Maine, recently pronounced the whitest state in the nation by the U.S. Census, was the last stop for a nationally-recognized leader in the fight against prejudice.
Last week Multicultural Student Affairs and the Office of Campus Diversity brought Jane Elliott, a former teacher from a small town in Iowa, to the University. Her demonstration was titled, “The Anatomy of Prejudice”
Elliot first gained national recognition for a controversial exercise she did with her third-grade class in 1968. The class had recently picked Martin Luther King, Jr. as their hero of the month. On the night of King’s death, Elliot was preparing her lesson plan when she heard the news. The next day she separated her students by eye color. Students with brown eyes were told they were superior to the blue-eyed students. The brown-eyed students soon began to torment the students with blue eyes.
The next day, she told the blue-eyes they were superior. This of course, resulted in the brown-eyes being tormented in the way that they had done so the day before.
The exercise was extremely controversial in her small town. Word of the exercise soon reached the national media. In 1970, ABC filmed a documentary in her classroom entitled The Eye of the Storm, which showed her conducting the exercise with that year’s class.
Elliott has since been featured on NBC’s Today show, Oprah, The Tonight Show, ABC News and PBS’s Frontline. She no longer teaches third graders, but has become a speaker at colleges, corporations, and government agencies.
Last winter was the last time Elliott performed the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise. She stopped because she said the country is “a [law]suit happy society.” When she speaks to corporations she is often asked not to perform the exercise because they are afraid that employees will sue.
Last week, Elliot’s demonstration was geared at pointing out the more subtle forms of racism and discrimination that exist in society today.
In one part of the demonstration, Elliot brought up two members of the audience, a white male and an African-American female. She asked the male if he ever thought about the color of his skin. He said he didn’t. Responding to the same question, the female said she thought about it every day.
An almost capacity crowd looked on as Elliot asked the pair questions about their age and height. Later in the demonstration, she questioned the accuracy of maps in positioning America in the center, as well as the exaggerated size of Greenland.
Altogether, Elliot’s demonstration lasted just over three hours and very few members of the crowd left early.
According to Elliott, psychologists have said that her blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise can cause lifetime trauma to students who participate. She questions how these students subjected to a day of discrimination are found to be traumatized, yet no problem is perceived for minority students who deal with discrimination their entire lives.
Elliott’s radical work has not provoked social change without criticism. She was hired by the U.S. Department of Education last year to speak to some of their employees on diversity. During the speech she called then Governor of Texas George W. Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush racists.
The Department of Education was quickly criticized. Congressman Tom Petri of Wisconsin awarded the department the Porker Award, which he gives to people or entities he feels have wasted a significant amount of money. In this case he felt the department had spent too much tax payer money on someone who made inappropriate remarks.
Elliot’s presentation at USM, “The Anatomy of Prejudice,” was sponsored by many departments, including the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost. It was organized by Cheryl Daly, coordinator of Multicultural Student Programs. Rebecca Sockbeson, the director of Multicultural Student Affairs, took part in getting Elliott here as well.
“White people have a powerful part in undoing prejudice in this country and Jane Elliott typifies this,” said Sockbeson. “This is literally the highlight of my tenure here.”
Elliott is in her late 60s and has devoted her life to ending prejudice.
“I started off as a teacher and I’ll end up as a teacher, ” she said in an interview with The Free Press. “We won’t change conditions until we change the conditioning.”
Elliot believes her work can be beneficial to anyone regardless of gender or skin color.
“It just might make men understand why women are more upset than they should be,” said Elliot.
Staff Writer Tyler Stanley can be contacted at: [email protected]