A Rather Insensitive Way to Teach Sensitivity

[bobbcat]

This is just awful. Bad enough to carry this out with adults with regard to sensitivity training, but it is being carried out on children as well. There has to be a better way to teach the example that it is wrong to discriminate against others based on skin color/appearance than this. This woman should be drummed out of the profession.

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[prism68]

Originally Posted by bobbcat

This is just awful. Bad enough to carry this out with adults with regard to sensitivity training, but it is being carried out on children as well. There has to be a better way to teach the example that it is wrong to discriminate against others based on skin color/appearance than this. This woman should be drummed out of the profession.

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Omigoodness.
The creator of this insane program says this on her website:

Blue-eyed participants will be identified as the inferior group and all the negative stereotypes ordinarily applied to people of color and women by white people and men will be applied to them.

That part I highlighted ranks as one of the most ignorant, bigoted statements I have heard in a professional community.

[auryn]

Oprah featured that lady and her program on her show years ago. It was actually a pretty good way of showing "how do you like stereotypes and bigotry NOW? ie when you are the one being discriminated against."

[bobbcat]

Bigotry only begets bigotry though. Better to get to the root of the problem rather than make someone feel like a victim or worse, a martyr.

I would imagine that it would be far more effective to prompt people to examine just why they think certain things about others or why they harbor certain prejudices about others. Example is it due to what they were told by significant others or based on actual life experiences? Close examination of one's own feelings is a good way to give insight into what may not be quite right, then one can move on to correct erroneous conclusions, thereby correcting wrong approaches to things or bad actions against others.

[auryn]

I am not really even saying that agree (or disagree) with it really. Did anyone see the Oprah show I am talking about? I didn't actually see that episode, they re-ran it as a "best of" thing maybe a year or two ago. It explained the seminar much deeper than that article did.

[tlspiegel -Closed]

I saw Oprah's show on that. It was very well done. Shocking! But the message was clear, and everyone in the audience "got it". I haven't read the article posted. But if you saw the show it would have been clear as a bell as to how the idea worked.

[tlspiegel -Closed]

Oprah's audience was divided - supposedly brown eyes were on one side and blue eyes on the other. (It wasn't like you actually had to have blue eyes or brown eyes.)

In the beginning no one knew what was going on and it caused a huge uproar. (The uproar was intended.)

In the middle of the seminar the experiment was explained and identified as to how bigotry starts.

The final segment had ways that this stupidity could be stopped, etc.

[tlspiegel -Closed]

Here's links to the real episode that Oprah had.


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[Shainie]

This "blue-eyed brown-eyed" example has been around forever. We did it in elementary school (20 years ago) and I remember watching a video about it too.

Not saying I disagree or agree with it, but people do get a taste of what it's like to be discriminated against.

[monkee]

I can maybe see doing this with adults, who can understand the concept of what's real and what's not, but doing this to children is just sick. It's like trying to teach kids not to hit other kids by hitting them and "showing them what it feels like"

[auryn]

Originally Posted by monkee

I can maybe see doing this with adults, who can understand the concept of what's real and what's not, but doing this to children is just sick. It's like trying to teach kids not to hit other kids by hitting them and "showing them what it feels like"

I definitely agree with that 100% (see Monkee, we DO agree on something )

[monkee]

Originally Posted by auryn

I definitely agree with that 100% (see Monkee, we DO agree on something )

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later!

[silverhand]

I would assume this person makes quite the sum of money doing this. When I was growing up Dr. Seuss and his "sneetches" taught me quickly and effectively how inane bigotry really is.

To me racism, bigotry etc is simply "lazy hatred". If I am going to go to the trouble to hate someone I need a much bigger reason than what results my 5 senses give me.

Jake

[prism68]

Originally Posted by silverhand

... If I am going to go to the trouble to hate someone I need a much bigger reason than what results my 5 senses give me.

Jake

True. That is part of my problem with this whole exercise. It seems to make racism out to be all about what you see; it goes waaaay deeper than that.

The roots of racism have more to do with what a person believes about another. I just don't see this being effective, but I do see where it could damage young children.