Saw Jane Elliot

Jane Elliot spoke at Metro for one of their black history events. Jane Elliot is an internationally known teacher, lecturer, diversity trainer, and activist. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. over thirty years ago, Jane Elliott devised the controversial and startling, "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise. This well known exercise labels participants as inferior or superior based solely up on the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of being a minority.

Who doesn't remember watching movies about this in elementary school? I did & the Aurora public schools showed those movies but I know not everyone has heard of Jane Elliot. I met a 22 yr old the other day who didn't know who Madonna was...now I'm just showing my age and making I'm getting old remarks...anyway.

I was excited to hear what Jane Elliot would say about racism, biogotry, and prejudice but ended up pretty disappointed. Jane Elliot is an a staunch activist and not much of a thinker or speaker per say. She recommends books & other speakers but when it came down to her presentation she didn't have too much to say about racism, biogotry, and prejudice. She has modified her exercises to fit a public speaking event and has some great points but she didn't spend any time talking about how prejudice comes about, why some people see it and some people don't, or how to start a discussing prejudice with neighbors & society as a whole (for some reason that is what I was expecting or wanted to hear).

As I walked away I was thinking about the strengths of Jane Elliot's presentation. She blatantly identifies incorrect & inacurate preceptions of others & society and she calls it what it is. She doesn't pull any punches and encourages people to take action. Society needs to hear that message and be reprimanded when it lacks action or the ability to identify inacurate preceptions. Society also needs to hear about what causes prejudice and why some people can't see it or identify it. Having healthy interracial & intercultural relations hinge on our ability to defeat prejudice & racism but also repair broken and strained race relations. As a society we need both! Some times I'm worried as it seems like the latter option is seldom discussed or addressed as frequently as the first.