Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes

[matsaleh]

Does anyone recall the 'experiment' seperating the brown eyed dark haired people from Blue eyed, blonde haired people?

I wonder in the future if there will still be Blonde haired, blue eyed persons???

With all the mixture of marriages & children nowadays, I think in many years to come, there will be so few blond haired, blue eyed persons... :?:

It was just a thought.... :idea:

Thought I'd start a new thread with this quote, as we seem to be off on a tangent anyway.

Jane Elliot'ts original experiment in 1968 was quite radical for its time. It was interesting to note that after segregating the children into the blue eyed/brown eyed groups and announcing to the brown eyed group that they were now superior to the blue eyes, the brown eyed children very quickly began treating the blue-eyed children with contempt. As Ms Elliott quoted, "They already knew how to be racist because every one of them knew without my telling them how to treat those who were on the bottom."

Ms Elliott suggests that racism is learned behaviour and that what can be learned, can be unlearned. We can only hope!

:idea: Maybe the experiment could be implemented in every workplace for a week, so that those who've not experienced racism and prejudice learn firsthand how it feels. It may change their attitudes. :shock: :roll:

An editorial detailing Jane Elliott's experiment can be found here:
http://www.horizonmag.com/4/jane-elliott.asp

and more here:
http://www.magenta.nl/EyetoEye/contraste.html

 

[Bert Vierstra]

Ms Elliott suggests that racism is learned behaviour

Maybe Ms Elliott should ask her self where the teachings come from then.

I think that racism is an extension of our "natural group defending feelings". Everyone belongs to group somehow, and the group protects. Invaders, different people, put the group in danger by supplying uncertainty and unsafety. Its easy to define the invaders, by color or other definitions.

Lets see the whole world as a family to protect and sustain. And when those aliens come, we will look at the universe...

 

[Bert Vierstra]

think in many years to come, there will be so few blond haired, blue eyed persons...

Yep. We will mix and mingle until we have: One Race, One Colour, only the amount of sun hours will make a difference.

Goodbye withening lotion. (Forbidden in our house anyway). Why do the Indonesians dislike a black skin anyway? (Alami Dewi, Alami !)

 

[matsaleh]

Re: RE: Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes

Maybe Ms Elliott should ask her self where the teachings come from then.

I think that racism is an extension of our "natural group defending feelings".

I don't agree, Bert. My feeling is that racism is based on ignorance and fear of the unknown. I think education is the key to its eradication.

Lets see the whole world as a family to protect and sustain. And when those aliens come, we will look at the universe...

Now this is a great idea! Nothing like an alien invasion to unite us! :lol:

 

[Bert Vierstra]

Ms Elliot was the cause of the 'racism' in the classroom.

Fear of the unknown is very healthy. Don't know what you mean by ignorance.

Lets see the whole world as a family to protect and sustain.

That is the education. When the aliens come we have to expand our family feeling, I meant.

 

[matsaleh]

Re: RE: Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes

think in many years to come, there will be so few blond haired, blue eyed persons...

Yep. We will mix and mingle until we have: One Race, One Colour, only the amount of sun hours will make a difference.

Well, between all who post on this forum, we probably have more than a dozen kids of mixed parentage between us. We're doing our bit!! :lol:

 

[matsaleh]

Re: RE: Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes

Don't know what you mean by ignorance.

Bert, I meant ignorance in the most literal sense. I did not mean it to sound disparaging or condescending.

\Ig"no*rance\, n. [F., fr. L. ignorantia.] 1. The condition of being ignorant; the want of knowledge in general, or in relation to a particular subject; the state of being uneducated or uninformed. (From Dictionary.com)

Once people know more about other races (or any subject for that matter), they lose their fear. That's my theory anyway, for what it's worth.

 

[Guest]

there are busloads of blue eyed blonds over here in sweden! - The Doc

 

[matsaleh]

Re: RE: Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes

what are you guys n gals talking about? :shock: there are load of blue eyed blonds over here! (sweden... ) - The Doc

So, you seem to like Roy's nickname for you, hey "Doc"? :wink: :lol:

And yes, I'll bet there's an abundance of blue-eyed blonds in Sweden. 8)

 

[eddie]

i have blue eyes ..swap ye for a brown one? :lol:

 

[Jen]

Yep

I definately noticed all the Blonde Vikings in Scandinavia.........Yum!

 

[Tracey]

Come on DrIvEr, hurry up & make your contribution to the multicultural, mixness in Sweden!!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Roy]

Funny story, and totally true…each of my three boys were born with the most brilliant of blue eyes. Each of them were on the top of the list with the nurses at Kasih Ibu, the hospital in Denpasar where they were born. They were always called, “anak sapphire” or blue children. For each of them also, their eyes turned brown almost exactly at their six month oton ceremony.

Of course we all know that brown eyes are biologically, the dominant gene when it comes to a blue eyed…brown eyed couple…but, I ain’t telling my mother in law about that!

 

[Tracey]

At my friends on Sunday & she has just had her second daughter, her hubby is Balinese too.
The baby has really blue eyes also, so I was teasing him saying she must not be his, mind you she has that typical black hair all over!

Maddison has balck eyes, they are so dark & they were that colour since she was born, my eyes are brown too though.
But maddison has coarse brown hair with reddish/blonde highlights in the sun, my friends oldest daughter has very fine black hair, they are 18 hours apart & so totally different.

 

[matsaleh]

Hi Roy,
My son was also born with blue eyes which I found quite strange as I have brown eyes and of course, so did his father. :?

My son's eye colour changed to very dark brown when he was about 6 or 8 weeks old.

I was told at the time that all "caucasian" babies are born with blue eyes which gain their true colour a few weeks after birth, but don't know how much truth is in this. The reason my son had blue eyes is still a mystery.

 

[Guest]

i had blue eyes as a kid but i can't remember for how long. now it's more green/brownish... my dad is blueeyed and my mom is browneyed.

 

[Tracey]

Matsaleh...
Maddison's eyes were black when she was born, not even a hint of brown, totally black.
They are still very darkbrown/black eyes now.
But she was never a blue eyed bub!!!

 

[Cassienne]

Matsaleh - I remember the experiment you're talking about. (Although I wasn't born for many years afterwards) but we studied it in psychology. It was quite shocking how quickly those children learned to feel contempt for the brown eyed kids. And then how easily it was reversed for the blue eyed kids.
Still, it was a great lesson. The teacher didn't do it as an experiment, she did it to make the kids understand racism and how it feels. Which it did very effectively. Afterwards, they were reunited and became a much more closely connected group.
Did you know she later did the same thing with about 200 adults - and got the exact same result! That was really scary to watch.
Cassienne

 

[Roy]

Great story...but you'll soon learn on Bali that racisist ideaology is almost totally absent...thus I expect, making your job as a teacher all that more easier.

 

[Cassienne]

Do you really think there is no racism at all in Bali, Roy? That's pretty amazing. Why do you think Bali is one of the few places on Earth that doesn't have this problem? Can you really say it doesn't exist there at all?
Cassienne