1/3 I hope I won't harass you, but I'm curious about your point of view. Do you remember the blue eyed kids experiment? Nevermind that for my European mind is hard to understand why the privilege should be "having blue eyes in the States" instead of "being white in the States", the main reason why I find that awkward is that, from my point of view, it sound that they want to teach to the kids that when other people are unpolite to you, you feel bad. So, in my mind, the main teaching that they
2/3 they could get is "I have not to be racist, because being racist is unpolite", which is obviously true... but it's only one of the reasons why they should not become racists. As an European, while teached that racism is wrong, I was teached that all people should be treated with equity, no matter their skin tone, their culture, their nationality, their religion, etc... because racism, as well as being rude, also generated wars and discrimination. It was not something like "you should not be racist because it's rude". It was more like "you have not to be racist because it's fu**ing wrong and dangerous". Do you think that with the "blue eyes experiment" a message like that could pass, or do you think that it's more something "not saying thanks is rude, not saying please is rude, not saying good morning is rude, being racist is rude too"?
Hey no harassing, no worries ;)
that said: INDEED I remember that experiment, it was some of the most surreal forty minutes of my life. as in, I spent them asking the screen ‘do people think this is really something that has any educational merit whatsoever’ XD
about your question, short answer: no. The blue eyed experiment is good for exactly one thing which is traumatizing people - I mean, obviously not everyone going through it is traumatized, but if you look at how some are treated it’s abhorrent and as far as the rest go they sort of feel on their skin something that anyone can understand if they have a shred of empathy. and therefore it’s completely unnecessary to put them through that bullshit anyway - also because tbh it doesn’t take into account class issues and works as if every problem is born out of skin color.
let’s say that in a classroom in some college in the US we have a black kid without blue eyes obv whose parents are both black and wealthy and never let them want for anything (thing that happens) and who live in a nice part of town and have a nice house, went to a private school where no one was jerks to them and now is in college with either a full ride or because their parents set up a college fund or can afford to pay for it, so they don’t have to worry about that. in the same classroom we have a blonde haired and blue eyed kid whose family has always lived in a trailer, went to public school, has at least one abusive parent and has had to live with them for years, managed to get to college thanks to working their ass off, making debts and getting a partial ride so they’re also getting indebted to get there and they’ve been called white trash for their entire life and they have to work at least one job while studying. let’s also add that this person at some point broke an arm or had to spend one week in an hospital. let’s also say it’s from the times when obamacare wasn’t a thing so they’re not insured and they’re also still paying off hospital bills. let’s say they do the blue eyed experiment. let’s say the blue eyed person gets treated the way jane elliot treats blue eyed people and gets extra abuse thrown at them with the brown eyed kid from before supporting it, when they probably had a harder life than them and skin color wasn’t a factor - how are they going to take it? (spoilers: if it were me I’d tell mrs. elliot to go fuck herself and I’d leave, and then she’d say that I didn’t want to learn anything, but whatever.)
like the only thing that experiment is good for is studying human power dynamics maybe, but done by adults who know what they’re signing up for. anyway making someone feel bad isn’t the way you teach them things.
like as you said: when I went to school they taught us all you said over there, explained us what horrible things racism causes, we all felt like shit at the mere idea of it and most of us who didn’t have right wing crazy parents did not, wow, turn out to be racists. because we didn’t need to feel that personally, we know that it’s fucking wrong. because we have empathy. fuck’s sake.
but like the blue eyed experiment is way beyond being racist is rude, it’s ‘being racist makes people feel abused every second every day of their life’ which is not untrue, but it also implies that only people with a certain skin color can experience it (WROOONGGGGGGG) and that the ones who experience it don’t really perpetrate it but then it makes pass the idea that if they do after all they’re justified it’s all karma even if the person they’re being asses to has done nothing to them or is most probably not a racist themselves and imo that’s hella fucking dangerous, never mind that the way she put it, if you’re white you’re inherently guilty of being a racist asshole because it’s ingrained in you and you have to somehow unlearn it.
and tbh considering that this precious example of an educator had to deal with children back in the olden times I’m frankly terrified of how those poor things came out of that, since like teaching children that they’re inherently wrong because of something they can control is bad regardless whatever is the thing they control. like. are we fucking serious. I wish it was just about being rude. :/
anyway as far as I’m concerned if you want to do it with adults who know what they’re doing, psychological support and so on to study how people turn against each other the moment they’re put in that situation fine, knock yourself out and write an anthropology paper. if you want to use it to explain racism to people just don’t and find another way. like getting people who experienced it talking to people who didn’t nicely so they can understand how it is and not turn out being racists. doesn’t sound that hard.
(addendum: when I was in high school amelia boynton came to one of our student assemblies and we asked her a bunch of questions and she talked extensively about the civil rights movement and her work as an activist and how the situation was in the US in the sixties and I can 100% assure you that we walked out of that room fairly educated and while we were all white italian kids between the ages of fourteen/eighteen we could sympathize plenty fine and we learned a lot. it’s called actually teaching people things and educating them the way it’s supposed to happen. and the lesson that passed was that you shouldn’t be racist because it was fucking wrong/dangerous, so.)
