

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

A Global Village

When Marshall McLuhan called our social world, a ‘global village,’ he was making a point about how our world today has been shrunk as a result of the communication age. International interactions online are a daily occurrence, and the people of the world are constantly connecting and collaborating.

Thomas Friedman made an almost identical point during his talk about his book, The World is Flat, at MIT. He said that we are currently in the 3rd era of globalization, characterized by individuals and small groups globalizing. “It’s shrinking the world from size small to size tiny, and flattening the global economic playing field at the same time.” More players are allowed on the economic scene as a result of communication technology.

The implications of living in a global village are transforming the social world. As diversity grows in the business scene, more accommodations are being made for people of different languages, cultural and religious backgrounds. As Bucher states in Diversity Consciousness, we can’t pretend that differences don’t exist. We have to learn to be sensitive to other cultures and realize that people from different backgrounds or cultures may not think the same way about everything as we do.  As the global village brings people together, there is hope that it will encourage understanding.

References:

Bucher, Richard D., Diversity Consciousness, Opening our Minds to People, Cultures, and Opportunities, Fourth Edition, 2013

Friedman, Thomas L., “The World is Flat”, 2005, retrieved from http://video.mit.edu/watch/the-world-is-flat-9145/

2050 U.S. Demographics and Me

How will US demographics be different in 2050 than they are in the present? The textbook, Diversity Consciousness, sites demographers’ predictions that the percentage of people identifying themselves as multiracial will increase significantly. Interracial couples are becoming more common and accepted in society. Projected demographics show an increase in all minorities, women and older and disabled people in the U.S. workforce. These predictions all lead to one conclusion: the U.S. is becoming more diverse.

How will a more diverse country affect me personally? I am a white female, and in 2050, I will be 63 years old. I have recently become more aware of white privilege and the advantages I have received by just being born into a white family. I hope that as my children and grandchildren grow up in a more diverse country, opportunities become more available to minorities. Due to the rising number of interracial couples, it is quite possible that I could have a grandchild of mixed race and would come to a very personal understanding of the challenges facing a multiracial child.

I think it is natural, but not necessarily good, for many people to prefer to be around people who are similar to themselves, and to resist change as they grow older. I hope that I can be patient and understanding to all types of people as an older woman. Fortunately, I have close friends from several different races, and live in an area that is very diverse. I hope that in 2050, I will continue to make the effort to try to understand people who are different from me and adapt as I encounter all types of people.

References:

Bucher, Richard D., Diversity Consciousness, Opening our Minds to People, Cultures, and Opportunities, Fourth Edition, 2013