Hey guys,
i've finally decided to do my first blog on Prejudice and Discrimination. Today I went to the Australian Eye SBS website (http://www.sbs.com.au/australianeye/) and read up on Jane Elliots fascinating and eye opening experiments. For those who haven't read about her experiments, bascially what she has done is picked out a physical characteristic (in this case, people with blue eyes) that an individual cannot help having or cannot change, and then she discriminates against them because they have blue eyes. Her workshops go for one day and involve a blue eyed caucasion group, and a brown eyed (some Aboriginals, some caucasions & some people from other backgrounds) group. Basically Jane discriminates against and insults the blue-eyed group for about 40 minutes while praising and making the brown eyed group superior. When the 40 mins is up, Jane debriefs both groups and explains how this experiment relates to discrimination and prejudice against a race (e.g., Aboriginals).
When I first started watching the online videos, I thought this women was a bit crazy, but when I took the time to read the experiments, it became very clear to me what Jane was trying to achieve. I think she was trying to make white Australians appreciate how difficult it has been and still is for minority groups for many years in our country, and if you watch the online video clips, the message has seemed to have gotten through. I believe that making people understand is the first step to making not only Australia a better place but the rest of the world.
Obviously this is only the start of a long road, but I think that if you can make one or two people change their attitudes toward a minority group, these one or two people will possibly influence their social networks to think similiar and appreciate all that humanity has to offer
i've finally decided to do my first blog on Prejudice and Discrimination. Today I went to the Australian Eye SBS website (http://www.sbs.com.au/australianeye/) and read up on Jane Elliots fascinating and eye opening experiments. For those who haven't read about her experiments, bascially what she has done is picked out a physical characteristic (in this case, people with blue eyes) that an individual cannot help having or cannot change, and then she discriminates against them because they have blue eyes. Her workshops go for one day and involve a blue eyed caucasion group, and a brown eyed (some Aboriginals, some caucasions & some people from other backgrounds) group. Basically Jane discriminates against and insults the blue-eyed group for about 40 minutes while praising and making the brown eyed group superior. When the 40 mins is up, Jane debriefs both groups and explains how this experiment relates to discrimination and prejudice against a race (e.g., Aboriginals).
When I first started watching the online videos, I thought this women was a bit crazy, but when I took the time to read the experiments, it became very clear to me what Jane was trying to achieve. I think she was trying to make white Australians appreciate how difficult it has been and still is for minority groups for many years in our country, and if you watch the online video clips, the message has seemed to have gotten through. I believe that making people understand is the first step to making not only Australia a better place but the rest of the world.
Obviously this is only the start of a long road, but I think that if you can make one or two people change their attitudes toward a minority group, these one or two people will possibly influence their social networks to think similiar and appreciate all that humanity has to offer
2 comments:
Hi Sammy T,
Good stuff. I had similar reactions to first seeing Jane Elliot in action in her videos. As you indicate, once you digest her whole process, one can start to see and understand her 'genius'.
Suggestion: Can you edit your post (or do another one) to include links to relevant resources? (Use the pencil icon at the bottom of a post to edit it).
More discussion on this will hopefully happen as approach the Prejudice and Aggression Tutorial.
Hey Sam,
How's the blog going mate?
Just thought I'd also comment on the Australian Eye experiment. I found watching this experiment to be quite frustrating, I think watching anyone get treated like the are inferior is a little upsetting.
I can see the point of the experiment and feel that Jane achieved a positive result in the end but it left me wondering if this is how we should really go about making people aware of prejudice and discrimination? Why is that people need to be made to feel terrible to bring about change??
The other aspect that I found concerning was how keen some of the 'brown eyed' people were to make the blue eyes feel so inferior. Sure they may have had a very difficult time during their lives and i'm not trying to take away from that at all, but I would like to think that after someone has experienced something like that they would much prefer that no one ever felt that way again....
But i suppose that is human nature to a certain extent and maybe one of the reasons why reducing prejudice and discrimination is such a difficult task!
Anyway just a couple of thoughts, good luck with your blog!
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