For the preceding 52 years , teacher and diverseness trainerJane Elliotthas been constantly cuffing multitude about the head — figuratively speaking — on the subject of racism . It ’s not pretty when the directly - talking midwestern launch into her from - the - heart rant on the immorality of racial discrimination . It can be uncomfortable , even — squirm - in - your - rear end , stare - at - your - shoes uncomfortable — when she submit someone to the very same employment she first unleashed on third grader more than a half - century ago , designed to discover racist thought . Some think her method can getdownright mean .
But , again : The subject is racialism . Nothing about it is pretty .
" You mean that ’s shock ? " Elliott says of her in - your - aspect educational methods , which have been alternately vituperate and celebrated through the year . " Try live that way for a lifetime . "
Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes Exercise
Elliott came to swelling when , the sidereal day after the character assassination ofMartin Luther King Jr. in 1968 , she took her schoolroom of all - clean third graders in Riceville , Iowa , and decide to instruct them what it was like to confront discrimination . She separated the youngster into two group — those with brown eyes and those with grim — and carry on to promulgate the brown eyes the " ranking " group . She permit the group superfluous privileges ( more time at recess , seating in the front of the room ) . They were tell they were cleaner . smart . More talented .
How the children reacted to this newfound pecking order was startling . The chocolate-brown - eyed chemical group instantly start to wield their dominance . The blue - eyeds almost forthwith drop away into the persona of subordinates . wrath flare up . Disputes popped up .
After switching roles a few days later , which gave both sides of the classroom a taste of being the " less " group , the exercise ended . Many parents , after reading about what happened in Elliott ’s classroom through student essays printed in the local report , plain . A calendar month or so after , Johnny Carson invited Elliott to come out on his late - dark talk show . She became a national story .
Many praised her efforts at opening her student ' optic . But not everybody . From a 2005 tale inSmithsonian Magazine :
Elliott taught for years before she decided to take her anti - racism lesson out of the classroom and into bodied America . She ’s also led the exercise for the U.S. Department of Education and other governmental group . She ’s appeared before numerous church and shoal meeting place . She often face uncomfortable , sometimes angry , reactions .
She was on Oprah Winfrey ’s TV show several times . In June 2020 , she appear onThe Tonight Show star Jimmy Fallon . Her destination , as it has been for the past 52 years , is training . It ’s the good weapon system against racism , she say .
Education on Racism
But undecomposed education about racialism and race is hard to find .
" Because the pedagog believe the same affair that they were teach , and they were taught the same matter that I was , which is that there are three or four different races and you may tell what a man ’s intelligence is by the colouring of his cutis or the build of his pass , " says Elliott from her home in Iowa . " You ca n’t lead people out of ignorance if you ’re still teaching that Columbus discovered America and we derive here to civilize these savages .
" We demand to teach the three Rs of Rights , Respect and Responsibility , " she says , scantily take a breather . " If teachers would respect the right wing of those students to learn the truth , and be go for responsible for seeing that they present them with the Sojourner Truth , we could kill racism in two generations . There ’s not a doubt in my mind that that could be done . "
For all of her life , Elliott , 87 , has seen America make do with racism . She ’s differentiate major milepost in the conflict over the past 50 or so days : theCivil Rights movementand the assassination of King in the ' 60 . The raceway carouse inMiami ’s Liberty Cityin 1980 and in Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating in 1992 .
Ferguson , Missouri , in 2014 ( the putting to death of Michael Brown ) . Baltimore ( Freddy Brown ) and Charleston , South Carolina , ( a church slaughter ) in 2015 . There are many others .
But the trouble she has been relentlessly attacking , Elliott says , conk out far beyond the occasional race - based flareup . For people of color in the U.S. , confront down racism is an everyday combat . Every minute of every day . It ’s exhausting .
" It ’s only been going on with me for 52 class , " Elliott allege . " I know black women who have been doing this for 89 yr , and their mothers did and their grandmothers did and their great - grandmothers did . And their daughter and their granddaughters and their great - granddaughter are going to have to do it unless we get off our polyunsaturated fatty window pane and do something about this .
" I get paid to verbalise about it . They are n’t even allow to blab about it . "
Challenges to Ending Racism
One of the bounteous hurdles in educating citizenry about racial discrimination in the United States , Elliott says , is that most everyone knows it subsist and recognise that it ’s harmful , but few are motivated to change it . She has stood in front of classes and asked who among the clean people in the way would want to throw spot with a smuggled person . No one ever offer .
But in 2020 , after a lifetime of trying to teach masses that human being are one wash , that all human life springs from Africa , and that the separation of humans into raceshas no biologic basisand is used only for various ( often villainous ) societal reasons , Elliott sees some little sign of promise , maybe a dim signaling of front .
" I think the killing of George Floyd forced people of the wan - faced variety to recognize that the things that Black mass have been describing as happening to them every 24-hour interval were in the end real for us . in conclusion , " she says . " It was in their case , and they finally had to admit that they have been denying , or ignoring , or justify what has happened to Black male all these years . "
But in the next breath , Elliott cautions that recognizing the problem is only the first step . set it still must be done . And with the current racial stress in the United States , exacerbated ( she believes ) by the current president , things could get even worse .
" ' Those who forget the fault of the past tense are doomed to take over them . ' And we are double . We are repeating , " she says . " I ’m seeing this happen , I check the news , and I go business district , and oh my god , they ’re replicating the blue eyes , brownish heart exercise in the national sphere . I ca n’t conceive it . "
Still , Elliott is nothing if not unrelenting . She will continue to train " for the next 50 years , " she says . She will push her mantra of " one race . " And she read , she will urge people to get out and vote this November in the hope of elect leaders who will attack racism , as she has , maneuver on .
" There ’ll be Bob Hope after the November election , " she say . " That ’s the only Bob Hope we have the right way now . "
