Racism In Jane Elliott's Blue Eye, Blue Eyes Experiment?

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Racism is a type of prejudice, which is when someone has a negative attitude towards members in a certain social group. Discrimination is when people get treated differently, because of the prejudice people have towards that particular social group. People tend to form social groupings based on their race, sex, and age. In-groups are a type of social group which a person identifies themselves as being a member of, while out-groups are a type of social group which a person does not identify themselves as being a member of. Jane Elliott is an anti-racism activist and an educator who is known for her “Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes” experiment (Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise, 2006). In her experiment, she wanted to demonstrate the idea of discrimination against minorities. She used eye color, specifically brown and blue eyes, instead of skin color, and made brown-eyed people superior to blue-eyed people. She did this experiment the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in order for her white students to know what it felt like to walk in the shoes of her black students. The social identity theory is a person’s sense of who they are based on their social …show more content…

I have heard a white person tell a black person, that he or she does not act black. I have also heard the statement, “I am not racist, I have a lot of black friends.” When I hear statements like these, it makes me think that people are trying to negatively compare white and black people, even if they are not meaning to. Although I wish we could combat prejudice in the society, I don’t think that we can ever truly stop it, and racism will always be a problem in America” (Friedman, 2007). Unless people stop forming negative stereotypes about different races other than their own, prejudice and discrimination towards races will always be apparent, and passed down to

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