Assignment
Watch this pbs video "A CLASS DIVIDED" and then in an essay of at lest 6 paragraphs answer the following questions:
• What did you learn?
• What scene or scenes do you think you'll still remember a month from now and why those scenes?
• Did any part of the film surprise you? Do you think someone of a different race, ethnicity, or religion would also find it surprising?
• How was the exercise that Elliott designed a response to the children's question, "Why would anyone want to murder Martin Luther King?" Did the film provide an answer to the question? Can you answer the question?
• Census categories have changed over time to reflect the complexities of American demographics and identities. Consider how some of the following groups experience racism differently:
o People who are bi- or multi-racial.
o People who have black skin, but are from very different places (e.g., a 13th generation descendant of African slaves, a recent immigrant from Jamaica, a third generation Cuban, a political refugee from Somalia, etc.).
o People "of color" who are not black (e.g., Asians, Pacific Islanders, Latino/as, etc.)
Impact of Discrimination
• What did the children's body language indicate about the impact of discrimination?
• How did the negative and positive labels placed on a group become self-fulfilling prophecies?
• In the prison seminar, one of the white women asserts that all people face some kind of discrimination. Another woman challenges her, claiming that whites can't really know what it's like to face discrimination every minute of every day. What do you think?
• Both Elliott and her former students talk about whether or not this exercise should be done with all children. What do you think? If the exercise could be harmful to children, as Elliott suggests, what do you think actual discrimination might do?