Racial sensitivity training for white people

[Flute]

Everyone needs to watch this video. But if you are white, you are likely to benefit a lot by watching this remarkable video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0qKDiq1fNw

This video features a third grade teacher named Jane Elliott from Iowa, US. She, very convincingly demonstrates how prejudice is formed in human beings. To drive home her point, she uses the colour of eyes as a means of differentiation and segregation to divide a group of white people into two sub-groups. This video demonstrates the same experiment twice - initially conducted on all white third graders, and later on a mixed group of adults. Both scenarios produce similar results of overt hostility against the out-group.

I am kicking myself for having discovered this video so late in my life. Its simply brilliant in its production, narration and demonstration. I wasn't even born in 1968, when Jane Elliott conducted this experiment for the very first time, a day after the death of Dr.Martin Luther King. De jure segregation, sanctioned or enforced by force of law, was stopped in the United States by federal enforcement of a series of Supreme Court decisions after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

14 years after elimination of racial segregation in 1954, when Jane Elliott conducted this experiment in 1968, by that time, segregation was still widely being practiced in one way or the other in social situations. So for Jane Elliott to conduct this experiment is pretty remarkable. As a minority, despite so much enlightenment all around, I continue to face discrimination in North America. One can imagine the kind of hostility and ostracization that Jane Elliott might have faced back then. It was extremely courageous on her part, to have persisted in her efforts. In many ways, she is a pioneer and that quintessential divergent thinker, who was instrumental for creating generations of bias-free white people.

 

[polara69]

That works with any race, don't single out my race. But since you have done so already, I consider you a racist, too. And all that because someone thought your were a sales person in a shopping mall? You must live a sad life, sad indeed!

 

[emiiuki]

That works with any race, don't single out my race. But since you have done so already, I consider you a racist, too. And all that because someone thought your were a sales person in a shopping mall? You must live a sad life, sad indeed!

Totally agree with you!
I've seen sevaral posts by this individua and was thinking: if he acts and thinks like that in CA, what was he doing in his home country (just guessing which it might be) when he felt as a visible majority and male - throwing stones at women for "not beeing obediant" and setting people of other religion and skin colour on fire, etc.
And, then, comes to a developed western country and preach on human rights.
And don't want to leave........

 

[Lammawitch]

As a "white person", I'm quite sincerely shocked and annoyed at *your* racist judgements.

I've lived & worked in countries where I was part of a racial minority. Canada doesn't come even close to equalizing the discrimination...

For an example within your comprehension scale : Try Quebec, as a white "Anglo", with an Anglo name, speaking French with a "French-from-France" accent. When born & bred in the province.

TL:dr: it's not always about skin colour...

 

[Flute]

As a "white person", I'm quite sincerely shocked and annoyed at *your* racist judgements.

I've lived & worked in countries where I was part of a racial minority. Canada doesn't come even close to equalizing the discrimination...

For an example within your comprehension scale : Try Quebec, as a white "Anglo", with an Anglo name, speaking French with a "French-from-France" accent. When born & bred in the province.

TL:dr: it's not always about skin colour...

When white people in Canada experience discrimination (for eg; Anglos treated badly by French in Quebec); don't you think it serves as a valuable learning experience for them? Confucius said, “Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you.” Unless white people experience discrimination first hand, how will they realize what it feels like to be discriminated against? And that's the whole point of the "Blue eyes, Brown eyes" experiment that Jane Elliott conducted in 1968 (refer to video link I shared in the initial post). She divided a classroom of white kids in grade 3 into two separate groups - one group with blue eyes and another group with brown eyes. Then she made both groups undergo discrimination. First she told the blue eyes group that they are better than the brown eyes group. That turned perfectly innocent, cute white kids into nasty kids in no time. Then, on the next day, Jane told the blue eyes group that she lied to them, and that the brown eyes group were better than the blue eyes group. This time, it was now the turn of brown eyes group to discriminate. At the end of the experiment, both groups agree that neither group should discriminate.

Jane Elliott tells the class that the same pigment is responsible for both eye and skin colour. So if it was incorrect to discriminate on the basis of eye colour, the same thing applied for skin colour as well. Now, this was something very bold to champion in 1968, when segregation was very much alive in US. Jane Elliott paid a heavy price for going against the grain, in terms of social ostracization from fellow members of the white community, loss of job as a school teacher, mental anxiety, loss of emotional/social security in terms of not having the backing of her community etc. I believe, she needs to be adequately recognized and compensated for all that hardship.

Whenever white people do anything to eliminate racial injustice in our society, I think they need to be rewarded splendidly, in order to reinforce positive behaviours. There are very few white people who will stick their neck out like this, and speak up in favour of minorities. I am planning to petition the US federal government that Jane Elliott be nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award that a US citizen can aspire for.

Most white people possess something called "white privilege" which they don't even realize they have. Now, its not me (a minority) who is saying this. Its a white person who happens to be an expert on this subject, who is saying this. His name is Tim Wise. Look up his videos on You Tube, they are very educative. I first heard about the topic of "white privilege" 2 years ago, and it helped me understand and reinforce what I saw at the workplace. For instance; I observed that whenever I complained against others, no one wanted to believe me. But whenever white people say anything; everyone, including minorities instantly believe them. Being white gets you instant credibility, it seems. Being relatively new to North America, all this looked very weird to me. All the more because I am super qualified in comparison to most white people who only have high school or college diplomas; write and speak excellent English and have great work experience with big brand name companies. Despite this, it appeared to me that whatever pearls of wisdom came out of a white person's mouth would be taken at face value. After hearing Tm Wise speak, it all began to make lot of sense. I learnt a lot by watching Tim Wise's videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AMY2Bvxuxc