Problem
In April of 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr, was murdered, the grade 3 students of Jane Elliot came to school in the small all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, confused and distressed. Why would anyone kill their hero?
Elliot decided to do an exercise with them that would show what prejudice and discrimination does to people and what it feels like. She divided the class by eye color (wisely not choosing race). On the first day she designated those with blue eyes to be superior - with the privilege that holds in this experiment like unearned respect and longer recesses. Those with brown eyes were designated inferior and made to wear a collar around their neck symbolizing this designation. On top of unequal privileges, the "inferior" brown-eyed students faced ridicule by both, Elliotand the blue eyed students, as well as alienation.
The results of this exercise (experiment?) were both astonishing and disturbing. The once likely goodhearted blue-eyed students, presumably without forethought, treated the brown-eyed students with unprovoked discrimination and verbal abuse after simply being given a superior designation. Also, unexpected was the fact that the brown-eyed students remained passive and accepted this unfair treatment without question. On the second day the designations were reversed with similar results. The inferior designations resulted in poorer performances on tests and other tasks. Elliot did this experiment two more times with different classes and the same behaviours on the part of students occurred. Why this would be?
(Information from PBS - first published in Journalistic Guidelines, 2003).
Read the above paragraph to answer the following questions :
• Do you think that it is possible for individuals to follow directions by those in authority (leaders) blindly without regard for consequences?
• Do you think prejudicial thinking is a natural part of our dispositions, learned or both? Use course material to define racism and prejudice and to make your argument. Make sure that you cite the text.