Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Second rate reporter says what?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

When we show up, we win.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Innocent people do not delay justice.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / I have blue eyes

I have blue eyes

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This Jane Elliot documentary seems to me to have a lot of useful things to say about racism – although here within the context of UK society – although, as will become apparent if you watch, the things it has to say are sometimes confused or even contradictory.

It is, however, a wonderful illustration of the process whereby white people such as me, and perhaps you, who don’t want to be racist and certainly don’t try to act in a racist manner, can fall into the trap of not recognizing racism or inequality when it happens, or of discounting the reactions of people of other races when they identify something as racist, simply because we exist in a different frame and have not experienced theirs.

At one point, the wonderful and articulate* black woman participant who is interviewed throughout the program summarizes it as:

You can be in a situation where [racism] goes completely over your head because it doesn’t affect you, and because it doesn’t affect you, it doesn’t exist.

There are moments here which are genuinely shocking to me. A blond teacher, who has spent the entire day denying that she needs to learn anything about racism, and who I would quite happily strangle, notes how one of her black students was injured and she was surprised that her skin was pink underneath the graze.

I would be horrified to think that I might react the same way, but self aware enough to recognize that I might unwittingly do so.

As the little old lady says towards the end:

I’m learning.

* Yes, I know “articulate” is a loaded word, but as one who is in love with words, the thing that struck me most powerfully about her was how beautifully she composed what she said.

Please ignore the comments on the Youtube, including those of the racist arse who uploaded the video.

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    My fictional sexbot, I have to give you and lamh32 props. That Adele 21 album is totes awesome. I love it, and I don’t care who knows it.

  7. 7.

    BGinCHI

    @Sarah Proud and Tall: I dare you to listen to the first track (“Take Me Somewhere”) on the most recent Tennis record and then get it out of your head. It’s unpossible. It’s delirious poppy brilliance.

    If they made music suppositories I’d buy a case.

    Ooh, that came out wrong.

  8. 8.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    @BR:

    I thought it was fascinating how the UK exercise derailed entirely, apparently on the assumption by many of the group that they had nothing to learn and were therefore legitimately offended at the suggestion they might not understand what discrimination is like.

    The original version is an example of where her exercise works.

    I do wonder what the differences are that made one exercise work and the other arguably fail.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    @Sarah Proud and Tall: I been crying my balls off all late night listening to her.
    Or I would be crying if my tear ducts hadn’t been removed as a child.
    I’m emotional, let’s just leave it at that.

  10. 10.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Geez, I can’t get my head around a real commenter pretending to be a fictional person purely for laughs blogging about a serious subject. It almost seems like my schtick.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    @freelancer: Do you have a problem with me shedding my gruff exterior and basking in the glow of self enlightenment through the eternal magic and mystery of shared song?
    Do you? DO YOU?

  14. 14.

    nwithers

    Sorry, didn’t watch the videos, some other time when I can spare the 45 minutes. Tomorrow morning maybe, but I just wanted to share what, growing up white in Hawaii where I was a minority in probably the sanest multi-racial culture out there might be helpful. After living in Texas for a decade, since I went to college there, I was shocked at how easily you could fall into the trap of looking at the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. I’ve tried to put together some of the mental checks/sayings I try to remember when I see somebody new to the eyes.

    It is better to see the world how it is, and not how you might wish it would be.

    The incompetence of other people is more effective in thwarting your goals than the competence of other people.

    Sometimes strangers are better at what you are doing than you are.

    Yeah, Pollyanna, I know, but I grew up in Hawaii, cut me some slack.

  20. 20.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Corner Stone:

    Too late. The Oracle has told me you will betray me. I just hope the 30 pieces are worth it you fucking fuckhead.

    At this point, I’ve no choice but to post this link. You fuckers asked for it, begged for it even and now yer getting it.

  24. 24.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I think of you as the great great grandmother I never knew.

    Then I shall think of you as the great great grandson I don’t yet have.

    The one who took seven years to toilet train and has a mohawk and those annoying tube ear-piercings.

  26. 26.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Sarah Proud and Tall:

    The one who took seven years to toilet train and has a mohawk and those annoying tube ear-piercings.

    No piercings, and I’m still not toilet-trained unless you include the laundry hamper.

  28. 28.

    Martin

    @handy: The best thing about that video is to watch it 3 times in a row, and then go watch Mariah Carey’s video for that song, and she sounds exactly like him – right down to the asbestos flaygon and the camel up a hill.

  30. 30.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Yutsano:

    Let us never speak of this again.

    Shitshitshitshitshit.

    *cues up Game of Thrones on inDemand*

  31. 31.

    Nutella

    As the little old lady says towards the end:

    But Sarah, aren’t you 92? Surely you don’t think a 60-something is a ‘little old lady’?

    Seriously though, the schoolteacher refusing to listen to the woman saying that black boys are eight times more likely to be stopped by the cops than whites was fairly horrifying. She just waved her hands at ‘statistics’ because she knew it couldn’t be true.

  32. 32.

    .

    I get annoyed at these threads that turn into chatrooms, with people bantering back and forth about personal crap and inside jokes that have nothing to do with the topic.

  34. 34.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    @Nutella:

    little old lady

    It’s a good and honorable term for any of us over about 60, and a handy one besides. Little old ladies can get away with all sorts of shit that anyone else would be jailed for.

  35. 35.

    Nutella

    The most interesting part for me was the initial explanation of the experiment to the brown-eyed group where Elliot tells them she’s going to make the white, blue-eyed people understand what racism is like. You can see all the whites in the brown-eyed group looking very worried and uncomfortable to hear this while the non-whites looked amused.

  36. 36.

    jeff

    Unbelievable. I watched a random couple of minutes to hear a white lady claim she is victim of at least as much racism (because she is white) in England as black people (in England).

  38. 38.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    I get annoyed at these threads that turn into chatrooms, with people bantering back and forth about personal crap and inside jokes that have nothing to do with the topic.

    After midnight, the rules on open threads tend to be a little more relaxed. It’s just the way it is here, in my experience.

    I can go back and put an open thread tag on the post if that would make you happier?

  40. 40.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    @jeff:

    because she is white

    She’s awful. She’s also experienced discrimination because she has blond hair, and her husband has experienced discrimination because he has to wear a suit at work. Ugh.

  42. 42.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Sarah Proud and Tall:

    I can go back and put an open thread tag on the post if that would make you happier?

    Please don’t do that. I get annoyed when frontpagers change their posts after they’ve already been submitted.

  44. 44.

    Jewish Steel

    Please don’t do that. I get annoyed when frontpagers change their posts after they’ve already been submitted.

    Readership capture! Readership capture! Alert! Alert! Danger Will Robinson!

    @.: Dude, or dudette. Pull up a chair. I need to catch you up on my pets, grotesque physical ailments and mental infirmities.

  47. 47.

    Corner Stone

    “See how I’ll leave with every piece of you,
    Don’t underestimate the things that I will do,”

    Fuckin’ truth bitchez.

  48. 48.

    taylormattd

    See, when you write this, it’s perfectly fine and makes sense.

    When, however, ABL writes it, IT IS RACIST AGAINST THE WHITES!!!!!!

    :P

  50. 50.

    Nutella

    One of the US networks did a show in the early 90’s where they conducted an experiment to see if it is more difficult to be black or white. The way they did it was to get two young men, one black and one white, with similar accents and age and give them the same resume and life story about moving to StLouis after graduating from college.

    They each then answered ads for apartments and jobs and got (surprise!) very different results. Sometimes the black guy was told there were no apartments. Once he was allowed to look at the apartment but got a stern lecture about behaving himself and not having loud parties that the white guy didn’t get. They also had a test for attitudes of the general public where they each parked a car outside of a fast food place in a white neighborhood, lifted the hood, and stood there looking puzzled. The white guy was mobbed with people wanting to help him; the black guy just got a few sidelong looks.

    Everyone in StLouis watched the show, of course, and the white StLouisans I knew were all upset about it. What they were upset about was not the racism that was exposed but that those terrible TV people had made StLouis look bad.

  53. 53.

    jeff

    Sarah, I have been kept up all night with this. Jane Elliot is like ABL, only meaner. God help us all. This is brilliant. I LOVE watching it and I cannot stop. It really does help one feel the Catch 22 nature of racism. I hope some of the other assholes here watch this. I also sincerely pray I never go through it myself.

  56. 56.

    freelancer

    @Corner Stone:

    I don’t click on strangers’ links. My last laptop got the shits from that.

    Yeah, I’ve tried QWERTY, I’ve researched Dvorak, but I found a new system that plumbs the depths of digital waste. There’s a special button that flushes all that nonsense out. It’s labelled the “Dook” key. I’d link, but as you say, you’re wary.

  57. 57.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    I once had a straight white Christian male send one of those emails around the office proclaiming that discrimination was bull, and if anyone didn’t like it they should leave the country.

    I tried to explain to him that people don’t treat him the same way they treat me, an gay Asian woman. I tried to tell him that just because he didn’t make the calls to my childhood home with death threats, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Just because he wasn’t the technician who refused to work with me because I am a woman, doesn’t mean that didn’t happen. And for someone who said faggot and gay in all the wrong ways around the office, he sure was letting himself off easy on the “hey, I don’t discriminate” scale. I then had to explain to him that if gay = bad in your usage, then you are saying that there is something bad about gays. If you use faggot as an insult, then you are necessarily insulting gay people.

    But ultimately, it isn’t his fucking problem, so it may as well not exist.

  58. 58.

    Quackosaur

    The presenter’s question toward the end asking whether Elliot feels bad for hurting the participants feelings and making them think about uncomfortable questions just made me want to scream at screen. What does he think the point of the exercise was? To demonstrate that Britons are secretly NOT racist? That everyone holds hands and sings happy songs about transcending racism?

    That he follows it up with what amounts to, “Do you care that people don’t like you?” just makes it worse. At least no one seemed to pull a Stephen Colbert and claim that he doesn’t see race.

  59. 59.

    Caz

    Why not just change the name of this site to Race Card Juice, since all you seem to be talking about anymore is racism. You’ve degenerated from a progressive BS machine to a total race card cop out whining outlet.

    Not everything is racism. Get a grip already. It’s like every post involves some conservative being racist.

    It’s really pathetic at this point. Just a bunch of whining ignoramuses yelling “racism!” all the time anymore.

    Do a little introspection and review your blogs over the last couple of months and you’ll see what I mean.

    And your response to any criticism (and there isn’t much, because mostly this is just a group of people who agree with each other) is met with insults and get the f off our blog you idiotic racist troll.

    Personally, I don’t really give a shit what you do, and I only read this blog for entertainment purposes, but it’s not really even entertaining anymore because you turn everything into a race issue.

    You’ve degenerated into the lowest form of free speech: insults, hate, and accusations of race.

    Do what you want I guess. As long as you’re happy, I guess that’s what counts. Sorry for the criticism – I guess I’m just a racist.

  61. 61.

    asiangrrlMN

    Ms. Sarah, I adore you as you know, but I simply cannot get into Adele. It makes me feel cold, alienated, and alone. Hold me!

    @freelancer: I use Dvorak. I love it hard, fast, and harder.

    @Yutsano: You still up, hon?

    And, not to harsh the mellow and the comity I am witnessing tonight, but this is my post about race and shit. Warning: Not much humor involved. Shocking, I know.

    ETA: Jane Elliot came to my college to speak once. I admire her and what she does, but I’m not sure her method is the best (full disclosure: I didn’t watch these videos. I’m going by the original). But, she dedicated her life to fighting racism, and I find that commendable.

  64. 64.

    Yutsano

    @Caz:

    Sorry for the criticism – I guess I’m just a racist.

    This is the most accurate statement you’ve ever made on this blog. The rest is just your privilege showing.

    @asiangrrlMN: I’m still up, but prolly not much longer. I might hold out though. There’s a turd on the back porch that needs cleaning up.

  69. 69.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Metaphorical. Her Holiness would never deign to poop on the back porch, even though of course she has free reign of it.

    @Allan: I can’t look. I’ve seen enough Internet trainwrecks today.

  72. 72.

    JordanRules

    @Caz: WTF is a race card anyway?

    If talking about race so much offends your delicate sensibilities I suggest you find another place to play cards.

    I don’t know cards well enough to give you a nice ‘born-on-3rd-esque’ analogy. But I wish I could drop your ass in other-land for half a day to wipe that priviledged smirk off your blog comments.

    And now accusations of racism are one of the lowest forms of speech?!? Keep swimming, it must be hella nice to have been givin gills instead of lungs.

  73. 73.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Mine eyes have never been so sullied. Or something.

    Choose the second option. The first has unsavory suggestions involving gay Tories that ruin our national discourse.

    @Sarah Proud and Tall: I confess I started that. So you may feel free to spank me. I know in your delicate condition that could be complicated, but I’m sure you could bribe an orderly to do the task for you.

  75. 75.

    Allan

    @Sarah Proud and Tall: He seems to want to have a dialogue about race. He certainly has a great number of words to share about how many words this blog spends talking about race, so by his own yardstick, it’s important to him.

  76. 76.

    freelancer

    @Corner Stone:

    You know, some days I think you’re 51/49 signal to noise and some days 49/51.

    Damned with middling praise or elevated with derision by BJ’s asshat camp’s ombudsman du jour. How’s that for meta, you emopantshitting gadfly?

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    @Allan: Actually, no it’s not. He could give a shit about proper discourse and honest engagement. He just thinks he’s building up his libertarian street cred by coming over here and throwing rhetorical bombs that he doesn’t bother to defend or respond to. He is not an honest debater, just a poo flinger. And I back this up by his consistent actions here.

  79. 79.

    Allan

    @Yutsano: I must need to take my sarcasm generator in for a recalibration or something, because everyone’s taking me so seriously this evening.

    No worries, I’m familiar with the oeuvre of this particular esteemed scribe.

  80. 80.

    JordanRules

    @Yutsano: Does libertarian street cred equal album sales or blog hits? I confess I only know what works in the hip hop world.

    If it only makes him feel more libby thats not a good enough payoff IMHO. He’ll have to move on to harder drugs soon.

  81. 81.

    Yutsano

    @Allan: Meh. I prolly missed it it was so subtle. I will admit a sarcasm tag would have assisted your point greatly.

    @JordanRules: Mostly just bragging rights. He doesn’t have a blog (that I’m aware of) and album sales implies at some point leaving the house. And I get the impression Caz hasn’t done that in years.

  82. 82.

    jwest

    This exercise demonstrates that half the population is terribly racist.

    Although overt racism of the type the KKK practiced has been largely eliminated due to public ostracism, the worst kind of racism has grown. Those that treat people as victims, who believe they need to lower standards, who ignore unacceptable behavior and dismal performance all because of the color of someone’s skin continue to cause irreparable harm.

    When will the people of this country end the racist scourge that is liberalism? How can people who hold such beliefs not realize the evil they are doing? When will democrats move past how they clubbed and water-hosed blacks in the ‘50s and ‘60s, only to adopt a far more devastating form of racism that has ruined the lives of generations of African Americans?

  83. 83.

    Svensker

    I went to a very multicultural inner city high school where WASPs were in a minority. Our school was Chinese, Japanese, Filippino, American Indian, and African American and a large portion of the white kids were Jewish. In one Social Studies class we were talking about problems of different races and one of the black kids said, “Native Americans would be better off if they weren’t so lazy.” He was not speaking ironically. I countered with, “Blacks would do much better if they weren’t all on welfare.” He got furious with me and called me a racist. When I asked him about HIS statement, he said, “That’s not racist. Native Americans ARE lazy.” He left the class convinced that I was the racist and that he was a misunderstood truth teller.

    Dislike of “the other” is a human condition. Of course, it needs to be countered whenever it crops up, but racism is not purely a white, American phenomenon.

  84. 84.

    nick

    Institutional racism is what gets missed in the discussion.

    Racism is the belief that one race is superior to another. Some fuckheads believe it, but it’s very unAmerican.

    The problem is nobody defines institutional racism. If they did, they’d realize that practically all white people in this country contribute to the burdens placed by institutional racism on black Americans.

    Institutional racism is defined as:

    “Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

    Anyone who denies that African Americans have differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society probably chooses to maintain that attitude of denial.

    Any reasonably intelligent person can identify many significant ways that African Americans continue to suffer discrimination in our culture. However, many don’t; as Upton Sinclair noted, it’s hard to get a man to understand something when his paycheck depends on his not understanding it.

    We white people have an investment in keeping institutional racism in effect. We benefit from it.

  86. 86.

    Rune

    One of the most annoying things about watching the participants in this experiment was listening to people, in both the blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups, who failed to grasp the point of the whole exercise, e.g. the pale boy in the brown group who got expelled early on and, of course, the insufferable blond teacher in the blue group. The prominently featured black lady in the brown group seemed the only one to really get it, though she failed to become hostile to the blue group, thus resisting the manipulation which is the “normal” outcome of the experiment.

    Growing up gay and brown-ISH (hispanic, though my father became livid at the suggestion that we were non-white) in the US, I “played the game”, as described by the mixed race guy who chose not to pick up his daughter at a majority white school, so I experienced little overt racism or homophobia, but I still felt it. An odd side effect of this, sort of like the case of the bullet one cannot remove because it would cause fatal bleeding, is my reaction to the lack of homophobia here in Sweden, my current home. There is a racist, homophobic fringe here (see recent election), but an almost creepy absence of such reactions in my anecdotal experiences. Strangers here (according to my perception) do not blink an eye upon learning that I am a man with a husband. It is not just that they are being uniformly polite—I really sense zero negative vibe. It is great, but a little unsettling. I can’t quite believe it and cannot get over being suspicious.

  87. 87.

    Nylund

    The experiment as it took place was interesting, but I also wanted her to point out how readily so many of brown-eyed people took to their role. The few that didn’t were criticized for undermining an important lesson, but I think an interesting aspect of racism is how quickly and easily someone can fall into the role of “oppressor” even when they have spent a lifetime on the other side of the divide.

    I think most had a view that it was just temporary and the lesson was important. For others, it seemed like if the status quo was suddenly flipped, they’d quite easily adjust to and condone the new paradigm of being “on top.”

  89. 89.

    Ecks

    @Svensker: For sure. And 80 years ago it was the Eye-Ties and damn dirty Pollacks who were getting dumped on (funny how those sounds so quaint to modern ears), whereas now those guys are non-specific white, and in the position to join in the dumping on of the next groups in line.

    Prejudice and privilege are social constructs, not biological ones, so it’s the job of WHOEVER gets randomly assigned the power to use it to diffuse the hierarchy.

    @Rune: I think it partly may have been the British mentality that you just DO NOT make a scene in public. Even given full license to oppress, you get on with it QUIETLY, not with open abuse, for the most part.

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