I was scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed the other day when I came across a video that made me stop and actually pay attention. The video started off with a woman asking the crowd if they thought there was a problem with how black people were treated in America. Nobody in the audience raised their hands. The woman talking to the audience then asked if anyone in the room would want to be black in America, once again nobody raised their hands. The point of those two questions was to prove that there is indeed a problem with how society treats black people. Jane Elliott was not afraid to ask those questions, and even today she is a strong advocate for equal rights for all groups regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, or gender.
As a way to show people first hand, Jane Elliott started conducting an experiment using eye color as a basis for prejudice. Today you can learn more about this experiment by looking up the video “The Angry Eye”. The way this experiment works is that a group of people is separated into two groups: one group of blue eyes, and one group of brown eyes. One group is then treated significantly worse than the other while the experiment is in progress. The point of this experiment is to show people that treating someone poorly, and with no respect, based off something they have no control over is beyond wrong.
After watching a documentary of Jane conducting her blue eye/brown eye experiment, I was shocked that I had never seen this before. If people are shown how much their words and actions can hurt people then maybe they would act differently. If people were put in a situation in which they were the ones being discriminated against for things they really have no power of then maybe they would speak up when they saw it happening. The only way things will change is if society demands change, but we have to have the knowledge to know what is right and what is wrong.
Jane Elliott started these experiments shortly after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. Jane Elliott is STILL doing these experiments TODAY. As a society, we like to believe that we have come along way from where we once were. However, that is still so far from the truth. We live in a country where being black gets you shot for no reason, where being gay gets you beat up, and where being a woman means you get to make less money. People are treated in such horrible ways because of things they have no control over.
Racism and discrimination are still huge issues that we like to pretend are not there. We need to open our eyes and start to take the initiative to change things. The way you act and the things you say can sometimes offend people, and when that happens we need to acknowledge it. We need to stop putting people down for getting offended, and we need to start focusing on being there for each other. People that pretend the problem doesn't exist are only adding to the problem.
