The next day blue-eyed people were considered inferior instead of brown-eyed people.
“JANE ELLIOTT: I use phonics. We use the card pack, and the children, the brown-eyed children were in the low class the first day and it took them five and a half minutes to get through the card pack. The second day it took them two and a half minutes. The only thing that had changed was the fact that now they were superior people.
Jane Elliott: You went faster than I ever had anyone go through the card pack. Why couldn't you get them yesterday?
Donna: We had those collars on.
Jane Elliott: You think the collars kept you...Oh, and you couldn't think as well with the collars on. Four minutes and eighteen seconds.
Raymond: I knew we weren't going to make it.
Child: Neither did I.”
The roles were switched over, and now the blue-eyed children understood what the brown-eyed children had gone through the previous day. The brown-eyed children now felt more superior but knew how the blue-eyed children felt.
Their tripartite model of attitude would now be:
She then discussed the past two days with the students. She asked them how they had felt and debriefed them. They then understood and knew how it had felt to be discriminated against.
The way Mrs. Elliot managed to change their attitude was first to tell them a “fact”. In this case it was that a certain amount of the class was superior to the rest. They might not have actually believed in this “fact” previously, but because she is a teacher- a person with a considerable amount of authority (especially to these primary school children), she would not be misleading them and must be telling them the truth. Mrs. Elliot would find “proof”, to show that the concept that she was introducing to them was not false (eg. the way Brian was sitting in his chair, or how Russel forgot his glasses). They then believed in this “fact”.
Because they believed that this certain thing is true; this would become apparent in their cognitive state. In this case, half the class felt superior, and the other half inferior. Now that they believed that this certain thing was true, this would affect their behaviour. The “superior” children put their heads up in pride; while the “inferior” children put their heads down in shame. They would act differently now that they knew this “fact”. The “superior” at times made fun of the “inferior”, while the “inferior” felt upset.
Their affective state would also change, depending on how the “fact” effected them. Everyone wants to win- to be happy and successful. Generally people become happy when they achieve well, and “win”. If you are told that you were superior, and you actually believed this- you would feel happy. But no one likes to lose and fail. If you were told that you were inferior- even if you believed it or not- it would affect you negatively. If you did believe this, you would think that you couldn’t improve and do well- just like those children did with the flash cards. If you believed this, it would make it so difficult for you to actually succeed- in anything for that matter. Though, if you didn’t believe that you were inferior, you would still be affected. A constant bombardment of people saying to you that you are inferior; people constantly harassing you and abusing you- would not do you any good.
Eventually you would crumble.
As she swapped these roles, they began to understand how the other group had felt. They began to feel empathy towards each other, and understood each other’s thoughts, feeling, and actions. At the end of the day, they were debriefed and had a stronger sense of unity. They also understood how people felt when they were being discriminated, and knew that it was wrong. So their attitude towards discrimination would be similar to the following:
Mrs. Elliot also tried similar experiments with a group of adults. Instead of both groups being naïve to the experiment, only one group was. This group was the group that was being discriminated. As she done previously, she immediately separated the group of people. Instead of instantaneously telling them directly that a certain group was better than the other, she made it apparent in a different fashion.
“DAVID STOKESBERY: When I first came with the sign-up and such and got put in the group, I didn't know--when I started seeing the signs around you know, brown-eyes only, and such, I figured they were the better group because they had a lot of spaces available and there were none for the blue-eyes. So when I got put in blue-eyes group and put the collar on, I knew then that I was going to be in the deprived group, I guess.
Woman: ...now you can stay in this area...
DAVID STOKESBERY: The workshop was supposed to begin at nine. They took the brown-eyes in about nine and left us standing in the hall. I literally stood because there weren't enough chairs and I didn't know whether I wanted to fight to take a chair down, I didn't know if somebody would come and take the chair away from me if I did.
CHARLIE COBB: While David Stokesbery and the other blue-eyed people waited, inside the meeting room, Jane Elliott prepared the brown-eyed people for what was going to happen.
Jane Elliott: Now this is not something I can do alone. This exercise won't work without your cooperation. Blue-eyed people aren't allowed to smoke; blue-eyed people aren't allowed to sit in these empty chairs. Do not let a blue-eyed person sit next to you. You know you can't trust them and besides which they don't smell good. Everybody knows that about blue-eyed people. You don't know what you can catch from a blue-eyed person.
DAVID STOKESBERY: By nine-twenty I felt some antagonism, I'm stuck out here for twenty minutes standing waiting
Man: I still say we ought to see what kind of a reaction we'd get by everyone just simply going in. Anyone who wants to do it?
Woman #1: Nobody seems to have the courage in his convictions. They do a lot of talking but nobody takes any action.”
The blue-eyed members of the workshop were treated with disrespect. They were not treated fairly compared to the brown-eyed people. They were waiting around twenty minutes to actually get into the workshop (many standing, not sitting), and when they finally were allowed in, were told not to be late again. Throughout the entire lesson, Mrs. Elliot made it clear that blue eyed people were not equal to brown eyed people. She showed the brown eyed people that they were “rude and stupid people”.
“Roger: No, that's okay. I'll get a pencil and write this down directly.
Jane Elliott: Look, blue-eyed people, all--many of you have pencils. Will one of you please lend him a pencil? Or don't you trust him? Which I can understand--in the last ten minutes, what have you observed about blue-eyed people?
Man: Blue-eyed people are very stubborn, very self-centered, and wish to control as much of their surrounding as possible, people-wise I mean. Very inconsiderate people. I don't even know why you have them here in the first place.
Jane Elliott: We have them here, because we are required to have them here.
Man: We, we have to, huh?
Jane Elliott: This is one of the things you have to put up with.”
Man: Oh.”
The brown eyed people were trained by Mrs. Elliot to agree with all that she said. She told them previously to pretend to believe that blue-eyed people were all that she said they were: blue-eyed people are stupid, irritating, and disrespectful. Mrs. Elliot and brown eyed people were constantly abusing the blue-eyed people, and explaining to each other of how blue-eyed people were “inferior” to them. Only few blue-eyed people tried to take action. The others watched and did not try to help defend themselves, but decided to stay back and be safe. Whenever the rebellious people tried to speak out, she would prove that they were in some way, inferior.
“Jane Elliott: You know, it's--what you do to the image of blues, with your behavior, is unfortunate. What you three people do to the image of women, with your behavior, really makes me angry. The fact that you do this kind of thing and this kind of sloppy work reflects badly on women. I resent that doubly. Yes?
K.R.: Ma'am, I'd really appreciate it if you'd call us by name. When you say you three people, we don't know who you're speaking to. It could be anyone here.
Jane Elliott: My dear, if you wanted me to call you by name, you'd have put your name on your paper.
K.R.: It's on my coat.
Jane Elliott: It was to be on your paper.
K.R.: You didn't see my papers, ma'am.
Jane Elliott: I didn't get your name either, because it wasn't on your paper.
K.R.: That's right.
Jane Elliott: All right. Now how could one call you by your name if you don't care enough about your name to put it on your paper? Don't expect me to...
K.R.: You can't even read?
Jane Elliott: Don't expect me to worry about it if you don't put it on your paper. Don't sit here and say my name is important to me after you have just deliberately not put it on your paper.
K.R.: I don't remember saying my name was important to me. I remember saying, "I'd like to know who you're speaking to," when you say "you three".
Jane Elliott: Then what should you do?
K.R.: Ask you to use my name, which I did.
Jane Elliott: And where should your name have been?
K.R.: Right where it is...
Jane Elliott: On your paper?
K.R.: ...and on my birth certificate.
Jane Elliott: Is it on your paper?
K.R.: No, ma'am.
Jane Elliott: Where’d you get a birth certificate?
K.R.: Same place you got yours. Out of a slot machine, same as you did, lady.
Jane Elliott: I think you're probably right about your own.
K.R.: At least I know who my parents are, ma'am.
Jane Elliott: Is she being rude?
Man: Yes.
Jane Elliott: Is she being inconsiderate?
Man: Very.
Jane Elliott: Is she being uncooperative?
Man: Very.
Jane Elliott: Is she being insultive?
Man: Yes.
Jane Elliott: Are all those the things that we've accused blue-eyed people of being?
Man: Yes.
Jane Elliott: Is she proving that we're right?
Man: Yes.”
Mrs. Elliot would in this fashion, degrade the blue-eyed people. No matter what the blue-eyed people said, she would find a flaw, which made her ruthlessly engage upon exaggerating it- thus putting the blues “back in their place”.
At this stage, the tripartite model of attitude would be similar to the following:
The brown-eyed people’s attitude to this exercise is quite different. They are aware of what they are doing, but know that it is for an experiment. They don’t believe that blue-eyed people are not as good as them. They are part of the experiment and the way they are acting is not the behavioral sense of their attitude.
Mrs. Elliot seemed to have purposely made the blue-eyed people the naïve group. The reason might be that the black people would be in the higher class group, discriminating against people instead of people discriminating against them. The attitude of the brown-eyed people at this stage might still be similar to the stereotypic discriminative tripartite of attitudes- though, at the end of session, they would look back at how they treated blue-eyed people (pretend or not), and feel empathy and maybe even regret.
There was one blue-eyed man in particular who saw through all the experiment. His name is David Stokesbery.
David Stokesbery: I'm getting kind of fed up with this whole bunch of garbage.
Jane Elliott: Why?
David Stokesbery: Brown-eyed peoples are, are, are no different than we are. I hate to tell them that. They, they have false delusions and such.
Jane Elliott: Are they being disruptive?
David Stokesbery: No, you trained them very well. I think that's what they did with the storm troopers in Germany, also. You guys do a real good job sitting up there.
Jane Elliott: You think that what's happening here today feels like it would have felt to be in Nazi Germany?
David Stokesbery: Yes.
Jane Elliott: Where, where do you think you are in that then?
David Stokesbery: Where do I think I am?
Jane Elliott: Who are you? If you're in Nazi Germany, who are you?
David Stokesbery: Ah, the Jews?”
After lunch, they came back, they were debriefed and they discussed what had happened.
“Jane Elliott: Did you learn anything this morning?
Roger: I think I learned from the experience a feeling like I was in a glass cage and I was powerless, there was a sense of hopelessness, I was angry, I wanted to speak up and yet I--at times I knew if I spoke up, I'd be back in a powerless situation, I'd be attacked, a sense of hopelessness. Depression.
Jane Elliott: Had you experienced that before?
Roger: I realized this morning that there were very few times in my life that I've ever been discriminated against. Very few.
Jane Elliott: And you were this uncomfortable in an hour and a half?
Roger: I was amazed at how uncomfortable I was in the first fifteen minutes.
Jane Elliott: Can you empathize at all then with blacks, minority group members in this country?
Roger: I'm hoping better than before.”
There were some people who did fully understand the gravity of the issue.
“Jane Elliott: Why were you angry?
K.R.: Because, first of all, because it was unreasonable. Secondly, because I felt discriminated against. Thirdly, I think that all of us, every one in this room has dealt with discrimination on both sides.You don't have to be black or Jewish or Mexican or anything else to have felt discrimination in your life, and as you become an adult you learn to deal with those feelings within yourself and you learn to handle those. And when you feel yourself in a situation that you can't get out of, which we couldn't--we were a captive audience and it was not a normal situation because normally you aren't badgered.
Jane Elliott: What if you had to spend the rest of your life this way?
K.R.: I don't know how to answer that.
Woman: You don't wake up every morning knowing that you're different. You wake up as a white woman who is going to her job at eight o'clock or whatever. Where a black person is going to wake up knowing from the minute they get up out of the bed and look in the mirror they're black and they have to deal with the problems they've had to deal with ever since they were young and realize that I am different and I have to deal with life differently. Things are different for me. And I don't think you can really say that you have felt--maybe you have felt some sort of discrimination, but you haven't felt what it is like for a black woman. To go through the daily experiences of arguing and saying 'listen to me, my point of view is good', you know, 'what I have to offer here is good'. And no one wants to listen because white is right, that's the way things are.”
The adults’ attitude towards black people might have changed slightly. It just seems that the experiment with the adults did not impact as greatly as the one with the children. An adult is “meant to” be mature and strong. They are “meant to” withstand criticism. That’s the way they would felt. They would have hidden their emotions.
It impacted the children so much because things seem more important when you are younger. Issues that you wouldn’t even care about in the slightest when you are an adult might bring you to tears when you are a child. The gravity of being in the collar group was far stronger for a child, than an adult.
Most people in the adult group seemed to understand but probably not fully believe the reasoning of Mrs. Elliot, while others thought that the discrimination was fine and you just had to ignore it. Obviously, the lady who said this did not fully comprehend what it was like to be discriminated like this and obviously worse for the rest of your life. Another problem seemed to be that the side that was not naïve were just attacking, and not having to defend themselves. It did seem that many of them were the demographic that was being constantly discriminated- though not all. Obviously, it would have been difficult to swap the groups’ roles without them realising that it was a hoax. Only few people might have changed their attitude, but the idea didn’t go deep enough compared to the children. They might say it, and not actually truly believe it.
It was ethical for Mrs. Elliot to conduct this experiment on primary school children. If she had not conducted the experiment, they would have ended up discriminating people just like their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had done before them. They were debriefed and did not become psychologically damaged by the experiment, and ended up as well-rounded individuals.
It was one day of being discriminated, which then would have prevented discrimination to some of the minorities in the area. They also mentioned that they would be teaching their children not to discriminate. This means that this experiment was not a band-aid treatment, but was almost permanent.
Because the experiment was conducted on children- she could swap roles easily without them doubting what she said. They felt much more gravity about the issue compared to the adults at the end of it, and had more of a sense of unity together at the end compared to the adults. At the end of the day- it was great. It made them perfectly understand discrimination, and it will forever be etched in their memories- and in ours.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Frontline: a Class Divided: Transcript/ PBS." PBS Frontline. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline////shows/divided/etc/script.html>.
Eye of the Storm- a Class Divided. Dir. JANET MCFADDEN. Perf. Charlie Cobb. Videocassette. Yale University Films for FRONTLINE, 1985.